Politics and Curriculum: A Foucauldian Analysis of Art Education Reform in New South Wales 1976 - 1999
Alicia Katherine Yorke B. Art Ed. (Honours Class 1)
A thesis submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy School of Art History and Art Education College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales
March 2011
1
ORIGINALITY STATEMENT
‘I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and to the best of my knowledge it contains no materials previously published or written by another person, or substantial proportions of material which have been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma at UNSW or any other educational institution, except where due acknowledgement is made in the thesis. Any contribution made to the research by others, with whom I have worked at UNSW or elsewhere, is explicitly acknowledged in the thesis. I also declare that the intellectual content of this thesis is the product of my own work, except to the extent that assistance from others in the project's design and conception or in style, presentation and linguistic expression is acknowledged.’
Signed ……………………………………………......
Date ……………………………………………......
i COPYRIGHT STATEMENT
‘I hereby grant the University of New South Wales or its agents the right to archive and to make available my thesis or dissertation in whole or part in the University libraries in all forms of media, now or here after known, subject to the provisions of the Copyright Act 1968. I retain all proprietary rights, such as patent rights. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis or dissertation.
I also authorise University Microfilms to use the 350 word abstract of my thesis in Dissertation Abstract International (this is applicable to doctoral theses only).
I have either used no substantial portions of copyright material in my thesis or I have obtained permission to use copyright material; where permission has not been granted I have applied/will apply for a partial restriction of the digital copy of my thesis or dissertation.'
Signed ……………………………………………......
Date ……………………………………………......
ii AUTHENTICITY STATEMENT
‘I certify that the Library deposit digital copy is a direct equivalent of the final officially approved version of my thesis. No emendation of content has occurred and if there are any minor variations in formatting, they are the result of the conversion to digital format.’
Signed ……………………………………………......
Date ……………………………………………......
iii ABSTRACT
This research investigates the emergence of specific types of knowledge that comprised the subject Visual Arts in the New South Wales’ curriculum in the 1980s and 1990s. The thesis argues that the formation of the Visual Arts during these two decades was produced out of a complex network of discourses and power relations replete with controversy and struggle. The revelation of changes to the discipline imposed from or interdependent with shifts in systems of authority and the assemblage of discourses that were subsequently made possible is examined. The analysis focuses on archival records and policy documents of curriculum instrumentalities, in particular, the 1987 and 1999 senior visual arts matriculation syllabuses. These two syllabus documents were selected as each claims to innovate a new curriculum object, capitalising on the climate of reform. These objects are: the Focus Areas and the Frames.
This thesis contends that orthodox critiques of curriculum history have been premised upon a teleology grounded in transparent argument. A poststructural method is utilised as an alternative to these prevailing modernist assumptions. Michel Foucault’s methods of genealogy, archaeology and theories of governmentality are foundational to the research design of this study. The application of these modes of inquiry provides a compatible way of accessing and discerning data about the power of the differentiated curriculum structures. It also enables the identification of the discursive conditions that made it possible for the Focus Areas and the Frames to be mobilised and legitimated as truth within the official curriculum texts.
This Foucauldian re-reading of the archive in this investigation highlights the means through which discursive authorities seek to embody and give effect to governmental ambitions. It simultaneously examines the way in which the field of art education contributed to a more active notion of subjectivity in the chosen period through practices of power/knowledge. In doing so, this thesis provides a new way of conceiving power relations in education and identifies the implications of this for curriculum reform.
iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
There have been many people who have contributed to the development of this thesis.
I would like to acknowledge my two supervisors whom I had the privilege of working with at different times throughout the duration of the project. Firstly, Amanda Weate inspired this study. As an undergraduate, Amanda’s wisdom of Foucauldian concepts and her enthusiasm for their application to research in art education motivated me to pursue further studies in this area. Her extensive knowledge, experience and insight into the field were invaluable in shaping this work. Dr Jay Johnston’s guidance was instrumental in the later stages of the project. Her encouragement, constructive comments, diligence and expertise came at a vital time in the thesis and helped me to reach its completion.
I would like to express my gratitude to Associate Professor Leong Chan, Director of Postgraduate Research and the School of Art Education and Art History, COFA, UNSW including Kim Snepvangers, Dr Gay McDonald, Dr Kerry Thomas, Dr Penny McKeon, and Professor Neil Brown. I am grateful for their belief in the importance of my doctoral studies especially through the provision of leave during my relocation overseas and for the birth of my daughter. I would like to thank Dr Kerry Thomas for her generosity in providing me with documentary material that became crucial sources of data in this investigation.
I would also like to acknowledge the financial support provided by an Australian Postgraduate Award as well as a COFA Faculty Research Grant. The grant supported the assembling of archival records and the opportunity to disseminate my research to a national audience.
My appreciation extends to Jane Knowles at the COFA library and her assistance in my data collection. Foremostly, Jane directed me in locating archival records as well as establishing correspondence on my behalf with various channels of authority that allowed me to gain access to primary sources pivotal to my research.
Thank you to my parents, Jenny and Steve. It has been a challenging journey and their love and unconditional support, both emotionally and practically, allowed me to accomplish the task. I would particularly like to thank my husband Dan for his enduring patience, positive reassurance and his confidence in my abilities. I am deeply indebted to his unwavering belief in me, especially when I doubted myself. Dan and I celebrated the joyous arrival of our daughter during the writing of this thesis. Our precious girl provided me with the perspective I needed to fulfill this endeavour – this is for Mims.
v
For Dan and Mims And all the “little wins” we shared along the way.
vi CONTENTS
ORIGINALITY STATEMENT……………………………………...……………… i COPYRIGHT STATEMENT…………………………………….….……………… ii AUTHENTICITY STATEMENT…………………………….….…………………. iii ABSTRACT………………………………………………………….……….…….… iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……………………………………………..……...... v CONTENTS………………………..………………………………….…………...…. vii ABBREVIATIONS…………………………………………………………...... x LIST OF FIGURES………………………………………………….………………. xi
INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………..………...... 1 Research Scope…………………………………………………….………….. 1 Rationale of the Study…………………………………………...…………….. 2 Thesis Overview…..………………………………………………………….... 4
CHAPTER ONE – METHODOLOGY AND ITS DISCIPLINARY CONTEXT 8 1 A Foucauldian Conceptualisation of Curriculum………………………….….. 8 1.1 Genealogical Interpretation…………………………………………………..... 9 1.1.1 Archaeological Analysis……………………………………………………..... 12 1.1.2 Governmentality……………………………………………………………...... 17 1.2 Foucauldian Methodology and Interpretive Frameworks in Curriculum Studies…………………………………………………………………...... 21 1.2.1 Foucault, Genealogy and Education…………………………………………... 22 1.2.2 Foucault, Archaeology and Education……………………………………….... 28 1.2.3 Foucault, Governmentality and Education………………………………...... 36 1.2.4 Summary…………………………………………………………………...... 45 1.3 The Archival Records and Policy Documents of Curriculum Instrumentalities……………………………………………...…………....…... 46 1.4 The Boundaries of this Study……...……………………………………....…... 49
CHAPTER TWO – DEBATES AND DYNAMICS: SECONDARY SCHOOL EDUCATION AND CURRICULUM STRUCTURE IN NEW SOUTH WALES 53 2 Introduction……………………………………...………....………………….. 53 2.1 Occasional Seminar Series in Art Education………………………………….. 54 2.1.1 Historical Studies of School Subject and Curriculum Change………………... 60
vii
2.1.2 Conceptions of Syllabus Development and Control…………………………... 67 2.2 Configuration of Boards………………………………………………………. 75 2.3 The Art Syllabus Committee and Syllabus Construction……………………... 83
CHAPTER THREE – THE FOCUS AREAS………………………………………. 92 3 Introduction…………………………………...……………………………….. 92 3.1 The Discursive Authority of the K-12 Concept……………………….………. 92 3.2 An Australian Discourse………………………………………………………. 103 3.2.1 The 1978 Art Syllabus: perceived anomalies and other shortcomings…….….. 107 3.2.2 The Chair of the Art Syllabus Committee and the Power Institute of Fine Arts: a relation of reciprocal influence………………………………………... 112 3.2.3 The 1987 Visual Arts Syllabus: its forms of coexistence……………………... 118 3.2.4 The Examination: subtending the authority of a discourse of Australian nationalism…………………………………………………………………….. 122 3.3 Focus Area 2 – Art and Culture……………………………………………….. 126 3.4 Focus Area 3 – Art and Media………………………………………………… 134 3.5 Focus Area 4 – Art and Design………………………………………………... 142 3.6 The Intervention of Alleged Legislative Risk………………………………..... 149 3.6.1 The Recommended Areas of Study…………………………………………… 152 3.7 Summary………………………………………………………………………. 154
CHAPTER FOUR – NATIONAL CURRICULUM INITIATIVES AND FRAMEWORKS ………………………………..…………………………………… 156 4 Introduction…………………………………...……………………………….. 156 4.1 The Core Curriculum……………………………………………………….….. 157 4.2 National Intervention in Education………………………………………….…. 160 4.3 Educational Reform in New South Wales……………………………………... 166 4.4 The Arts National Statement and Profile………………………………………. 175 4.4.1 Development of the Briefs……………………………………………………... 175 4.4.2 The Arts National Statement and Profile Specifications………………………. 183 4.4.3 The Form and Content of ‘A statement on the arts for Australian schools’…... 186 4.4.4 The Form and Content of ‘The arts – a curriculum profile for Australian schools’………………………………………………………………………... 189 4.4.5 Summary……………………………………………………………………….. 190 4.5 Art Educators’ Reaction to The Arts National Statement and Profile…………. 191 4.5.1 New South Wales’ Response…………………………………………………... 200 4.5.2 Summary……………………………………………………………………….. 211
viii
CHAPTER FIVE – THE FRAMES……………………………………………...... 213 5 Introduction…………………………………...………………………………. 213 5.1 The Discursive Conditions of Possibility for the Frames…………………….. 214 5.2 Visual Arts Years 7-10 Syllabus……………………………………………… 220 5.3 Visual Arts Years 11-12 Syllabus Review……………………………………. 230 5.4 The Enunciative Authority for the Frames…………………………………… 237 5.5 Visual Arts Stage 6 Syllabus, Preliminary and HSC Courses……………...... 249 5.5.1 The Subjective Frame………………………………………………………… 250 5.5.2 The Cultural Frame…………………………………………………………… 255 5.5.3 The Structural Frame…………………………………………………………. 261 5.5.4 The Postmodern Frame……………………………………………………...... 269 5.6 Summary……………………………………………………………………… 274
CHAPTER SIX – CONCLUSION……………………………..……………………. 276
REFERENCES……………………………………..…………………………….…… 288
APPENDIX A: Cited Art Syllabus Committee Archival Records ………………….... 323 APPENDIX B: Art Syllabus Committee Meeting Minutes 1976 –1999……….…...... 331 APPENDIX C: Letter from Dr Lee Emery inviting contributions to the National Arts 356 Curriculum Activity….……………………………………………………… APPENDIX D: Letter from Geoff Hammond, Chair, NAAE to members of the 357 AIAE Council ………………………………………………………….….… APPENDIX E: Paper presented by Neil Brown to a Sub-Committee on the 10th 359 April, 1991………………………………………………………………....…
ix ABBREVIATIONS
ACARA Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority ACER Australian Council for Educational Research AEC Australian Education Council AES Art Education Society AIAE Australian Institute of Art Education BASSP Bicentennial Australian Studies School Project BCC Board Curriculum Committee BOS Board of Studies BSE Board of Secondary Education BSSS Board of Senior School Studies CCA Curriculum Corporation of Australia CDC Curriculum Development Centre COFA College of Fine Arts CURASS Curriculum and Assessment Committee DBAE Disciplined Based Art Education DET Department of Education and Training HSC Higher School Certificate KLA Key Learning Area KLACC Key Learning Area Co-ordinating Committee NAAE National Affiliation of Arts Educators NAVA National Association for the Visual Arts NSW New South Wales PROME Perceiving, Resolving, Organising, Manipulating, and Evaluating RAS Recommended Areas of Study SBD Statutory Board Directorate SC School Certificate SMH The Sydney Morning Herald SSB Secondary Schools Board UNSW University of New South Wales USYD University of Sydney
x LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1 New South Wales’ Secondary School Education Boards………..……….. 46 Figure 2 Committee structure of the Board of Senior School Studies……..………. 76 Figure 3 Committee structure of the Board of Secondary Education……..………... 77 Figure 4 Committee structure of the First Board of Studies………………………... 81 Figure 5 Committee structure of the Second Board of Studies………….…………. 82
xi INTRODUCTION
Research Scope
This research investigates the specific types of knowledge that constituted the subject Visual Arts in the New South Wales (NSW) curriculum from 1976 to 1999. The analysis focuses on archival records and policy documents of curriculum instrumentalities, in particular, the 1987 and 1999 senior visual arts matriculation syllabuses. These two syllabus documents have been selected as each claims to innovate a new curriculum object, capitalising on the climate of reform. These objects are: the Focus Areas and the Frames. The four Frames – the Subjective, Cultural, Structural and Postmodern, and their antecedents in the four Focus Areas as named – Art in Australia, Art and Culture, Art and Media, Art and Design, signaled a radical break and intended discontinuity with previous curriculum practice. Each artefact represented a substantial shift toward theorising the conundrum of curriculum content by initiating particular frameworks as methods for the investigation of the Visual Arts. These key organising devices in the respective syllabuses acknowledged differing interpretive and explanatory possibilities that challenged traditional structures and enntrenched points of view about artistic understanding.
In constructing a narrative account of these two particular discourses emergent in secondary art education the thesis argues that the formation of the Visual Arts during these two decades was produced out of a complex network of discourses and power relations replete with controversy and struggle. The revelation of changes to the discipline imposed from or interdependent with shifts in systems of authority and the assemblage of discourses that were subsequently made possible is examined. The study recognises the additional pressure from external forces and social networks that contributed to the production and expansion of discourses, notably, the relationship of Australian art education to the international community. It is acknowledged that there were numerous attempts to improve the academic standing of Visual Arts at this broader level in a unique and critical way however the specific focus of this inquiry is the influence of national agencies and practices on art education reform within the bracketed period.
