ERIC Identifier: ED393787
Publication Date: 1995-11-00
Author: Manifold, Marjorie Cohee
Clearinghouse for Social Studies/Social Science Education Bloomington IN.
Art Education in the Social Studies. ERIC Digest.
The symbiotic relationship between art and social studies suggests them for
compatible pairing in an integrated curriculum. Knowledge of both art and the
social studies may be developed sequentially and cumulatively. Social studies
should be introduced at the primary level of schools to examine the immediate
environment and local community. It progresses to a study of global issues and
events. Knowledge of art begins with recognition of basic elements: line, color,
value, texture, form, and space. It progresses to an exploration of their
arrangement into meaningful relationships of balance, emphasis, rhythm, and
unity. The formal language of art, like the dates of human events, depends upon
knowledge of context to accommodate meaning. Social studies presents knowledge
of human experiences, while art has the power to provide an intimate
understanding of human experiences through personal encounters that yield
insights. Art, as a way of knowing, presents a kind of knowledge that the facts
and abstractions of the social studies cannot make known.
SOCIAL STUDIES AS A CONTEXT OF ART.
When students have the
opportunity to study artworks from the past, they begin to understand how art
reflects the values of society and how the arts have been influenced by social,
political, and economic beliefs of a society. An art object reflects the
historic time and cultural context of its origin. Indeed, much of what is known
or surmised of ancient cultures comes from art and architectural evidence.
Artworks may record how people, places, and things looked. Materials and
production techniques of past eras may give indications of geographic
environment and societal structure. Aesthetic choices made in form and
decoration may reveal philosophic or religious beliefs.
Students can also recognize the power and potential of art for shaping
contemporary attitudes and values. Advertisers, entertainers, politicians, and
private interest groups bombard public audiences daily with visual messages that
persuade, cajole, direct, entice, and seduce viewers to think and act in
predetermined ways. Tyrants, who seek to control the hearts and minds of people,
understand that artists may use symbols powerfully to convey feelings and ideas
that speak to the deepest human emotions. Images can be used to lull viewers
into complacency, urge patriotic fervor, enrage against injustice, or inspire
spiritual devotion. The arts are a living expression, an empowered and
empowering voice of contemporary society, urging and molding society as well as
A society that would be democratic and free requires a public capable of
deciphering and criticizing nonverbal messages. Understanding the visual message
empowers viewers to accept or reject the message, or transform the message.
Controversies concerning censorship, which voices will be allowed to be heard,
the appropriateness of funding for divergent voices even questions of what does
or does not constitute art are ongoing issues that require response from a
visually literate, critically thoughtful society.
SUBJECTS OF THE SOCIAL STUDIES AND THE DISCIPLINE-BASED ART EDUCATION FRAMEWORK
A student's understanding of the meaning of an
artwork increases when the student experiences working with the materials and
processes that artists use to create art. Understanding also broadens with
knowledge of when and where the work was made, the creator, the function it
served in society, and what experts said about it. This approach to art
education is called discipline-based art education (DBAE). The DBAE construct
(Clark 1991) gives four components to the study of visual arts. These
components--art history, art criticism, art production, and aesthetics are
comparable to areas of social studies concern. All dimensions of the history of
humankind, like the history of art, include a description of when, where, and by
whom. Historical criticism, like art criticism, requires analysis of the unique
features or aspects of the event, interpretation of how the event influenced the
world around it, and judgment about the importance of the event in the historic
Art production involves experimentation with various media, acquisition of
technical skills, development of problem-solving abilities, and judgments of
quality. Extended into the social studies realm, questions regarding media,
skill acquisition, production, and product are determined by historic
influences, geography, environmental resources, and socio-political structure.
Who creates art? Who consumes art? What form does art take? How is knowledge of
art-making transferred from one generation to another? These questions raise
issues inseparable from social studies considerations. Economic issues pertain
to what is valued in society, as indicated by the economics of art from the
production of artworks to be shared freely by family and community to the
multimillion dollar purchase of single paintings by collectors, who will hide
them in back vaults from public view.
Climate and geographic resources have much to do with the choice of media,
production techniques, and even choice of colors and patterns to be used as
decorative devices. From the corvee creation of the Great Wall of China, to
women-made Amish quilts, or from the noble social experiment of Depression-era
WPA murals, to the controversial birthing of the Vietnam War Memorial in
Washington, DC--art products and production are determined as much by the larger
influences of cultural belief, economic and political structure, and societal
need as by the hands of the artist or artists who created them. Aesthetics too,
which pertains to art theory and questions the meaning of art, may be seen as a
significant component of a broader philosophic question asking about humankind's
relationship to the universe. Thus, aesthetics a facet of art education is
relevant to social studies education.
INTEGRATING ART AND THE SOCIAL STUDIES
While there is no
prescribed method of integrating art and the social studies, the integration
should strive for balance, which does not reduce one to the subservient partner
of the other. One approach to effective integration is through the use of
thematic units. Thematic units allow for the exploration of a topic from the
viewpoint of several disciplines, with each discipline in turn taking center
stage in the investigation. The amount of time given to each discipline is
variable, determined by lesson objectives, learner interest, teacher assessment
of learner need, and the potential of the theme's subject. Thematic, integrated,
and multi-disciplinary instructional designs share overlapping goals of
providing a point of reference around which learning can cluster, making
connections among activities, discovering relationships between things, and
encouraging mastery of subject matter. Additionally, the approach can be
designed to allow students to become participants in inquiry rather than passive
receivers of information.
