Beliefs of secondary art teachers in relation to educational background, curricular issues and teaching practices
Date
1988
Authors
Humby Blaikie, Fiona Mary
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Abstract
This is an interpretive study of the beliefs of five secondary teachers of art, in Victoria, British Columbia. The subjects' beliefs are examined in relation to their educational background, current art teaching practice, and two art education curriculum models.
Beliefs are the focus of this study because they play a major role in what the individual teacher believes should be emphasised in practice, therefore determining the nature of teaching practice. It was the studio-centred teaching practice of local secondary art teachers, in contrast with curriculum theory dominating the art education literature, which initiated this study: in short, the chasm between theory and practice.
The research was conducted through conversations. A phenomenological approach was chosen, because this approach afforded an in-depth examination of beliefs, in the context of the particularities of the subjects' individual lived experiences as teachers of secondary school art.
The study focuses on five issues:
1. How educational background affects beliefs.
2. Which beliefs are held individually and in common.
3. How beliefs affect teaching practice.
4. The relationship between beliefs and two curriculum models, (the local British Columbia Secondary Art Curriculum Guides and discipline-based art education).
5. The implications of beliefs in relation to implementing change in art education curricula.
The findings indicate that educational background has an important influence on beliefs, and that teaching practice clearly reflects long established personal beliefs. It is apparent that the current theoretical emphasis in art education, discipline-based art education, (which proposes that art be composed of art history, aesthetics, art criticism and studiowork as equally weighted components), would have minimal impact on the subjects in relation to their roles as practising art teachers. This is because the discipline-based orientation seems to contradict the subjects' beliefs in a studio-based emphasis in art education. Other important beliefs identified are that the specialist art teacher should be an artist, independent of teaching practice, and that future teachers of art should make a long-term commitment to the profession in the form of a visual arts degree.
Implications for art education curriculum developers are that beliefs greatly influence teaching practice, and that teachers' beliefs should be considered in both the formative and implementation stages of curriculum change.