Research on the history of art education in Australia, and in NSW in particular, in the 1980s and 1990s is found to be a limited body of literature. It is incomplete (Peers, 2003) and typically framed within prevailing modernist curriculum assumptions influenced by neo-Marxist critique (Boughton, 1989). This deference to the means of power as hegemonic dominance has inhibited the way in which art educators have come to understand themselves, their subject, and their profession. Under-theorisation and a lack of (or limited scope of) previous research for art
1 education to draw upon to position them as pro-active has made it difficult for those in the field to write a ‘history of the present’ (Foucault, 1977).
The Occasional Seminar Series in Art Education, initiated in 1989, by the Head, School of Art Education, College of Fine Arts (COFA), University of New South Wales (UNSW), Professor Neil Brown, has been selected for focused analysis in this thesis as it presented the most comprehensive discussion of discourses emergent in art education in NSW from 1989 – 2005. Considering this, papers presented within this dominant arena are referenced and discussed throughout this investigation where relevant. In this thesis, COFA will be revealed to be an institutional site that operated within power/knowledge configurations to normalise and regulate discourse practice. There were multiple individuals involved in the visual arts curriculum development process in NSW with varying levels of effect. In order to limit the scale of the research, this study concentrates on the considerable commitment, influence and power of prominent figures on the Art Syllabus Committee who held authority within the tertiary sector.
In Chapter Two I examine the discourse relating to the history of art education in NSW in a selection of Occasional Seminar papers. In particular, I will trace one recurring theme surrounding discussion of the discursive struggles of the 1980s and 1990s in the visual arts curriculum that will assist in establishing the context for this study. That is, the social production of the Visual Arts as a field of knowledge within the school curriculum and the emerging discourses that came to form the underpinning structure of the Visual Arts. These struggles, framed within the regulatory imperatives of curriculum, coalesce around how to identify and define the subject of the Visual Arts or as it is variously spoken: art and visual art. The persistent division of the subject into variously named parts accommodating art practical or art making and art history or art theory, expanded to include criticism and other terms such as appreciating, in itself was an undeclared discursive struggle.
Rationale of the Study
In recognition of the lacuna in research and paucity of systematic and disciplined critique into the constitution, meaning, and function of the subject Visual Arts, this thesis aims to build an alternative account of the visual arts curriculum in NSW utilising a poststructual perspective arising from the work of Michel Foucault. In applying Foucault’s methods of genealogy, archaeology and governmentality (detailed in Chapter One), this research constructs a history of the present that will challenge the interpretation of two decades of curriculum reform and art education as being founded upon a hegemonic centre. Principally concerned with understanding the exercise of power in the curriculum through the interplay of discourses, Foucault’s (1971,
2 1977, 1980) historical method, genealogy, is employed to ‘re-create’ art education’s existence in the 1980s and 1990s. In doing so, the kind of processes, practices and apparatuses that influenced and steered the different knowledges and truths that developed in the field will be determined. As a genealogy, this thesis does not trace continuities in history. Rather, it attends to the contradictions and maps the shifts and discontinuities in history as well as providing the means for discerning the power relations in the production of knowledges.
Foucault’s genealogical method is supplemented by discourse analysis. Archaeology (Foucault, 1972) and genealogy are a compatible way of accessing data about discourse and for distinguishing the constructions or relationships in the discursive statements. Archaeology is the analytical framework that is used to explain not only the form and content of visual arts educational discourse, but also the way in which power was exercised in sanctioning certain choices and decisions. This research is particularly interested in the role of the Art Syllabus Committee in the development of the visual arts curriculum as a prime site for analysing the discourses that served to constitute the discipline. The syllabus committee as an instrument of power is an important role that I contend is overlooked in the literature to date. The sources of data read and analysed for their discursive formations, (which are subject to specific rules) in this investigation, include: Art Syllabus Committee meeting minutes; the working notes, memorandums and other ephemera recording the activities of sub-committees, working parties and conferences of the discipline; syllabus documents; selected publications of State and Federal Governments; and literature on curriculum reform. This includes those discourses that were selected, transformed, and relocated to create the 1987 and 1999 syllabuses. The discourses that worked within and across the field of art education to justify and shape the Focus Areas and the Frames respectively in the two syllabus documents are examined, including the other objects to which they were related prior to their publication in the curriculum texts.
Foucault’s (1980, 1988a, 1988b) notion of governmentality provides an ideal means of interpreting the syllabus documents as it points to the ways in which school knowledge and its pedagogy and evaluation are enmeshed in relations of power and the political process. Analysis of the archive in this investigation will highlight the calculations, techniques, apparatuses and procedures through which authorities sought to embody and give effect to governmental ambitions, whilst simultaneously examining how the subject Visual Arts constituted itself through practices of power/knowledge. In doing so, the extrinsic, colonising influences of government that had a notable impact on discourse in the Visual Arts and on the ways in which the discipline felt compelled to advocate their subject within the educational institution will be revealed. Furthermore, this investigation will show that these external discourses do not act hegemonically as something that is ‘done to art education’. Rather, art education appropriated
3 advocacy agendas that authoritative discourses external to the field constructed and allowed or because they were perceived to be dominant or ‘successful’. The way in which the field of art education contributed to a more active notion of subjectivity, as an affect of the networks through which power relations constructed possibilities and constraints, is a central concern of this study.
Five specific research questions have been generated to guide this investigation into visual arts education reform in NSW from 1976 – 1999. The major questions addressed by this study are:
1. What were the institutional sites, including the key agencies and agents, active in the production and development of the visual arts curriculum in NSW between 1976 and 1999? 2. How did the power relationships that existed within curriculum change have implications for the development of the visual arts curriculum in NSW between 1976 and 1999? 3. What were the assemblage of discourses that constituted the discipline, Visual Arts, in the NSW curriculum in the 1980s and 1990s? 4. How did the field of art education in NSW adopt discourses throughout the two decades imposed from or interdependent with authoritative discourses external to the field? 5. How did the field of art education become the subject of its own conduct in the chosen period through practices of power/knowledge?
Thesis Overview
The theoretical and methodological frameworks by which I seek to answer these five research questions are outlined in Chapter One. This chapter introduces the methods used to generate data and the conceptual tools employed. The relevance of Foucauldian modes of inquiry for the study in art education is also established. I begin by defining and explaining aspects of the three Foucauldian concepts that are pertinent to this study: genealogy, archaeology, and governmentality. The literature review is not provided as a discrete chapter in this thesis. Rather, the literature relevant to this investigation is interweaved throughout the study, notably in Chapters One and Two. In Chapter One I engage in a discussion of selected literature that applies the three Foucauldian concepts and perspectives as frameworks in analysing curriculum change and inquiry, notably syllabus text and discourse. My predominant focus is curriculum studies in Australia generally and in NSW in particular. This review provides discursive and conceptual tools that are used as models in this research and a foundation for my work in the
4 preceding chapters. Consideration is then given to the collection and interpretation of the archival records and policy documents of curriculum instrumentalities, in particular, the two NSW senior visual arts matriculation syllabuses that are the sources of data in this genealogical investigation.
The governmental and disciplinary alignments and allegiances that provided the conditions of existence of particular discourses in art education in the 1980s and 1990s are examined in Chapter Two. The first section of this chapter provides an overview of the ways in which school subject and curriculum change has been theorised in scholarly literature, beginning with an examination of the sparse discourse on the historical development of secondary art education in NSW. This is followed by a focus on theoretical positions regarding syllabus development and control in NSW. These studies contribute to an understanding of the patterns of power that influence syllabus construction and the varying coalescing and contesting agendas driving curriculum development. The second section of this chapter introduces and analyses the institutional mechanisms that framed and regulated the flow of information and facilitated the selection and composition of particular forms of knowledge in the visual arts curriculum across the two decades. The chapter maps the organisational terrain of the established structures and processes impacting discourses of art education by introducing the key agencies and agents involved in the development of the visual arts curriculum by drawing on Foucault’s concept of governmentality. An account of the formal arrangements of representation, the nature of the work and the personnel responsible, along the lines of report and accountability for the respective Boards, Minister of Education, and each Art Syllabus Committee, including their role in the development and implementation of a syllabus text, is outlined.
The assemblage of discourses that constituted the discipline, Visual Arts, in NSW in the 1980s is examined in Chapter Three. Utilising Foucault’s genealogical and archaeological methods, the discourse or systems of value that art education accepted as the preferred way to articulate their identity throughout this decade are discussed. These discourses enabled particular ‘objects’ to emerge, culminating in the Board of Secondary Education (BSE) 1987 Visual Arts Syllabus Years 11-12. The investigation begins with an analysis of how K-12 as a construct within the discursive formation that is art education emerges in the late 1970s and has important consequences for the form and content of the visual arts curriculum. The next section traces how an Australian art discourse seizes attention in the 1980s, producing objects and statements of varying force. The chapter moves to an examination of the university representatives on the Art Syllabus Committee who identified the opportunity to assert and enunciate authority for ‘Australia’ and the subsequent and related progeny of the Focus Areas. The position adopted in this chapter is that the Focus Areas, for the Art Syllabus Committee, were invented as a solution
5 to a number of problems. These problems are discussed in the next sections of the chapter and include: the delimitation of Australia as a period in a modernist chronology in the previous syllabus; the recurrent demand for accommodating the vexed questions of media and technology in the art curriculum amidst the discursive authority of the K-12 concept; and the examination. I trace the discursive origin of each of the four Focus Areas: Art in Australia, Art and Culture, Art and Media, Art and Design. The final section of this chapter outlines the development of the Recommended Areas of Study (RAS) following the demise of the ’40 plates’ precipitated by copyright difficulties.
In Chapter Four, the intervention of Federal government in state curriculum in the 1980s and 1990s as evidenced and the national collaborative curriculum projects in Australia is examined. This chapter reveals the politics of curriculum practice. I begin by providing an overview of the ‘core’ curriculum as one of the broader discourses framing the formulation of the national curriculum projects with a view to better understanding the context in which The Arts National Statement and Profile were conceptualised. Following from this, the sources of political power and processes behind the discourse mechanisms shaping the national curriculum projects are identified. The impact of this national intervention on curriculum discursive practices in NSW is then analysed. The next section of the chapter maps the development of the statements and profiles before tracing, examining and analysing discourses embedded in the official texts titled A statement on the arts for Australian schools (AEC, 1994a) and The arts – a curriculum profile for Australian schools (AEC, 1994b). The final sections of this chapter present a review of some of the issues and the array of discourses that were brought to the fore in the field of art education, notably by NSW art educators, in response to The Arts National Statement and Profile.
A genealogy of the Frames in NSW art curricula is presented in Chapter Five. A Foucauldian methodology provides for an interpretation of the Frames as emergent and prominent art education discourse in the 1990s. The first section of this chapter traces the discourses and processes underlying the development of the Frames in NSW art education. Prior to providing a critique of the representation of the four individual Frames in the Board of Studies (BOS) 1999 Visual Arts Stage 6 Syllabus, Preliminary and Higher School Certificate (HSC) Courses, the circumstances in which the Frames discourse came to prominence at the expense of other discourses, how it was that the particularities of the Frames – the Subjective, Cultural, Structural and Postmodern – were chosen and not others, and the relations between each of the four Frames is examined. The chapter then moves to an analysis of the relations of power that imbued and inscribed a Frames discourse and its discursive formation in art education. I will reveal the interest invested by tertiary nominees of the Visual Arts Syllabus Committee in the
6 development of the Frames. This chapter demonstrates the ways in which the syllabus committee took an active role in their own governance by the formation of the Frames.
In Chapter Six I draw together my inquiry, identifying the diverse discursive mechanisms, effected through the operations of government, that have formed the underpinning structure of visual arts education in NSW in the 1980s and 1990s. This chapter concludes with some brief remarks about the implications of my research for future investigations of the politics and processes involved in the development of other syllabus and curriculum documents and their implementation.
This research contributes to the discursive critiques of the specific types of knowledge that have constructed the discipline, Visual Arts, in NSW. Furthermore, it is unique in that it utilises Foucault’s methods of genealogy, archaeology, and governmentality as tools for the systematic analysis of senior syllabus and curriculum documents pertaining to the discipline. The value of this genealogy is that it interrupts the prevailing, taken-for-granted assumptions about the constitution of the subject by isolating the shifting political contexts and power relations that made it possible for particular discourses to operate as truths within the Visual Arts.
7 CHAPTER ONE METHODOLOGY AND ITS DISCIPLINARY CONTEXT
1 A Foucauldian Conceptualisation of Curriculum
In this chapter, the theoretical and methodological frameworks of this study are defined and explained. This section introduces the methods used to sample and generate data and outlines the conceptual tools employed. This research utilises a poststructural method as an alternative to orthodox critiques of curriculum history. These orthodox critiques have been premised upon a teleology grounded in transparent argument. Through a systematic re-reading of the literature of the past two decades, using Foucauldian concepts of power, discourse analysis and theories of governmentality, I investigate the complex assemblage of discourses and the emergence of specific types of knowledge that constituted the discipline of art education in NSW in the 1980s and 1990s.
Foucault’s genealogical and archaeological ideas are foundational to the research design of this study. Through a genealogical approach, detailed below, I consider the formation of discourse in visual arts education in the 1980s and 1990s and the processes through which it came to construct the discipline. Foucault’s archaeological work or ‘critical’ analysis of the “systems that envelop discourses” (Foucault, 1981, p. 73) compliments his later work on subject and power. In this study, discourse is taken to involve how a concept is used and in my application proceeds from a material description of the text to the words and things. Foucault’s archaeological method of investigation seeks to demonstrate that a discourse, while not definable, is subject to describable systems and regulated ways. It provides a set of procedures for the description and analysis of the ways in which discourses act to exclude, constrain and delimit what it is possible to think and do. Discourse is the group of statements that make up a specific language event. It is through language that discourse is constituted as objects, concepts, knowledge; in other words, discourses are made “manifest, nameable and describable” (Foucault, 1972, p. 41). Discourses are ordered and formulations appear according to a system formation that governs a particular discourse.
