Date of Award

5-1997

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Abstract

The United States is a multicultural place. With its ever increasing cultural and ethnic diversity, multicultural education is important. Since the visual arts have always been produced and perceived within cultures and offer students unique opportunities to explore human expression and experience, the analysis of an introductory art course taught within a multicultural context at a Midwestern university was a sensible starting point. This was especially timely since little research exists in relation to the visual arts taught from a multicultural perspective at the higher education level, and more theoretical works regarding multicultural visual arts exist than do actual studies.

A qualitative case study employing observations and interviews was used to understand how culture from an anthropological perspective was perceived by the teacher and learners; how the visual arts were taught and perceived within a multicultural context; how issues that arose from the study of diverse cultures were explored; the value students and instructor placed upon culture within the context of the visual arts; and how cultural biases could be manifested and reinterpreted.

The findings that emerged from this study revealed that the teacher presented art work by women and minority artists and work by European and EuroAmerican artists through lecture, videos, class discussions, and museum and gallery visits. The students responded either neutrally or favorably to the idea of learning about culture, the art of minorities and non-Western or diverse cultures, and women artists in the course. The students experienced learning about culture and non-Western cultures and their art forms through cooperative group work and presentations which, according to them, enabled them to learn more content than could be portrayed in the presentation, caused them some anxiety about being required to make presentations to the class, and for some students, helped them very little toward moving them away from an ethnocentric viewpoint. The students felt that lengthy slide presentations on artists and their works became boring and repetitive and were not conducive to the retention of the material; the videos were considered more informative. Tests, timelines, and other multicultural pedagogical strategies were mentioned and discussed.

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