The history component of social studies can be seen as a powerful area of art
integration. History is an integrative subject with a profound capacity for
incorporating the study of other subjects, such as art. It has been indicated
that art is a product of its unique historic and cultural origin. It is also a
window back into conceptual understanding of that context. History comes alive,
and far-away cultures come close to home, as students are able to conceptualize
historic dates and factual events through period-correlated artifacts and visual
images. The visual arts are specifically useful in the teaching of history
courses or historic themes. Visual images, which encourage visual thinking,
allow students to imagine the progression of historic events as having
interconnected structural patterns of form and meaning. When historic periods
are used as central themes, art may be put to work as the visual language which
connects meaning and events in an overarching structure. Acquiring the ability
to see such structures is a fundamental cognitive achievement (Arnheim 1989).
REFERENCES AND ERIC RESOURCES
The following list of
resources includes references used to prepare this Digest. The items followed by
an ED number are available in microfiche and/or paper copies from the ERIC
Document Reproduction Service (EDRS). For information about prices, contact
EDRS, 7420 Fullerton Road, Suite 110, Springfield, Virginia 22153-2852;
telephone numbers are (703) 440-1400 and (800) 443-3742. Entries followed by an
EJ number, annotated monthly in CURRENT INDEX TO JOURNALS IN EDUCATION (CIJE),
are not available through EDRS. However, they can be located in the journal
section of most larger libraries by using the bibliographic information provided
or requested through Interlibrary Loan.
Alexander, Kay, and Michael Day, eds. DISCIPLINE-BASED ART EDUCATION: A
CURRICULUM SAMPLER. Los Angeles, CA: The Getty Center for Education in the Arts,
1991. ED 382 559.
Amdur, David. "Arts and Cultural Context: A Curriculum Integrating
Discipline-Based Art Education with Other Humanities Subjects at the Secondary
Level." ART EDUCATION 46 (May 1993): 12-19. EJ 475 020.
ANCIENT CHINESE BRONZES: TEACHER'S PACKET. Washington, DC: Arthur M. Sackler
Gallery, 1991. ED 352 281.
Arnheim, Rudolf. THOUGHTS ON ART EDUCATION. Los Angeles, CA: The Getty Center
for Education in the Arts, 1989. ED 332 933.
Barrett, Terry, ed. LESSONS FOR TEACHING ART CRITICISM. Bloomington, IN:
ERIC:ART and ERIC Clearinghouse for Social Studies/Social Science Education,
1995. ED 392 658.
Clark, Gilbert A. EXAMINING DISCIPLINE-BASED ART EDUCATION AS A CURRICULUM
CONSTRUCT. Bloomington, IN: ERIC:ART and ERIC Clearinghouse for Social
Studies/Social Science Education, 1991. ED 338 540.
Erickson, Mary, and Gilbert Clark, eds. LESSONS ABOUT ART IN HISTORY AND
HISTORY IN ART. Bloomington, IN: ERIC:ART and ERIC Clearinghouse for Social
Studies/Social Science Education, 1992. ED 348 297.
Fuerst, Ann Heidt, ed. EGYPTIAN ART: AN INTEGRATED CURRICULUM GUIDE FOR THE
INTERMEDIATE AND MIDDLE SCHOOL STUDENT. San Diego, CA: San Diego County Office
of Education, 1992. ED 380 334.
Greenberg, Hazel Sara, ed. A MISCELLANY OF ETCETERAS: AN "IN-PROCESS"
COLLECTION OF INTERDISCIPLINARY UNITS AND ENRICHMENT LESSONS. New York: American
Forum for Global Education, 1992. ED 378 085.
Laney, James D., and Patricia A. Moseley. "Images of American Business:
Integrating Art and Economics." SOCIAL STUDIES 85 (November/December 1994):
245-49. EJ 498 314.
LIFE IN THE PAST LANE: AN ARTS/SOCIAL STUDIES INFUSION PROJECT.
Salina, KS: Salina Arts and Humanities Commission, 1992. ED 368 605.
Needler, Toby, and Bonnie Goodman. EXPLORING GLOBAL ART. New York: American
Forum for Global Education, 1991. ED 379 200.
Smith, Annie, and Francena T. Hancock. GETTING INTO ART HISTORY. FIRST
EDITION. Toronto, Ontario: Barn Press, 1993. ED 381 474.
Symcox, Linda. CROWNING THE CATHEDRAL OF FLORENCE: BRUNELLESCHI BUILDS HIS
DOME. Los Angeles: National Center for History in the Schools, 1991. ED 376 098.
Zastrow, Leona M. THE AMERICAN INDIAN: TRADITION AND TRANSITION THROUGH ART.
Santa Fe, NM: EPIC, Inc., 1992. ED 345 889.
Zimmerman, Enid, ed. MAKING A DIFFERENCE: DIFFERENTIATED CURRICULUM UNITS BY
TEACHERS IN THE 1993 ARTISTICALLY TALENTED PROGRAM. Indianapolis, IN: Indiana
State Department of Education, 1993. ED 381 483.