Discourses differ with the kinds of institutions and social practices in which they take shape, and with the positions of those who speak and those whom they address. The formation of discourses and their operation therefore requires a precise set of circumstances, procedures and regulatory practices. They:
8 must be described as systematically different ways of treating objects of discourse (of delimiting them, regrouping or separating them, linking them together and making them derive from one another), of arranging forms of enunciation (of choosing them, placing them, constituting series, composing them into great rhetorical unities), of manipulating concepts (of giving them rules for their use, inserting them into regional coherences, and thus constituting conceptual architectures (Foucault, 1972, p. 70).
Foucault’s genealogical method, including processes of governmentality, is supplemented by discourse analysis; it “applies to the series where discourse is effectively formed: it tries to grasp it in its power of affirmation” (p. 73). Genealogy supports an interpretation and evaluation of the ways in which these discourses act to constitute the objects of which they speak.
This chapter will establish the relevance of Foucault’s mode of inquiry as a research approach for study in art education. I explain Foucauldian concepts and approaches as the tools in my analysis of contemporary educational curriculum reforms in Visual Arts. I begin with an overview of the genealogical model I follow, creating as it were, a history of the present that will challenge two decades of curriculum reform and art education as founded upon a hegemonic centre. Second, I discuss ‘archaeology’ as a rich conceptual tool with which to trace, examine and analyse discourses and how these are rearticulated and mobilised into official curriculum text. Finally, in tracing this genealogy, ‘governmentality’ is the conceptual framework that underpins my argument and provides the means for interpreting power and politics in the curriculum.
1.1 Genealogical Interpretation
This study uses genealogy as the method of analysis to ‘re-create’ the field of art education’s existence in the 1980s and 1990s by determining which kind of processes and practices have influenced and steered the different knowledges that have developed. That is, how curriculum has become what it is through an analysis of discursive practices – “the constitution of the subject within a historical framework” (Foucault, 1980, p. 117). Genealogy requires “patience and a knowledge of details, and it depends on a vast accumulation of source material” (Foucault in Rabinow, 1984, p. 76). My study consequently involved detailed work to determine the connections of ideas as well as the ruptures or breaks in art educational discourse that generated principles of action at particular moments in time. In this section, I characterise the defining traits of the genealogical method.
9 Foucault’s histories or ‘genealogies’ do not assume that a discipline, in this instance, Visual Arts, is the consequence of continuous development and progress. Further, history is not conceived as describing objective reality or constituting a coherent system of explanation. Genealogy as a method of analysis criticises the present, recognising the value of incoherent change. In his 1971 essay, Nietzsche, Genealogy and History, Foucault argues:
The traditional devices for constructing a comprehensive view of history and for retracing the past as a patient and continuous development must be systematically dismantled … Knowledge is not made for understanding; it is made for cutting (Rabinow, 1984, p. 88).
For Foucault (1971), genealogy “opposes itself to the search for “origins” (Rabinow, 1984, p. 77) – it is a “history of the present” (Foucault, 1977, p. 31). The starting point for genealogies is that the present is not seen as an inevitable outcome of the past, nor its seamless continuity. It is a way of understanding the complex processes that have led to what we are today. Using a genealogical model, I aim to identify the conditions that make practices in art education acceptable at a given moment by recording and analysing the singularity of events.
Foucault takes Friedrich Nietzsche’s1 German term urpsprung (origin) to mean, in genealogical terms, emergence or descent. Within the histories that genealogy reveals, from the accidental “moment of arising” (Foucault in Rabinow, 1984, p. 83) or emergence, genealogy becomes a history of descent where coincidence, contingency, disruption and discontinuity are valued. Based on the collection and treatment of data inherent in the archaeological analysis in this study, a genealogical interpretation of the data identifies similarities and disjunctures in art education discourse in the specified period. Discontinuities and contradictions account for the cessation or transformation of specific discourses. These ruptures are examined to critically assess the significance of changes in discourse over time. Genealogy seeks to “cultivate the details and accidents that accompany every beginning” (Foucault in Rabinow, 1984, p. 80), it must “identify the accidents, the minute deviations – or conversely, the complete reversals – the error, the false appraisals, and the faulty calculations that gave birth to those things that continue to exist and have value for us” (p. 81). In this context of reversal, our present is theorised as “an episode, a result of struggle and relations of force and domination” (Tamboukou, 1999, p. 203).
1 Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) was a nineteenth-century German philosopher and classical philologist. He was the pioneer of the genealogical method. (See Nietzsche, F. (1996). On the genealogy of morals. (Douglas Smith, Trans.). New York, NY: Oxford University Press. (Original work published 1887).
10 Genealogy is concerned with the processes, procedures and apparatuses by which truth and knowledge are produced. Foucault (1971) revises the Nietzschean ‘will to knowledge’ whereby history is not concerned with recovering truth but rather its relations to power: “It is no longer a question of judging the past in the name of a truth that only we can possess in the present, but of risking the destruction of the subject who seeks knowledge in the endless deployment of the will to knowledge” (Rabinow, 1984, p. 97). A genealogical approach shows how the ‘creation’ of the subject is impacted by change in the systems of knowledge through the effects of power. Foucault delineated the triangle of truth-power-subject in which his research is applied and his genealogies are deployed:
Three domains of genealogy are possible. First, a historical ontology of ourselves in relation to truth through which we constitute ourselves as subjects of knowledge; second, a historical ontology or ourselves in relation to a field of power through which we constitute ourselves as subjects acting on others; third, a historical ontology in relation to ethics through which we constitute ourselves as moral agents (Foucault, 1983 in Dreyfus and Rabinow, 1983, p. 237).
Each of these processes constitutes modes of subjectivity. The first two refer to how the subject constitutes oneself through the negotiation of discourse, knowledge, power, and in relation to others, while the last involves what subjects do in order to fit with (or dispute) the positions made available to them in discourses.
For Foucault, genealogy is the method of understanding discourses within the modern context of institutions and practices. A genealogical approach enables one to examine that which “conditions, limits, and institutionalises discursive formations” (Dreyfus and Rabinow, 1983, p. 104). Foucault stipulates that the varied manifestations and hierarchies of power are controlled by the organisation of ideas and control of knowledge: “Finally, I believe that this will to knowledge, thus reliant upon institutional support and distribution, tends to exercise a sort of pressure, a power of constraint upon other forms of discourse” (Foucault, 1972, p. 219). In other words, discourse, knowledge and idea formation are limited and regulated by social forces and relationships that maintain established power structures:
I am supposing that in every society the production of discourse is at once controlled, selected, organised and redistributed according to a certain number of procedures, whose role is to avert is powers and its dangers, to cope with chance events, to evade it ponderous, awesome materiality” (Foucault, 1972, p. 216).
11 These discursive procedures are the rules or conventions that must be followed in order to generate statements that are accepted as ‘true’ and ‘correct’ within a specified society. Foucault’s genealogical inquiry enables one to establish how powerful factions and structures constitute a discourse and what rules or conventions govern these forces. Through genealogical analysis the institutional mechanisms used to disseminate ideas and knowledge can be examined. I will use genealogy to reconstruct the play of interactions that exist between power and knowledge in the field of art education through an analysis of local and specific discursive practices.
Genealogy allows me to determine how the discourses of the discipline function as regimes of power/knowledge. Truth becomes a function of what can be said or written and the authority of those who speak and circulate the discourse. Knowledge in art education is a site of contest and is constructed through a complex web of power relations. The selection, appropriation and recontextualisation of discourses as a mechanism of power and control are of central interest. Discourse analysis is the analytic framework that will be used to explain not only the form and content of art educational discourse but also the way in which power is exercised in sanctioning certain choices and decisions.
1.1.1 Archaeological Analysis
Archaeology and genealogy are both necessary and complementary to each other as methods of analysis in this study. As Mahon (1992) says: “The task of genealogy is to reveal the historical conditions of our existence, and an essential element in such a task is an archaeological analysis of the discursive rules of the formation of objects” (p. 105). My archaeological analysis will determine the discursive conditions and systems of rules which made it possible for certain statements and not others to occur at particular times, places and institutional locations that resulted in two visual arts senior matriculation syllabuses. The documents identify and trace those discourses that were selectively, however not necessarily consciously, circulated and legitimated within the field to construct the particular form and content of official curriculum texts.
Foucault’s archaeology differs from more traditional forms of historical analysis as the ‘rules’ that form the ‘conditions of existence’ of a discourse are not concerned with rediscovering and interpreting a singular, hidden meaning and truth behind texts. Foucault “advocates the treatment of texts as flat surfaces across which one can discern patterns of order” (O’Farrell, 2005, p. 142). His form of analysis and methodological orientation entails a rejection of giving priority to language and its unconscious foundations, or what is said but only indirectly, to
12 provide keys to a text’s layers of implicit meaning (Weate, 1996, p. 51) that is deeply contextualised. Foucault (1972) argues:
we must grasp the statement in the exact specificity of its occurrence; determine its condition of existence, fix at least its limits, establish its correlations with other statements that may be connected with it, and show what other forms of statement it excludes … we must show why it could not be other than it was, in what respect it is exclusive of any other, how it assumes, in the midst of others and in relation to them, a place that no other could occupy (p. 28).
In The Archaeology of Knowledge (1972) Foucault sets forth procedures for gathering and examining data on discourse and the discursive statement. He provides a vocabulary to analyse the ‘rules of formation’ for a particular set of statements that belong to a discourse. These groups of statements are seen as organised in relation to institutions that shape human subjects and are therefore connected with issues of authority and the practices that institutions allow and encompass.
A discursive formation is regarded as involving four basic elements: “The Formation of Objects”; “The Formation of Enunciative Modalities”; “The Formation of Concepts”; and “The Formation of Strategies” (Foucault, 1972). Foucault however does not regard a discursive formation as distinguished by any unity provided by these rules. Rather, a discursive formation is conceived as a ‘system of dispersion’:
Whenever one can describe, between a number of statements, such a system of dispersion, whenever, between objects, types of statement, concepts, or thematic choices, one can define a regularity (an order, correlations, positions and functionings, transformations), we will say, for the sake of convenience, that we are dealing with a discursive formation (Foucault, 1972, p. 38).
In undertaking this study of the specific types of knowledge that constituted the subject Visual Arts in NSW in the 1980s and 1990s, this inquiry does not attempt to apply Foucault’s archeology as a rigid, formulaic method. Rather, archaeology is the framework for analysis. That is, aspects of archaeology identified by Foucault are exemplified as they arise in the data. Three of these components derived from Foucault’s archaeology are employed in this study as detailed below.
13 The Formation of Objects Foucault’s (1972) examination of the formation of objects identifies their existence within a body of knowledge. Foucault describes this process as comprising three analytic elements. Firstly, there are surfaces of emergence in which a particular discursive formation makes its appearance as an object of concern. New objects emerge into certain sites and social groupings such as the family, the immediate social group, the work situation, and the religious community (Foucault, 1972, p. 41). These social contexts are all normative according to Foucault with their own rules that affect the emergence of new objects within a discursive formation. The second rule for the formation of objects is that practiced by the authorities of delimitation. Foucault describes this as those to whom a society gives the authority to “delimit, designate, name, and establish” (1972, p. 42) what objects belong to a given discursive formation. Thirdly, the grids of specification are the systems within which objects are “divided, contrasted, related, regrouped, classified, derived from one another as objects” (p. 42) of a discourse or body of knowledge. Foucault emphasises that these three sorts of rules for the formation of objects are not independent from one another. Complex relations of “resemblance, proximity, distance, difference, transformation” (p. 44) exist between authorities of emergence, delimitation, and specification that makes the emergence of new objects possible.
The Formation of Enunciative Modalities In this section, Foucault’s (1972) analysis of the rules governing the statements of a discursive formation focuses on “the place from which they come” (p. 50). This involves an investigation of the ways discursive relationships are articulated and relations exist between the status of individuals chosen as speakers, the institutional site from which statements are made, and the position of the subject making the statement. Certain individuals are accorded the right to use a given mode of speech within institutions depending on their status. Foucault asks, “What is the status of individuals who – alone – have the right, sanctioned by law or tradition, juridically defined or spontaneously accepted, to proffer such a discourse? (p. 50). The choice of the speaker according to Foucault is an effect of institutional power structures. A second factor is the institutional sites from which the statements originate. The functions performed at these sites enable access to specific data and information that is used when making statements. The hospital is cited as an institutional example from which “discourse derives its legitimate source and point of application (its specific objects and instruments of verification)” (p. 51). Foucault defines this site as “a place of constant, coded, systematic observation, run by a differentiated and hierarchised staff, thus constituting a quantifiable field of frequencies …” (p. 51). A third consideration is the position of the subject making the statement. Similar to the speaker, the subject is defined by their function within a discourse and its field. The various situations that
14 the subject occupies impacts their “perceptual field” (p. 53) as the subject attempts to absorb, synthesise and to transfer information from one discourse community to another.
The Formation of Concepts Foucault’s purpose behind an examination of the formation of concepts is to “describe the organisation of the field of statements where they appeared and circulated” (1972, p. 56). He distinguishes three sorts of rules used to identify concepts within a discursive formation. The first set of rules arranges statements and concepts in various ‘orderings of enunciative series’ (inference, implication, reasoning, descriptions, generalisations, specifications) (p. 56). The various ‘types of dependence’ of statements are identified including how they function to establish meaning (as hypothesis, verification, assertion, critique, general law, application). Foucault is concerned with how these concept groupings combine into ‘rhetorical schemata’: schemata of dependence, of order, and of succession that characterises the architecture of a text (p. 57).
Forms of ‘coexistence’ also govern the configuration of the discourse field within which statements are articulated. These forms firstly represent a ‘field of presence’ for concepts that includes “all statements formulated elsewhere and taken up in a discourse, acknowledged to be truthful, involving exact description, well-founded reasoning, or necessary presupposition” (Foucault, 1972, p. 57). The implicit or explicit acceptance of concepts may be based on “experimental verification, logical validation, mere repetition, acceptance justified by tradition and authority, commentary, a search for hidden meanings, the analysis of error” (p. 57). Distinct from this field of presence is a ‘field of concomitance’. This refers to statements that originate from other discursive formations. The objects or statements appropriated from other, sometimes different, domains are privileged and confirmed by analogy as a general principle, transferable models, or the function of a higher external authority. Finally, the enunciative field involves a ‘field of memory’ that is concerned with discursive statements informed by past discourse, statements that are “no longer accepted or discussed, and which consequently no longer define either a body of truth or a domain of validity …” (p. 58). The field of memory consists of identifying the lingering implicit concepts and patterns of historical statements that are filtering, guiding, and transforming bodies of knowledge.
The third set of rules governing the formation of concepts specifies various ‘procedures of intervention’. Concept form, meaning and function of discursive formation’s statements are altered according to discursive mechanisms or interventions. These procedures may appear according to Foucault (1972, p. 59): in ‘techniques of rewriting’ where linear descriptions are transformed into classificatory tables; ‘methods of transcribing’ statements into more or less
15 formal language; ‘modes of translating’ where quantitative statements are changed into qualitative formulations and vice versa; the means of increasing the ‘approximation’ or exactitude of statements; the methods employed to delimit the validity of statements by extending or restricting a concept in different time periods; the means used to transfer ideas between fields of application; or, the methods of systematising statements into systematic wholes “that already exist, because they have been previously formulated, but in a separated state” (p. 59). Foucault suggests:
One stands back in relation to this manifest set of concepts; and one tries to determine according to what schemata (of series, simultaneous groupings, linear or reciprocal modification) the statements may be linked to one another in a type of discourse; one tries in this way to discover how the recurrent elements of statements can reappear, dissociate, recompose, gain in extension or determination, be taken up into new logical structures, acquire, on the other hand, new semantic contents, and constitute partial organisations among themselves (1972, p. 60).
The rules that constitute and distinguish each discourse also govern relationships between elements (objects, concepts, knowledge) of discourse and “order and combine words in particular ways and exclude or displace other combinations” (Ball, 1990a, p. 2). Archaeological analysis is concerned with the principles that allow only certain statements to be made at a given time and not others.
The authority of a curriculum, including a syllabus statement, rests with how particular knowledges and practices are conceptualised and valued, “what can be said, and thought, but also about who can speak, when, where and with what authority” (Ball, 1994, p. 21). Curriculum is viewed in this study as a set of discourses that are constructed, contested and which constrain the possibilities of thought. The archives in this investigation contain multiple discourses and were produced by agents with their own discursive histories. The documents are used to examine issues of power, in particular institutional practices and processes, which shape and permit discursive and conceptual possibilities within the field of art education.
Art education does not ‘speak a discourse’. The discursive formation of the Visual Arts is produced out of a network of discourses and power relations. For Foucault, discourses emerge and function as conflict, discord and dispute: “Discourse is not simply that which translates struggles or systems of domination, but is the thing for which and by which there is a struggle” (Foucault in Shapiro, 1984, p. 110). Foucault is interested in the constraints placed upon discourses from inside or outside, and subsequently, the role of discourse in the constitution of
16 subject positions: “what position can and must be occupied by any individual if he is to be the subject of it” (Foucault, 1972, p. 96).
The value of this analysis to curriculum inquiry is in its close examination of the ways in which the field of art education has negotiated and adopted discourses, imposed from, or interdependent with, authoritative discourses external to the field. I am interested in determining the range of subjective positions that have been made available to the field and the ones that it has secured or refused. The subjugation of some knowledges and the rendering of others as truth raises the issue of power and its circulation.
1.1.2 Governmentality
In order to detect the play of different forces and mechanisms of power impacting on art education discourse and practice, I draw on Foucault’s conceptual tool ‘governmenality’ as the framework. Examining the archive in this investigation through the lens of governmentality will reveal the relations of power and knowledge it encodes. This study also seeks to clarify the role of established institutional structures in curriculum. Governmental structures are viewed here as monuments of ideological stability or change and agents of power to which the field of art education responds.
Government in its most general sense is a modality of the exercise of power that is concerned with the ‘conduct of conduct’ (Foucault, 1980, p. 119). Governmentality is not limited to the operations of governments or simply the activities of the State although governments may display features of governmentality. Any organisation or institution such as schools, prisons or hospitals that seeks to shape the conduct and beliefs of its members through planned measures displays aspects of governmentality. According to Rose and Miller (1992):
government is intrinsically linked to the activities of expertise, whose role is not one of weaving an all-pervasive web of ‘social control’, but of enacting assorted attempts at the calculated administration of diverse aspects of conduct through countless, often competing, local tactics of education, persuasion, inducement, management, incitement, motivation and encouragement (p. 175).
Foucault (1988a) defines governmentality in relation to technologies. He identifies four technologies that human beings employ to interpret and control themselves: the technologies of production, of sign systems, of power, and of the self. Foucault’s technologies of power “determine the conduct of individuals and submit them to certain ends or domination” (1988a,
17 p. 18). Such technologies create sets of rules and norms for controlling and regulating identities. Technologies of the self “permit individuals to effect by their own means or with the help of others a certain number of operations on their own bodies and souls, thoughts, and way of being, so as to transform themselves in order to attain a certain state of happiness, purity, wisdom, perfection, or immobility” (1988a, p. 18). Technologies of power are imposed whereas technologies of the self are chosen by subjects to construct, modify or transform identity. It is the contact between the last two technologies; between the technologies of domination of others and those of self that Foucault calls governmentality. Governmentality is concerned with the practices by which we are governed as a society as a whole and by which we govern ourselves as individuals.
The concept of subjectivity is powerfully complemented by the concept of governmentality. For Foucault (1988b), both technologies of domination and technologies of self are harnessed “to make the individual a significant element for the state” (p. 153). The modern art of government according to Foucault is the combination between the pastoral thinking inherent in police and “reason of state”. For Simons (1995), “reason of state took as its aim the enhancement of the state’s strength in a competitive framework, relying on knowledge of the state (statistics) to measure its success” (p. 39). Reason of state was only interested in population and public welfare’s contribution to state power and relied on the technology of police to make individuals useful, docile, practical citizens. This “science of policing” according to Donzelot (1977) “consists, therefore, in regulating everything that relates to the present condition in society, in strengthening and improving it, in seeing all things contribute to the welfare of the members that compose it” (p. 7). In this sense, governmentality is significant to this inquiry in the way in which the relation between the internal welfare of the population, Visual Arts, became linked, in doctrines such as reason of state education, to the security, external strength and power of the state.
Rose (1989) explains Foucault’s notion of government as a “certain way of striving to reach social and political ends by acting in a calculated manner upon the forces, activities and relations of the individuals that constitute a population” (pp. 4-5). The exercise of power over a population departs from the characteristic qualities of sovereignty and discipline. For Foucault (1991):
population comes to appear above all else as the ultimate end of government. In contrast to sovereignty, government has as its purpose not the act of government itself, but the welfare of the population, the improvement of its condition, the increase of its wealth, longevity, health etc (p. 100).
18 The art of government is concerned with introducing and applying ‘economy’. Economy refers, in Foucault’s terms, to the “wise government of the family for the common welfare of all” (1991, p. 92). According to Foucault:
To govern a state will therefore mean to apply economy, to set up an economy at the level of the entire state, which means exercising towards its inhabitants, and the wealth and behaviour of each and all, a form of surveillance and control as attentive as that of the head of a family over his household and his goods” (1991, p. 92).
With the absence of overt coercive regulations, the Foucauldian subject of governmentality is not the powerless docile object of sovereign governance; rather governmental power is productive and operates at multiple points throughout the social network. This “polymorphous technique of power” (Foucault, 1978, p. 11) produces the conditions that allow for the regulation of populations, the outcome being that the individual is a subject of government, as well as the creation of self-regulating subjects.
Governmental power does not displace sovereign power in its entirety but rather coexists alongside disciplinary power. In Discipline and Punish, Foucault examined the disciplinary nature of power exercised through institutions. Power as a disciplinary force has the effect of producing docile bodies, “that may be subjected, used, transformed and improved” (Foucault, 1977, p. 136). Discipline, according to Foucault, ‘makes’ individuals; “it is the specific technique of power that regards individuals both as objects and as instruments of its exercise” (1977, p. 170). This ‘technique of correction’ is aimed at generating obedient subjects, principally characterised by their malleability and permeability to the habits, rules, and orders of disciplinary mechanisms.
Foucault (1977) identifies Bentham’s Panopticon as an exemplary technique through which his view of disciplinary power is able to function.2 The Panopticon provides the technology for
2 The Panopticon was Jeremy Bentham’s design for a prison in the nineteenth century. Foucault defines the principle on which it was based as follows: “at the periphery, an annular building; at the centre, a tower; this tower is pierced with wide windows that open onto the inner side of the ring; the peripheric building is divided into cells, each of which extends the whole width of the building; they have two windows, one on the inside, corresponding to the windows of the tower; the other, on the outside, allows the light to cross the cell from one end to the other. All that is needed, then, is to place a supervisor in a central tower and to shut up in each cell a madman, a patient, a condemned man, a worker or a schoolboy. By the effect of backlighting, one can observe from the tower, standing out precisely against the light, the small captive shadows in the cells of the periphery. They are like so many cages, so many small theatres, in which each actor is alone, perfectly individualised and constantly visible. The panoptic mechanism arranges spatial unities that make it possible to see constantly and to recognise immediately. In short, it reverses the principle of the dungeon; or rather of its three functions – to enclose, to deprive of light and
19 surveillance that ultimately produces self-discipline and incites states of docility while simultaneously providing the technology for individualisation and consequently normalisation:
The Panopticon functions as a kind of laboratory of power. Thanks to its mechanisms of observation, it gains in efficiency and in the ability to penetrate into men’s behaviour: knowledge follows the advances of power, discovering new objects of knowledge over all the surfaces on which power is exercised (Foucault, 1977, p. 204).
Constant surveillance and assessment of individuals is viewed by Foucault (1977) as an effective tool for the orderly regimentation of a population. Populations become subjected to transformative techniques that make individuals both more useful and docile. For Foucault, surveillance and “with it, normalisation becomes one of the great instruments of power at the end of the classical age” (1977, p. 184). Disciplines introduced the power of the norm, the standard or performance goal that individuals within a population must reach. According to Caputo and Yount (1993), “normalisation does impose homogeneity, but at the same time makes it possible to individualise, to measure gaps, to differentiate according to the norm whose function is to make differences intelligible as such” (p. 6). Norms, rules and laws subsequently become internalised in ways that do not need external control on the part of authorities however as Caputo and Yount continue, “institutions will form and well-adjust the young into supple, happy subjects of normalisation. Institutions will reform the abnormal who stray beyond the limits” (1993, p. 6).
For Foucault, power as a disciplinary force and power as a productive force can operate simultaneously in the same site. Foucault introduced the term ‘biopower’ in the final chapter of The History of Sexuality, Volume 1 (1978). Disciplinary power targets particular individuals whereas biopower is the aspect of modern power that is concurrently focused on disciplining of the body of the individual at the micro-level and the regulation of entire populations at a global or macro level. Foucault (1978) describes biopower as developing in two distinct yet related forms. The first of these ‘an anatomo-politics of the human body’ focuses on disciplining the body of the individual to increase its utility and manageability through “its integration into systems of efficient and economic control” (p. 139). The second form of biopower focuses on the supervision and generation of what Foucault terms ‘the species body’, that is, “the body imbued with the mechanics of life and serving as the basis of the biological processes: propagation, births and mortality, the level of health, life expectancy and longevity, with all the conditions that can cause these to vary” (p. 139). Biopower operates at “every level of the social to hide – it preserves only the first eliminating the other two. Full lighting and the eye of a supervisor capture better than darkness, which ultimately protected. Visibility is a trap” (1977, p. 200).
20 body” (Foucault, 1978, p. 139), across a diverse range of social locations including schools, clinics, the family, the military and administration, with the aim of enhancing the lives of a population through the application of the norm. The rationalities and technologies of governmentality are the biopower that produces knowledge of the individual to order, direct and control human conduct.
Governmentality provides the analytical framework for this study. It examines how the field of art education has been positioned as subject to external forces and how it has adopted different characteristics according to the range of subjective positions that have been made available. The Foucauldian subject of governmentality, in this instance Visual Arts, is not the powerless docile object of sovereign governance. Rather, art education is positioned as an active knowing agent of its own conduct as well as an object being acted upon – a discourse.
The discursive formation of the Visual Arts is therefore produced out of a network of discourses and power relations. The authorising discursive practices, which permeate and constitute the subject of art education have affected the ways in which the field has come to speak about and conduct itself within the educational institution. This study is concerned with the formation of art education as an affect of the networks through which power relations construct possibilities and constraints. This study will invert the dogma of power relationships from the external to the internal and in doing so will reveal the manner in which art education has constituted itself both as a subject of knowledge and as a knowing subject.
1.2 Foucauldian Methodology and Interpretive Frameworks in Curriculum Studies
Theorising education using a Foucauldian perspective is a substantial body of literature articulated amongst others by Ball (1990a, 1990b, 1993, 1994), Cherryholmes (1988), Donald (1992), Hunter (1988, 1994, 1996), Peters (1996), and Popkewitz and Brennan (1998). To date however, there have been limited attempts to bring Foucault’s work to bear on research literature concerning visual arts education in Australia. Works by Weate (1996, 1997, 1998, 2000a, 2000b), Brown (1993), Elsden-Clifton (2005a, 2005b), and Gooding-Brown (1997, 2000), prove exceptions to this.
As my study is informed by Foucault’s theories of genealogy, archaeology and governmentality, I am interested in the application of these frameworks to other studies within education that have a particular focus on curriculum change and inquiry, notably syllabus text and discourse. This section provides a review of literature relevant to this study. My predominant focus is curriculum studies in Australia generally and in NSW in particular. Models proposed in the
21 poststructuralist studies of curriculum I have examined address many of the same research goals and issues of this thesis. I consider some of the theoretical concepts used in the literature as tools for this study however this thesis extends the range and applicability of the genealogical method. I begin my discussion under each of the three subheadings by examining studies that have focused on art education and follow this with studies in other subject areas.
1.2.1 Foucault, Genealogy and Education
In this section I review the use of Foucault’s genealogical method in research literature concerning education. There is a vast literature related to Foucault’s genealogical method however I am particularly interested in studies that use curriculum and its text as data and historical artifacts. These studies employ a specific use of history with the goal of understanding the present. They have adopted a reading practice that resists the modernist search for fundamental truths instead assuming a critical, questioning disposition that seeks continuities and discontinuities, ruptures and breaks in discourses and social practices within the field of education. An archaeological analysis of discursive rules of formation of objects is an essential component of the task of genealogy. These studies have conducted this form of analysis and examined the different discursive and non-discursive practices and powers that have given rise to a subjects’ existence within the curriculum. The following literature is suggestive for my own study in their concern for how and why school subjects have organised their systems of thought and their objects of inquiry in particular ways at certain times amidst the logics of power within the field of education.
Weate has extensively applied Foucauldian concepts to the discursive practices of art educational curriculum.3 Weate’s (1996) paper is of interest as like this study, she too advocates a poststructural position as an alternative form of inquiry to orthodox research methods in Visual Arts, which are typically framed within “the scientific (often psychological) paradigm,
3 (1992a). Agenda setting for research in art education: A discourse for art education. Australian Art Education. 16(1), 27-31. (1996). Les liaisons dangereuses: Foucauldian genealogies in art education research. Australian Art Education. 19(3), 48-59. (1997). A genealogy of creativity: well-regulated liberty. In Continuity and change in NSW art education: The reinvention of practices and content. Occasional seminars in art education 7 (pp. 85-99). September 21, 1996. Sydney, Australia: College of Fine Arts, The University of New South Wales. (1998, October). Securing the curriculum: Modalities of governmentality. Keynote presented at the Australian Institution of Art Education Conference. New South Wales, Australia. (2000a). A Foucauldian report on standards and testing in art education curriculum. Paper presented at the 30th Annual InSEA World Congress, September 21-26, 1999. Brisbane, Australia. (2000b). New century trends: Social trends and professional practice. Paper presented at the NAEA Conference. Los Angeles, California.
22 with recent interest in qualitative methods and action research” (p. 48). Foucault’s few appearances in art educational literature by postmodern theorists are surveyed by Weate including Brown (1993), Hamblen (1992), Carrier (1992), Pearse (1992), and Cheung (1992), before an overview of Foucault’s archaeological and genealogical methods is provided and positioned as eligible and appropriate to art educational research. For Weate, Foucault’s archaeology and genealogy offer a basis for understanding theories of power and the politics of art educational discourse that have been so readily absent from the histories of art education.
In a later paper, Weate (1997) adopts a genealogical approach to her study of creativity in art education, specifically, two Visual Arts Years 7-10 syllabus documents. The specific focus of this study is how creativity as an object and strategy has been valued and used across the visual arts curriculum. Weate rejects “the received ideas about creativity as a cardinal, foundational, natural and inevitable value in art education curriculum theory and practice” (p. 86), which she argues, “has been at one moment, in one syllabus, celebrated, and in another syllabus avoided and denied” (p. 85). Three recurring “distinct components, assumptions or ontologies of creativity” (p. 87) are identified in the three fields of philosophy of aesthetics, psychology and art education. The three components are: the creative subject, the creative process, and the creative product. Foucault’s genealogical method is used to trace the sources of authority in each of these three components of creativity as they appear in the 1987 and 1994 syllabus documents. The sources in this genealogical investigation of creativity are official curriculum policies, syllabus statements, documents, texts, records and archives of the discipline. Weate argues “creativity is variously used as one or another of these components and persists in art education by the authority that is imposed from discourses or fields other than art education” (p. 91).
Weate’s commentary is devoted exclusively to the meanings of ‘creativity’ in art education and relies on two junior secondary school curriculum texts. My investigation builds upon the knowledge gained from this genealogy and applies it to a broader range of circumstances in art education beyond the realm of creativity. Weate’s genealogical stance, in the reading of the syllabus documents, with her focus on the identification of the “frequency of the word creative and the associations made by the proximity of creative to other features of the curriculum” (p. 93), is pertinent to this study as it highlights how curricula is a political process that reflects the prevailing ideology of its historical moment. My research contributes further understanding of how power and politics influences curriculum design and development in the same way Weate shows how dominant discourses “intervene with, penetrate and sway others discourses” (p. 96) by tracing the importance and authority of creativity in the syllabus texts. I agree with Weate’s
23 interpretation that when a discourse is not compatible with the force and source of authority, it becomes modified in its implementation.
Brown (1993) uses a Foucauldian genealogy to deconstruct authoritative sources of belief about art from the cognitive and developmental sciences: “art curricula have been far less a reflection of art practice than of mutations rendered by the ethical impositions of a normalising discourse in the cognitive sciences” (p. 73). Similarly to Weate (1996), Brown argues that the art worlds’ willingness to mutate with different discursive cultures has resulted in the field’s reluctance to involve itself in the genealogical formation of knowledge. According to Brown, “constructors of syllabi in art education have experienced difficulty in accommodating their traditional grounds to the volatile fluctuations of modernist belief in the visual arts” (p. 63). The notion of art has therefore been construed and colonised within different fields of authority. For Brown, the field of art education must adapt its theoretical base by being suspicious and resistant to technical domination of the arts by the sciences. Foucault’s genealogy offers a solution: “the virtue of the genealogical method lies in its detached retrospectively” (Brown, 1993, p. 80). My genealogical study contributes to the formation of knowledge in art education in the manner advocated by Brown by tracing the historical formations and transformations of the discourses that constituted the discipline, Visual Arts, at different times.
Another application of Foucauldian genealogy is found in the work of Quin (2003). Quin constructs a genealogy of the subject media studies in Western Australia. This paper argues, throughout its thirty year existence, media studies has occupied a marginal position in Australian schools and universities as it does not display the usual organising principles of an academic subject. Drawing upon Foucault’s theoretical framework, in particular, his concept of discursive formations, this study examines what has constituted knowledge in media studies as defined by formal educational authorities (articulated in syllabuses) as opposed to knowledge defined by those practicing the subject (teachers and curriculum advisors). Quin shows how media studies has shifted over time and in doing so which “knowledge attains the status of truth and becomes the accepted definition of what the subject is about” (p. 101).
The work of Quin differs to my investigation in that the construction of knowledge in the subject media studies is presented as a case study that utilised human respondents along with contemporary and archival sources. Quin’s primary sources included interviews with past and present teachers, direct observation of media studies lessons, as well as, participant observation to understand teacher’s views on current developments in the subject area. This form of inquiry is strongly based on subjective experience and does not deal directly with an examination of the contents that discourse may conceal. Quin’s work is nevertheless valuable in showing the
24 multiple sites that contribute to the production of disciplinary knowledge in a school subject. She argues that the disciplinary knowledge produced by formal and authoritative sites as well as non-authoritative locations in Western Australia does not operate in concert. Rather,
Those who have the power, the curriculum writers, generate the kind of knowledge they need to maintain their power, which in this case was academic knowledge. At the same time those who are, or seek to avoid being, subject to this power need their own alternative kinds of knowledge to resist (p. 113).
In analysing the discursive practices of media studies, Quin’s central concern is showing how “changes in the knowledge base of media studies have been contingent upon changes in the teaching cohort, in power relations and in the broader educational context” (p. 117). This genealogical account of media studies not only describes the dominant discourses of the school subject and its effects but also examines how those discourses came to be. Changes in the force and source of authority that make possible particular thoughts and actions results in “a new appropriation of knowledge and thus a new set of interpretations that become the truth” (p. 117).
Similarly, Patterson (2000) presents a genealogy of the subject English in Australian secondary schools, focusing on curriculum and syllabus statements, examinations and inspector’s reports produced mainly in NSW from 1860 onwards. In examining these documents it is Patterson’s intention to question two common versions of the history of English as a subject in secondary schools that have informed the ways in which the practices of the subject are conceptualised. Patterson considers how English, from its emergence, has attained a set of instructional techniques and educational goals related to the cultivation of the personality or the character of the child, and around the construction of conduct befitting the citizen of a modern state. Patterson’s work differs to my study in that her interpretation of the techniques for the teaching of English in the secondary school is largely based on its primary school antecedents. This argument fails to acknowledge other significant influences that are of central concern to my investigation, notably, the ‘top-down’ pressure of universities (discussed in Chapters Four and Six). Contrary to Patterson, who makes no attempt to document what kinds of impact universities may have had on the secondary English curriculum, the university is one institution that is examined in my research for the operations of power and knowledge that circulate within this site and its subsequent influence on curriculum reform in the Visual Arts.
Like Patterson, Cormack (2001, 2002, 2003) is concerned with the role played by the school subject English and its curriculum in the formation of the ‘older’ child or adolescent in the early twentieth century in South Australia. This study adopts a more explicitly Foucauldian approach
25 that resonates with my own by the way in which Cormack presents a genealogy, utilising major theoretical constructs of discourse, the subject and subjectivity and governmentality, to trace the connection between English/literacy, schooling and adolescence. Cormack’s specific focus is on the English curriculum as a site for the play of discursive and non-discursive practices in shaping the moral outlook of the ideal student it seeks. In tracing the historical transformations of the discourses that constitute student subjectivities, the value of this work is the way in which Cormack conducts a close reading of curriculum and educational texts, primarily the Education Gazette, as key data sources for his study to “disrupt taken-for-granted ways of understanding the constructions of schooling, literacy and adolescence” (2003, p.10). Cormack notes “instances where the (older) child was talked about or made a subject or object of curriculum or school practice with a focus on the English subjects, paying particular attention to those places where the child or a practice attracted a surfeit of words” (2002, p. 6) in his examination of historical texts.
Watkins’ (2003) presents a Foucauldian genealogy of the pedagogic body, with particular emphasis on the ways in which the body has been conceived over time in English syllabus documents in NSW from 1905 to 1998. Foucault’s genealogical method as the conceptual tool employed in this study is useful for my inquiry, in spite of the fact that a Foucauldian analysis of the pedagogic body is not provided per se. Watkins places her work more in the tradition of Bourdieu’s notion of ‘habitus’ and the philosophical insights of Spinoza to trace the ways in which the body has been configured textually in the syllabus documents and the subsequent implications for pedagogic practice. A systematic reading of each syllabus demonstrates the “the variable impact of the pedagogic on embodied subjectivity and in particular, how it pertains to the formation of academic dispositions within a student’s habitus” (Watkins, 2003, p. 77).
In tracing the pedagogic body’s genealogy, Watkins provides instances of the discursive transitions in pedagogic approaches in each syllabus document. Emphasis within the documents shifted from a view of learning that imposed disciplinary constraint upon the body of the learner to the accentuation on habit formation in learning. This was followed by the impact of psychology involving student-centred pedagogy that focused on the individuals’ learning as a cognitive process relative to developmental stages, and finally, to a more explicit approach to the teaching of English with curriculum content organised as a list of staged learning outcomes. While Watkin’s has not conducted an archaeological analysis, which is an essential component of my work, her genealogical investigation is pertinent in the way the shifts in terminology that are emblematic of the transformation in each pedagogic approach are traced.
26 On the contrary, Ninnes’ (2004) has undertaken discourse analysis of curriculum material in his genealogical investigation of the discourses of culture and cultural diversity found in the NSW Stages 4 and 5 (junior high school) science syllabus. Ninnes is interested in identifying the historical development of discourses of cultural diversity in Australia and how these are connected to the contradictory and colonial discourses of culture contained within the science syllabus documents. More specifically:
I am interested in finding out how the present situation arose. In particular, how did cultural diversity come to be a central concern of science education in NSW? How did particular discursive formations, that is, ways of talking and thinking about culture, come to prominence at the expense of other ways of talking and thinking about social difference? (Ninnes, 2004, p. 262).
However, reference to Foucault’s genealogy is cited on only one occasion and while the study traces discourses used in the syllabus back to federal government documents from the 1970s and 1980s, explicit reference to Foucauldian archaeological analysis (a key feature of this thesis), is not made. Ninnes is concerned with identifying similar or identical expressions related to cultural diversity by revealing direct references in the documents, which includes the syllabus and support documents, memos, and bulletins, amongst others, to wider changes in social policies. For Ninnes, an examination of these policies and educational practices “provide an important clue to the genealogy of discourses of cultural diversity that are driving the incorporation of diverse perspectives in syllabi in general in NSW and the Science Stages 4 and 5 Syllabus in particular” (p. 264). This is a proposition with which I agree, and a similar type of evidence is examined in this study of the Visual Arts.
Ninnes’ analysis focuses on two parts of the syllabus document where a discourse of culture is apparent: ‘Aboriginal Students’ and ‘Students of Diverse Cultural/Language Backgrounds’. How the syllabus raises issues of culture and how the concept of culture is used are identified. More specifically, Ninnes investigates how the text at one time essentialises Aboriginal people, cultures and identities, while at other times acknowledges diversity within groups by the use of modifiers such as “some”, “many”, “may” or “usually”. The limitation of the study is evident here regarding Ninnes’ inadequate acknowledgement of Foucault and in this instance the operation of power evident in these forms of classification. In accordance with Foucault, this form of power can be characterised as the strategic operation of simultaneous processes of individualisation and totalisation in which individuals are integrated in a totality (or sociality) through normalising practices. It is implied that Aboriginal people are conceived in the text on the one hand by individualising discourses while on the other, by totalising tendencies that
27 constitute this particular population as a governable one, however, this view of power is not directly stated. In using modifiers for example, Ninnes’ shows how the text appears to avoid prescribing authentic identities by acknowledging the diversity of Aboriginal cultures instead of positioning all Aboriginal students in a binary opposition to other students. The use of ‘othering’ techniques in the syllabus constructs identities for subjugated groups and legitimates Aboriginal practices and knowledges. Furthermore, Ninnes argues that the section in the syllabus on cultural background is contradictory in that in some sections diversity within groups is acknowledged while the document also constructs culture as fixed and knowable. In rethinking the treatment of issues of culture by revealing the ways in which the syllabus engages with the rhetoric of other policy documents and discourses, it is Ninnes’ hope that contradictions in the document may be reduced and that teachers are able to analyse the social contexts of their work.
The studies examined in this section all utilise Foucault’s genealogical method to identify the rules governing the discursive practices of a school subject along with the network of power relations of which these rules are part. Rather than merely present a history of the development of a school subject, these studies have abandoned all sense of historical continuity. In analysing the discursive practices of a school subject, the central concern of these studies is revealing how a subject has been ‘created’ by power/knowledge complexes of history. Similar to this inquiry, these studies trace how subject knowledge has been defined and contested in curriculum and educational texts by locating shifts and transformations in discourse. In doing so, they show how power is exercised and the effects of this power through the creation of knowledge.
1.2.2 Foucault, Archaeology and Education
Archaeology proceeds genealogy as a critique, a questioning of the historical conditions of existence, to an analysis of the discursive conditions of existence. The studies reviewed in this section are of significance as each follows Foucault’s procedures for gathering and examining data on discourse and discursive practices in education. Foucault’s archaeology requires that documents be read in a particular way. These theorists conduct an archaeological reading and discourse analysis of curriculum documents and texts as data. They are concerned with the rules of discourse. Their systematic reading of the words, as objects, concepts, and statements in documents that produce educational discourse have provided models for this study.
The application of Foucaulian archaeology to the field of art education in Australia is a limited body of literature. In addition to Weate’s (1996, 1997) and Brown’s (1993) genealogical and archaeological investigations, Gooding-Brown’s (1997, 2000) work is of interest as she is one
28 of few theorists who advocates the importance of postmodern and postructuralism as theoretical frameworks in art education research. She perceives that a postmodern perspective provides a means to “unpack and ‘repack’ … those rich, dense interpretations of meanings in art and texts in such a way as to understand and expand upon concepts of self and identity and difference” (Gooding-Brown, 1997, p. 76). Gooding Brown’s (2000) qualitative study explored the uses of a disruptive model of interpretation for art criticism that can be taught through art education, which involved taking apart or rethinking any authoritative, modernist, interpretation. By deeply examining the language and thoughts of what we would normally accept as ‘expert’ (the critiques by professionals), students have space to engage with the work and to explore and construct a position for themselves in the discursive practices of an interpretation. Gooding- Brown adopted a number of data gathering strategies in her study including: the conversations and writing of secondary school students in NSW; the writings of professional art critics and art educators; interviews with an artist; and her own reflexive journal writing.
The strength of this study, relative to my work, is the way in which Gooding-Brown draws upon Foucault to illuminate discursive practices in art texts. Art texts in this disruptive model become systems of ‘signifiers’ that can be read for their plurality of meaning and interpretation. In utilising Foucault to disrupt art texts, Gooding-Brown examined discourses and practices of the self. For Gooding-Brown, ‘text’ refers to “that which can be ‘written’, ‘produced’ or ‘read’, that allows the viewer to enter at any point, and is ‘overpopulated’ with the practices of discourses” (p. 77). By ‘unpacking’ the discursive practices embedded in an art text, a link is created for the viewer between the aesthetic object, the social world and the positioning of oneself. Students are provided with the opportunity to move beyond a structuralist model of interpretation by combining a modernist narrative with a postmodern theoretical position that allows them to question, analyse and think critically and creatively using a number of viewpoints and experiences. The students in this study worked to explore their own positions on works and tried to justify a valid interpretation of their own. Exploration of the self and self-reflexivity subsequently becomes an integral part of critical art theory.
Gooding-Brown emphasises an awareness of one’s own positioning in the discursive practices of the text. While a tenet of Foucauldian postmodernism is the requirement for reflexivity, the need to know the self, positioning oneself in the discussion in order to understand self and difference in the constructed discourse can be problematic. Associating the words and language with the personality of one authorial voice has the potential to detract from the discourse of the texts. The focus of my inquiry is on the discourse of the documents.
29 Like Gooding-Brown’s (1997, 2000) disruptive model of interpretation, which uses Foucault to explore a student’s ability to understand their positioning in discursive practices and in turn the world, Elsden-Clifton (2005a, 2005b, 2006) is also interested in how art education can function as a productive space for students to explore their social and cultural worlds. Art is understood, according to Elsden-Clifton, as a spatial practice that empowers students to engage and negotiate transitional states. Foucault is one of five theorists listed who offers Elsden-Clifton (2005a) a way of conceptualising subjectivity as productive not negative. His theory is applied to her analysis of space and embodied subjectivity within the art classroom. Drawing on the art and visual journals of senior students at three secondary schools in Queensland, Australia, discourse analysis is used to critique these texts. Elsden-Clifton argues: “discourse analysis was the net that enabled me to sort through, separate, deconstruct and reconstruct this shifting surface and seek out art that was transformative” (p. 45). While my study is not interested in exploring subjectivities or personal lived experiences, the importance of this piece is the application of poststructuralism as her conceptual framework for analysing texts, through discourse analysis. That is, the way in which Elsden-Clifton engages with both the text and discourse as her ‘data’ to challenge and refine traditional and stereotypical assumptions of subjectivity and art by tracing: discourses that were being circulated in the classroom; dominant discourses that were most privileged and valued; discourses that were silenced; and, the ways students resisted and challenged dominant narratives in their art (p. 45), resonates with my investigation.
Further to her discussion of students’ exploration of their subjectivity in art and the transformative potential of art education, Elsden-Clifton (2005b) examines the politics of space. In the same way I critique the institutional mechanisms that normalise discourse practices in art education (detailed in Chapter Three), Elsden-Clifton questions configurations of power hierarchies and the traditional structures that monitor, control, and regulate students’ and teachers’ bodies in schooling spaces. While the political nature of space as highlighted by Foucault (1977) is acknowledged, Elsden-Clifton presents a narrow interpretation of poststructural theories of space. The value of this inquiry resides in Elsden Clifton’s application once again of the poststructural tool of discourse analysis to critique her interviews with art teachers. Discourse analysis is utilised to determine some of the influences of space within arts education. She argues that space influences the pedagogical methods employed by art teachers, the hierarchal positioning of the arts in schools and, its marginal status within broader educational discourses. In doing so, space is positioned as interconnected with language, bodies and power structures.
30 Studies other than those in art education are also significant to the context of this study: theorists who have come to see the potential of Foucault’s work for discursive analyses of data in education (Halbert, 2006; Simola, 1992; McBride, 1989; Ninnes, 2001). The following studies, while very different from one another, all apply Foucault’s archaeological method as a form of discourse analysis to broader educational, notably syllabus, issues.
Halbert’s (2006) work is of particular interest due to her poststucturalist discourse analysis of a syllabus text. An archeological reading and discourse analysis of the 2004 Queensland Senior Modern History syllabus is presented. The specific focus of this study is on examining the ways in which ‘nation’ and ‘citizen’ are valued and used in the syllabus. In doing this, Halbert highlights how students are discursively positioned. Foucault’s concepts of technologies of the self and subjectification are used “as a framework for arguing the significance of positioning students of history ambivalently as subjects of a global society as well as citizens of a nation” (p. 1). According to Halbert, the stamina with which the position of citizen has persisted and the presence of nation retreated reveals a shift in educational thinking. Halbert addresses an important point regarding the boundaries within which she has worked as a researcher:
I do not comment on the document’s production, the possible outcomes and effects or the many outside factors that would influence implementation in schools such as teacher’s engagement with the curriculum, and the background experiences of families and students. Social changes will also shape the interpretation of the document … (p. 3).
The syllabus is read for its discursive formation. That is, the objects, concepts and statements that constitute the social world, including the nation and the citizen. In addition, the multiple discourses that construct the student as a social subject are analysed.
Extensively drawing on Foucault in her critique of how particular citizenship characteristics position subjects in the syllabus, Halbert’s reading is instructive in the way it identifies the various attributes that are specified as desirable for students in the syllabus; the frequency and repetition of words; the associations made by the proximity of other words; the use of terms; and the textual features including metaphor and imagery which impact on how societies and students are viewed. My study significantly extends Halbert’s contribution by offering an examination of the production of the syllabus document.
The various themes (areas/topics proposed for study) employed in the syllabus are also examined by Halbert using Foucault’s theory of normalisation. Halbert argues that the new syllabus “transforms notions of the citizen as a national subject” (p. 8) and “constitutes the
31 ‘social subject’ with self-governance and desirable moral qualities” (p. 9). This archaeological inquiry proceeds with an analysis of the range of social settings to which the subject belongs as represented in the rationale, aims and themes of the syllabus and in doing so, positions this syllabus as more aligned with global and individual demands rather than regional and national identities.
Similarly, Simola (1992) utilises Foucauldian archeology to investigate the discursive change of ‘popular’ teaching at the politico-administrative level using the reports of Finnish government committees from 1922 to 1991 as data. ‘Popular’ refers to “the teachers who teach the whole age group of pupils” (p. 1). Simola formulates the question of this study:
How has the serious and authoritative conception of teaching changed in government committee reports during the years of educational reforms? Or in other words: How the “truth” of teaching in one period changes to another “truth” in the next period? And as important as what has changed, is the question of what has not changed (p. 1).
For the purposes of my investigation Simola’s work is insightful in terms of his treatment of the material. The reports of government committees on teacher education as well as official texts including curriculum documents and committee reports on comprehensive school reform are analysed for the discursive themes they form and the transformations and continuities in them. Simola’s study is “based on the careful and systematic notes made during two close-readings of teacher education committee texts, consisting of 2000 pages” (p. 9).
The authority of the committees, according to Simola, is not limited to the politico- administrative domain. Membership on the committee includes experts of educational science and teacher education: “the texts of the committees are also serious verbal acts of experts who speak as experts” (p. 4). Simola argues that despite the committee reports appearing as the “general will”:
the consensus is only apparent because the leading role in committees on teacher education has always been in the hands of state school officials and representatives of educational science/teacher education, while teachers and politicians (as representative of parents) have rarely been members of those committees (p. 3).
Despite the Finnish government committee reports not possessing any formal legislative power, Simola points out that they have been taken as administrative orders due to their prescriptive character. These curriculum documents “contain exact plans where the schedules, goals and
32 contents of studies are explicitly stated” (Simola, 1992, p. 3). Government committees have been required to formulate legislative proposals for teacher education on different occasions: “the reports deal with a whole scale of prescriptions, proposals and instructions for organisation and procedures of teacher training” (p. 3).
Simola argues that a curriculum document should be valued for more than just its pedagogical function in three ways. Firstly, the need to justify the value of its vision, utopia or scenario to key groups; secondly, despite teachers’ tendency to internalise this utopian rhetoric as part of their professional identity, they simultaneously view reform itself as unrealistic; and finally, as an authoritative text, curriculum documents define what is ‘right’ in terms of what and how one is to speak to be considered a serious expert in the field of teacher education.
My study incorporates Simola’s valuation of curriculum documents and meeting minutes. It too argues that they form authoritative discourses that exercise particular types of power. Simola’s research is presented in two phases. Firstly, the discursive themes in the text material are traced. Referencing Foucault, Simola asserts, “every continuity, rupture, transformation etc. in a theme traced in description shall be clearly and exactly argued with citations and explanations so that the reader is able to follow and question the logic of every single conclusion made in this phase of analysis” (pp. 8-9). In the second phase, “interpretative detection” (p. 8) is used to examine the transformations and continuities found in the discursive themes and the discursive principles of those changes. Simola analyses the rules or discursive principles of the committee discourse on education that help to explain certain changes in that discourse. For example, the transformation from ethics as aims in the 1960s to goal rationalisation in the 1970s and early 1980s, amongst others. Other external elements in his analysis of the principles of discourse are taken into consideration including scientific theories, non-discursive practices, statistical facts, related discourses, interest of agents, and the experiences of other countries. Foucault’s forms of power, knowledge and subjectivity are used to interpret the two discursive principles formulated by Simola, based on the transformations and continuities found in the discursive themes of the official curriculum documents of Finnish educational discourse.
McBride (1989) provides an account of the discursive formation of mathematics and its implications for teaching and learning. Foucault is utilised to identify the construction of this subject and his theories of power and knowledge as they function to create and support discursive formations. In describing four discursive practices of mathematics: textbooks, teaching methods or styles, examination processes, and the use of space in a classroom, McBride’s central concern is the subjects’ promotion of a certain gender orientation. It is McBride’s aim to “bring out features implicit in the teaching of mathematics that continually
33 support and perpetuate a dominant discourse of “truth” in the world of mathematics that reflects a male perspective on the world” (p. 40). The data for this study of the various components of mathematics discourse is based on McBride’s observations from her own experiences as a teacher of the subject.
Noteworthy is McBride’s clear demonstration of how the discursive practices of a subject are governed by certain rules that determine the possibilities and limitations for the content of a discourse. As she argues: “Within the classroom, we use a shared set of rules as criteria for what can be discussed. Rules, for example, determine what is not a part of the body of discourse or knowledge in math classes – what is not spoken about” (p. 44). Rules determine the vocabulary that must be used in stating the ‘truth’ as well as producing particular kinds of roles for individuals. Textbooks constitute a discursive practice of mathematics according to McBride “that regulates the concepts that are taught and the order in which they are taught” (p. 42). McBride argues that the historical anecdotes and cartoons, the word choice, images, and the comments made in texts all contribute to a masculine discourse of mathematics. Cherryholmes (1988) also references Foucault’s analysis in his examination of textbooks and meaning. Like McBride, Cherryholmes argues that the rules of discourse such as those found in textbooks reflect a particular ideology and represent the values of the dominant group in society. Such texts can be considered agents of normalisation. Textbooks are tailored to embody professional and societal norms and implicitly present meanings as fixed and stable.
Teaching methods is the second discursive practice identified by McBride that privileges males due to the lack of commitment or time dedicated to the sharing of opinions and ideas that integrate students’ outside interests with learning math concepts. Teachers act as the expert, controlled, “organised translators of knowledge and students neatly follow procedures of the textbooks” (p. 45). Examinations are another discursive practice examined by McBride that reflect “a masculine cognitive style of disconnectedness for testing students” (p. 44). Finally, the fourth discursive practice is the use of space within math classrooms. The learning environment of math classrooms according to McBride does not “foster creativity or cooperative problem- solving strategies” (p. 44) but rather enforces a feeling of alienation and isolation. The image portrayed is “that of the male mathematician sitting alone as his desk “doing mathematics” (p. 44). McBride argues that what is absent from the teaching of mathematics is freedom of discussion, choice, and expression among students about mathematics which would lead to discovering processes that give correct solutions. Instead, the rules produce and privilege a masculine discourse that results in uneven power relations in the classroom between the authoritarian teacher and the passive student. This results in the normalisation of the subject. The value of this work to my own is the way discourse, knowledge and idea formation are
34 shown to be regulated by forces that maintain power structures. McBride advocates: “a change in power networks would result in new forms of knowledge and discourse within classes – a discourse that takes into account the experiences and needs of women who study mathematics and who teach it” (p. 45).
Ninnes (2001) also considers poststructural theory, notably critical discourse analysis, as relevant to the examination of curriculum documents and texts. Prior to Ninnes’ (2004) study discussed in the previous section, Ninnes’ (2001) focus was on the representation of cultural diversity found in science textbooks. Like Gooding-Brown’s (1997), Simola’s (1992) and McBride’s (1989) interest in texts and their constitution of discursive practices, Ninnes (2001) examines the representation of “powerful and less powerful groups’ ways of knowing in the world” (p. 82) in science textbooks. According to Ninnes, “students are not provided with critical tools to examine current scientific knowledges or to question the assumptions about the superiority of scientific knowledges presented in the texts” (p. 91).
Ninnes’s presents a Foucauldian archaeology of ways of knowing as found in five sets of junior secondary science texts used in Australian schools. The data comprises an “archive of statements about ways of knowing extracted from the texts and an analysis of the implications of these statements regarding the nature of what is and is not said about knowledge and ways of knowing” (Ninnes, 2001, p. 83). Every page of each textbook was read and scanned for these statements. The contribution of this work resides in Ninne’s examination of the range of techniques by which the texts have attempted to disrupt the domination of scientific discourse and incorporate diverse knowledge perspectives into the junior secondary science texts. Ninnes is concerned with deciphering if these alternative ways of knowing are appropriations of others’ knowledge, which in turn maintains “the dominance of scientific epistemology”, or whether they mount an “inclusive or counter-hegemonic discourse around ways of knowing the world” (p. 83) that is ‘non-scientific’. While school textbooks form an important resource for teachers and students, I consider the representation and dissemination of knowledge in textbooks to be narrow in its scope. In support of McBride’s (1989) and Cherryholme’s (1988) interpretations of textbooks discussed above, I contend that textbooks act to popularise information that is generated by authors who position themselves as experts. They support the construction of knowledge through techniques such as explanation, argumentation and persuasion. While textbooks do not necessarily govern, they shape the ways a discipline is taught in that they detail the sequencing and means for teaching and learning concepts. My investigation extends the depth of material considered in this study and places importance on not only the discourse located in the ‘text’ but also the conditions that facilitated the existence of particular discourses and legitimated them as ‘truth’ within the official curriculum texts.
35 1.2.3 Foucault, Governmentality and Education
In this section I extend my review of selected studies that have provided valuable theoretical frameworks and applications that have informed my research. In conducting an analysis of the archive and text as data, these studies show how Foucault’s conceptual tools of governmentality, specifically the relation between power and knowledge, can be located in educational discourse.
In art education, Weate (1998) shows how discourses of governmentality are practices of power/knowledge in the curriculum. Weate is not interested in the specificity of materials and content but rather the conditions or field of practice for visual arts curriculum. Aspects of this field are the series of curriculum policy discourses: “the slow ‘mundane’ concretion of political rationalities of governmentality” (p. 6), that ‘structured the possible field of action’ in visual arts education.
With consideration of Foucault’s work on governmentality, I am interested in the way Weate (1998) investigates curriculum discourses as they appear in Securing Their Future, a White Paper for HSC curriculum reform in NSW. Weate sets out the relations between art education and the curriculum authority as five modalities of governmentality: ‘Apparatuses of Security’; ‘The exemplary governmental subject: the Teacher’; ‘Omnes et singulatim’; ‘Government at a distance’; ‘The Dangerous Individual’. Under the first modality, ‘Apparatuses of Security’, Weate asserts that the use of both ‘secure’ and ‘future’ in the title of this paper on curriculum reform exemplifies Foucauldian governmentality with its “positive associations of certainty, trust and safety” and locates education as “responsible for the security and prosperity of economic futures” (p. 8). A link between discourse and the production of ‘normal’ functioning social subjects is here identified. The second modality investigates the role of the teacher as an absent presence throughout this curriculum discourse. Weate argues:
on the one hand the teacher is the unspoken source of subject and course diversification, low standards, lack of rigour and a deficient and opaque marking and reporting system. … On the other hand, the teacher is to be the agency of the prescribed pedagogic practices of assessment, subject rigour and standards (1998, p. 9).
These contradictions in the roles and responsibilities of the teacher are surmised from the seven references to ‘teachers’ and three references to ‘teaching’ in this text. Weate contends that the teacher’s knowledge is marginalised and replaced by the role of the overseer, ensuring the precision of the system. In contrast, ‘the Government’ is referred to one hundred and twenty-
36 eight times “always as active, concerned, decisive and in control” (p. 9). Under the third modality, Weate argues that the ‘examination’, with its capacity to measure, classify, and divide populations along any number or normalising criteria, is a technology of governmentality. The population must constantly be reported upon in terms of their individuality (singulatim) and their sameness (omnes) to confidently ensure the stability of the state. According to Weate, discourses of standard, rigour and accountability evidenced in Securing Their Future confer authority on the examination and assessment. The incorporation of performance scales that apply a standards assessment model to the population is a governmental rationality simultaneously about individualising and totalising. The curriculum becomes from this point of view a classificatory and organisational device whereby common norms are expected and reproduced. In a later paper, Weate (2000a) continues to problematise the use of standards as they are applied in discursive practices of art education, assessment, evaluation and examination. She argues, “standards, as a discourse of evaluation will not guarantee improved student performance and have limited use in art education” (2000a, p. 2). As a discourse of control whereby common norms are expected and reproduced they are a dividing practice (Foucault, 1982, p. 208) according to Weate rather than a positive contribution to the field. Foucault argues that dividing practices are modes of objectification whereby a segment of the population is identified, categorised and excluded. Ball (1990a) defines this practice in education:
The use of testing, examining, profiling, and streaming in education, the use of entry criteria for different types of schooling, and the formation of different types of intelligence, ability and scholastic identity in the processes of schooling are all examples of such ‘dividing practices’ (p. 4).
Such dividing practices in schooling as the examination and testing techniques, are a technology of government that operate in calculated ways upon the forces, activities and relations of individuals, in this instance students. These forms of disciplinary power facilitate control over the population as individuals are hierarchised and normalised according to specified criteria. Weate (1998) observes that this form of power is exercised over teachers through particular channels such as timetables, a timeline, and models for consultation. This governing at a distance, presented as the fourth modality, “produces individual subjects in a constant state of readiness to review, evaluate, consult, respond, and implement the curriculum” (p. 11). The ‘Implementation Timeline for the New Higher School Certificate and the Reformed School Certificate’ included in Securing Their Future is an instrument of governmentality with its detailed control over the conduct of curriculum. Meeting the deadline becomes the
37 power/knowledge of governing at a distance with its capacity to produce curriculum change. Finally, Weate argues that risk is a calculative rationality of curriculum discourse:
students may be at risk to themselves, by not seeking demanding, rigorous subjects and courses, or a social risk economically through unemployment, in turn not contributing to the market as consumer, and a political risk by not adopting the normalising social contract (p. 12).
Weate is intrigued by a small, two paragraph entry in the text called ‘Concern for Students’ that acknowledges the stress and pressures of HSC study that in turn can be constructive and contribute to a student’s sense of achievement. Securing Their Future is positioned as removing the risk and providing students with the security they require. This work is of relevance as it shows how Foucauldian theory of governmentality offers an alternative reading and understanding of the concept of power/knowledge that produce the field of practice that is curriculum. The application of these methods and interpretations can advance the interests and practices of art education.
With consideration of Foucault’s theories of examination, discipline and governmentality, Weate (2000b) furthers her investigation into the disciplinary power and authority of the NSW examination system of the HSC, notably in Visual Arts. The power/knowledge of the examination resides in its regulating effect that is used to control students with its normalising judgement. Normalisation occurs through comparison and self discipline such that individual actions are observed, documented, recorded and fixed along multiple measures. Weate’s re- reading of the curriculum doctrine of disciplinarity shows how the field of art education confers status and privilege on the examination rather than its rejection: “examination is the author/authority for NSW visual arts curriculum” (p. 1). The most desired object in art educational practice – the annual ARTEXPRESS exhibition, exemplifies this authority. During the production of this object for examination, the subject or student is constantly under observation. Each artwork submitted for examination is ranked, compared and differentiated “as a unique, individual instance of a common or agreed type of object” (p. 15). Like Weate’s (1998) third modality, the population is once again referenced and in this instance, the student and their artwork are reported upon and examined in terms of their individuality (singulatim) and their sameness (omnes). As a classificatory and organisational device whereby common norms are expected and reproduced, the examination involves incessant writing and recording to produce knowledge of the population. The value of Weate’s critique of these rituals of the examination, with its controlling, coercing and normalising qualities, is to show the power and authority of the examination to produce, select and circulate curriculum discourses.
38 Like Weate, Meadmore (1993, 1997) is interested in the examination process. Meadmore’s (1993) discourse analysis of standardised academic and psychological testing in Queensland, Australia is indicative for my study as it provides a genealogy of the exercise of disciplinary power in schooling as a technology of government. I am interested in the way Meadmore’s study of these two dividing practices, which combine hierarchical observation and normalising judgement, documents the individualising effect of examination procedures: “the pertinence of individualism to education is that the liberal, progressive rhetoric of schooling heralds individualism as being central to desirable pedagogy” (p. 61). The ways in which the State Scholarship Examination was used as a disciplinary technology of government by which a child had to earn their place meritoriously is considered: “the percentage one gained in this examination became to be seen as a measure of one’s intelligence and was central to the formation of one’s scholastic identity” (Meadmore, 1993, p. 65). By affording a numerical ‘objective’ judgement on the student, the power of this dividing practice resided in its ability to hierarchise, classify and exclude which in turn was crucial to the individuating process. Individuals were variously rewarded depending on their success and those who did not gain a Scholarship were punished in the form of decreased opportunity and a sense of personal failure.
The second dividing practice discussed by Meadmore, involving psychological testing to determine levels of intelligence, produces and regulates difference within, between and among students. Meadmore (1997) furthers her discussion of standardised tests for selection and placement purposes and provides a discourse analysis of the Student Performance Standards policy. Meadmore provides a useful analysis of official policy texts as well as popular discourse in the form of newspaper reports as data. The Student Performance Standards policy was announced in 1992 as the new statewide system of testing students’ levels of knowledge and understanding in various subjects against ‘educational benchmarks’. It is argued that the conceptualisation of this policy in the discourse of competency-based education meant that ‘progressiveness’ was an inherent and subsequently desirable attribute of this policy. Meadmore demonstrates how “the particular use of language and vocabulary is critical to a program’s success” (p. 623).
The language of testing is associated with optimism in the administration of education in this policy with an emphasis on gains for the individual. This association with the discourse of individualism in turn secures acceptance of this policy. Despite the use of ‘progressive language’ Meadmore contends that “the ‘benchmarks’ are nonetheless designed to locate the child in a normative field based on ‘objective comparison” (p. 624). Profiling, in which each individual becomes a ‘case’, is a normative and governmental technology whereby comparisons of students are made in specific and calculated ways: “the student is the subject and object of
39 the discourses of educational management, knowable and therefore treatable in administrative terms” (p. 626). Meadmore’s discursive analysis of this policy demonstrates an expression of governmentality that positions centralised testing as both desirable and necessary to educational outcomes. Government manages the education system by using this technology of educational assessment. In doing so, standardised practices are the power/knowledge that assist the government in accomplishing certain social and political goals.
Another application of Foucauldian theory in analysing disciplinary formation is found in the work of Fitzgerald (1996) who examines the conditions that made it possible for the category of literature to emerge as a central component of English studies in America between 1885 and 1895. Using a series of meetings of school/college organisations as her data, Fitzgerald analyses the articulation between institutions of secondary and higher education and argues that the legitimation of literature in the English curriculum “was the contingent outcome of local material and discursive practices at work within and between institutional sites in conditions of asymmetrical power relations” (p. 437). In these meeting minutes of professors and teachers, the value of literature emerges in its contribution to the process of perfecting the technology of testing for college admission. Fitzgerald demonstrates how the English examination of the time was inoperable as a regulating technology as “the colleges had implemented an examination before the “discipline” had reached consensus over what constituted its subject matter” (p. 449). As it was the role the professors to ensure the proper and rational functioning of the system, the examination was taken seriously. The complaints about the arbitrariness, ambiguity and unpredictability of the early English examinations by this dominant group are evident in the record. By the end of the decade in focus, literature, specified as two selected reading lists, had become the subject matter of the discipline to be tested. Students were required to display their knowledge of these privileged texts for college entrance examinations. The construction and regularisation of the entrance examination meant that students became objects of the institutions ‘normalising gaze’ who could now be classified and their societal placement documented. My interest in this work resides in her analysis of the formation of the discipline and its members’ subjectivities as it illuminated one site where members of a population were able to negotiate and ameliorate their own conditions and in turn, shape the content of their discipline within circumscribed boundaries. Examining the interrelationships of school/college organisations in the record reveals the technologies of power to be both oppressive and productive. For Fitzgerald “the systematising power exercised through the technology of the examination produced the substance of the school subject” (p. 450).
Honan’s (2002) use of the conceptual tool ‘governmentality’ is of value in the way she reveals how school policy text works to govern and regulate teachers’ practices. This is achieved
40 through analysis of the contradictions inherent in the discursive systems operating within the texts of the Queensland English syllabus. The English syllabus is a governing mechanism that constructs a ‘double’ subject according to Honan “who must, necessarily at one and the same time, be master of certain literacy practices, and submit to these practices” (p. 1). The construction of the ideal literate citizen within the texts of the syllabus is traced and it is argued “the autonomy of these citizens is however limited and proscribed by the choices made for, and about them, through a range of government regulations and techniques” (p. 2). The syllabus texts work to construct a subject according to Honan who is the master of particular literacy practices located within the ‘functional linguistic and genre’ discourse. Within this discourse, these literacy practices empower individuals with the knowledge to produce an effective society. The mastery/subjection of the individual child who is made visible through the texts’ emphasis on their choice about language use is considered. Honan argues that in order to be constructed as a successful subject, the individuals’ choice about language is determined by the social and cultural circumstances in which they find themselves. Control of language choices becomes a form of governmentality according to Honan that is achieved “through an explanation of the innate humanist need to belong to society” (p. 5). The child is therefore “impelled to make the correct language choices, through some inner need, and this inner need is controlled through the necessity to be correct in others’ eyes” (p. 5). The role of teachers is also presented as contradictory in the syllabus texts. On the one hand the teacher is to explicitly impart certain knowledges, while on the other, the child’s capacity to individually create meaning is encouraged. Honan considers this as another expression of the paradox of the simultaneously mastering/submitting subject as a technology of control.
Similarly, Ball (1993) is interested in the ways in which the teacher is positioned and constructed within educational policies in the United Kingdom. He examines the “overdetermined and over-regulated situation of schoolteachers’ work and the matrix of power relations in which they are enmeshed” (p. 106). The central concern of this work is with the curriculum, the market and management, and the implications these three different forms of control have on the meaning and purpose of teaching. Akin to Weate (1998), Ball considers the teacher an absent presence in the discourses of education policy. Teachers’ professional autonomy and judgement are constrained by the standardising and normalising practices of the curriculum within the classroom: “there is little discursive space in all this for anything except acquiescence or silent dissent” (Ball, 1993, p. 108). Ball argues that managerial power and market forces have replaced local authority bureaucracy and in doing so, the value context in which teachers are working is altered. The introduction of market forces into school relations organises and disciplines education resulting in parents (consumer) rather than the producer (teacher) assuming control via open-enrolments, parental choice and per-capita funding. Value
41 changes within this market setting encourages individualistic, competitive activity according to Ball by the use of performance indicators and tests that satisfy the consumer. Control is exercised over teachers by parental choice and competition as well as the role of management. Management is a disciplinary practice according to Ball that is productive rather than coercive: “it increases the power of individuals – managers and managed in some respects – while at the same time making them more docile” (p. 112). This discursive trick of management promotes individual accountability oriented towards performativity rather than coercive/prescriptive control of teachers. Management is a “polyvalent discourse. It both liberates and enslaves. It empowers and subjects” (p. 114). Despite this articulation of self-regulation, teachers are objects captured within the microtechnology of managerial control in this process of reform.
Baildon’s (2008) study is also a feature of this research’s context as he draws upon Foucault’s metaphor of the panopticon and its disciplinary powers as part of his examination of the Professional Growth and Development Handbook (2004) used in an international school in East Asia. He examines this data driven teacher evaluation model that relies on 360-degree feedback from various sources including students, parents, colleagues and administrators to guide professional development in the form of survey questionnaires. Teachers are ceaselessly observed and evaluated within and outside the classroom using this evaluation system. The framework underlying this system is one of accountability as teacher learning is regulated, sorted, documented, examined and inspected. Baildon observes, “possible antagonisms or resistance to the system’s various elements and requirements” (p. 141) are subsequently managed by these standards and benchmarks.
Baildon investigates how this 360-degree approach to evaluation creates a system of surveillance that shifts the control for professional learning from the teacher to a set of disciplinary techniques. The three Foucauldian concepts applied to this investigation of the disciplinary power of panoptic surveillance are a useful model for my study. They are: the notion of discourse or “discursive formations”; normalising judgement; and technologies of the self through which individuals monitor their own behaviour through disciplinary technologies of self-regulation. These three concepts are used to conduct a textual analysis of the handbook in a similar way to how I critique the disciplinary effects of the discursive relations, technologies, and practices of the archive in my investigation. I consider the questions of this study, outlined below, helpful in guiding my examination, under the framework ‘governmentality’:
x What goals, procedures, and approaches does the Handbook outline that constitute disciplinary technologies?
42 x What are the discourse, rationalities, and relations of power suggested by the Handbook? x What contexts help us to understand the Handbook as a text? (p. 130).
The mission statement, background and rationale, the fifteen teaching standards implemented by the school, and a description of the operational procedures and protocols “designed to ensure maximum efficiency, accountability, and rehabilitation” (p. 139), are examined by Baildon as part of his analysis of the techniques, practices and discourses of the professional growth and evaluation system outlined in the handbook. The ‘15 Teaching Standards’ fall within four performance areas: effective planning and preparation; productive teaching; learning environment; and learning community responsibilities. Teachers are evaluated according to these general performance categories that are to be used for self-reflection, professional growth, and evaluation however Baildon considers that “in many cases these professional growth goals are secondary to the needs and requirements of the organisation … While it undoubtedly tries to strike a balance … the overarching priorities of the system are paramount” (p. 134).
The predominant goals of continuous improvement that are stated throughout the handbook “provokes a certain anxiety due to the awareness that there are certain norms and standards according to which one is judged at the same time one is expected to exceed these standards and continue to grow in ways that are supposedly continually observed and monitored” (Baildon, 2008, p. 135). The effect of this form of disciplinary power is that teachers are continually striving for continuous improvement against these innumerable norms and standards. The handbook clearly delineates each step in the assessment process using very detailed diagrams and charts including a checklist of steps a new teacher must follow. Teachers are required to develop their own professional growth in consistency with the teaching standards and data collected about their teaching performance.
Also innovative in this field of research is Heyning’s (2001) analysis of the relationship between the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the governing agency for state-initiated reforms in teacher education. Data for this inquiry included faculty meeting minutes and departmental memos within the elementary education area of the teacher education program across a ten-year period. Similarly to my study, Foucault’s concept of governmentality is utilised as the theoretical framework of this investigation into the power relationships and historical constructions within the institution. Heyning also employs an archaeological approach to her examination of the formal minutes from department meetings of the University. The statements made in these ‘artifacts’ are read for their discursive formations that are subject to specific rules
43 as part of a governing practice of teacher education reform: the political rationalities and technologies of rule in the text.
This investigation of political rationalities focuses on the ensemble of rules and procedures that determines a domain of subjects. There are two ways, according to Heyning, to examine the text in relation to the political rationalities of governmentality. Firstly, “rule or action is based on some kind of ideal or principle” (p. 293). Heyning provides examples of the language used for the principles positioned in the text and the actions taken. Second, “the epistemological or moral character of rationality embodies some conception of the person over whom government is exercised” (p. 293). This entails an understanding of the nature of the subjects being governed. It is through technologies that the political rationalities become deployable. Heyning is interested in the ways the state and university use power in relation to each other.
In studying the relationship between the university and the state, Heyning traces several political technologies of government in the text and how they enable the management of populations. The faculty documentation is a form of political technology by which the faculty disciplines itself. The documentation is also a form of surveillance that allows the State to observe and monitor the university as a subject or docile body. Surveillance and observation of the population as individuals becomes important according to Heyning as it enables disciplinary power to be become part of the system. Drawing upon Foucault, Heyning argues, the program review (examination) “served to “objectify” the university faculty by making them an individual body to be acted upon through additional forms of documentation and surveillance” (pp. 302-3).
Heyning also read the text for the political technology of resistance. The minutes reveal forms of resistance, according to Heyning, through noncompliance, to the various types of documentation required by the state. She is interested in this resistance as part of the power relations circulating in the university. For Foucault, “resistance is never in a position of exteriority in relation to power” (Foucault, 1978, p. 95). The very existence of power is seen in relying upon a multiplicity of points of resistance which play the role of adversary, target, support, or handle within power relationships. Despite the faculty’s resistance to the technology of documentation, the act of compliance also made the ruling power possible. The faculty “disciplined” itself and the program through an increase in documentation that was “passed on” to students. Students were required to document their work in the community and submit it for approval and verification to complete the program. This was a state rather than a university requirement. Heyning argues, “while the state requirement appears totalising, it is at the same time individualising in that every student must document his or her human relations work, thereby becoming more visible and known” (p. 304). The individual becomes part of a society
44 or population to be governed. ‘Regulatory categories’ and ‘classificatory norms’ defined the specific type of person students were to work with, for example, ethnic minorities. Heyning further identifies this technology of regulation in the discourses of psychology and child welfare in the texts. The use of psychological language and descriptions of children results in the subjectification of individuals according to a populational norm. Families also become governed by the emphasis in the text of parental involvement in the child’s welfare: “The technologies visible in the text enable a way of viewing children psychologically in an effort to produce a well-adjusted generation. It is through the promotion of such subjectivities that the population at large is governed” (p. 307).
Heyning’s use of Foucauldian governmentality to frame her investigation of the university/state relationship in teacher education reform and change and her specific focus on resistance is prominent amongst the literature. The archaeological approach used to examine the texts as a form of discourse is also of relevance. Both these Foucauldian concepts help to expose the power dynamics and complexities of teacher education reform in the university in the same way I examine the discursive fields in art education within which the exercise of power is conceptualised.
1.2.4 Summary
The literature reviewed above all applies Foucauldian concepts and perspectives as tools with which to analyse contemporary educational curriculum reforms. These studies, while all very different from one another, have in common theoretical frameworks that shift the debate in education away from neo Marxist critique by incorporating poststructuralism as part of their approach. These studies all position education, notably the syllabus, as constituted by and within a range of discourses. The genealogical studies of the formation and history of curricula examined under the first subheading produce new ways of seeing and thinking about discursive practices within the field of education that is instructive. The literature reviewed under the second subheading all applies Foucault’s archaeology as the methodological framework in their discursive analyses of data. Noteworthy is how each study is directed toward the individuation and description of discursive formations in their respective subject area. Finally, Foucault’s concept of power is important in this study, as it is useful in explaining the ways in which school subjects operate in relation to their controlling authorities and governments. In the last section I concentrated on examining how the operations of governmentality can be read in curricula documents. This review of educational literature was undertaken as it not only ‘maps’ relevant research in the field, but also because it provides discursive and conceptual tools that are used as models for this study.
45 1.3 The Archival Records and Policy Documents of Curriculum Instrumentalities
For this inquiry, the objects of interest are archival records and policy documents of curriculum instrumentalities, in particular, two NSW’ senior visual arts matriculation syllabuses: designated by the shorthand of their publication date: the 1987 and the 1999 syllabuses. These syllabuses are used, in conjunction with other curriculum documents, to guide the teaching and learning of the Visual Arts in preparation for the HSC. These two syllabus documents have been selected as each claims to innovate a new curriculum object: the Focus Areas and the Frames. I have not attempted to undertake an exhaustive study of the history of the Visual Arts as a subject within the school curriculum. As outlined earlier in this chapter, the essential feature of Foucault’s notion of history is genealogy, which does not mean “writing history of the past in terms of the present” but rather it “means writing the history of the present” (Foucault, 1977, p. 31). This genealogical study is concerned with what constitutes knowledge in art education in these two syllabus documents and by what processes did they come to be. The two syllabus texts provide traces of the contradictory and contested processes of curriculum construction, despite the impression of settlement or consensus that these authorised curriculum documents impart.
Derived from Foucault’s mode of inquiry, the model for this study determined the method for data collection and the way in which I treated curriculum and ancillary material as discourse and text. The State Records of NSW, Western Sydney Reading Room, Kingswood, is the repository for all official business of the State. These data are arranged sequentially in storage boxes according to the respective boards of studies as shown in Figure 1:
Board of Senior School Studies (November 1961 – June 1987)
Board of Secondary Education (August 1987 – June 1990)
First Board of Studies (June 1990 - July 1994)
Second Board of Studies (August 1994 – 1998)
Figure 1. New South Wales’ Secondary School Education Boards
46 Access to some of this material, such as syllabus committee minutes, the working notes, consultation drafts, reports and correspondence, is subject to authorisation, regulating and disciplining its use4. As such, the completeness of the record depends upon the accuracy of the archive. In undertaking this study, I acknowledge that as a doctoral candidate in the School of Art History and Art Education, COFA, UNSW, I occupied a position that also enabled access to other privileged materials, not accessible to the public domain, through two members of the Visual Arts Syllabus Committee, Kerry Thomas and Amanda Weate.5 As previous members of the committee, Thomas and Weate have the power to voluntarily distribute this material to others at their discretion.
In assembling the archive, the sources of data in this genealogical investigation include: Art Syllabus Committee meeting minutes; the working notes, memorandums and other ephemera recording the activities of sub-committees, working parties and conferences of the discipline; syllabus documents; selected publications of State and Federal Governments located principally through libraries; and, literature on curriculum reform. The documents used as data sources in this inquiry are cited throughout the thesis by date and have been tabled, including the relevant material I believe accompanies that meeting (Appendix A). All documentary evidence, pertaining to each Art Syllabus Committee meeting between 1976 and 1999, has been reviewed (Appendix B).
Utilising Foucault to direct the collection and interpretation of the archive demanded a systematic reading of the documents, what Foucault termed as the “gray, meticulous, and patiently documentary” (Foucault, 1971 in Rabinow, 1984, p. 76). Foucault demands:
the researcher not simply seek to describe the dominant discourses of [Visual Arts] education in any historical period but to ask new questions about how the discourses came to be and to examine the patterns of ‘force’ that make possible particular thoughts and actions (Quin, 2003, p. 103).
As outlined earlier in this chapter, the use of this material as archival text is taken from Foucault’s concept of archaeology. Rather than study the “arche”, or origin, archaeology examines the “archive”, to look for the “systems that establish statements as events (with their
4 Permission to view and copy this material, as well as the meeting minutes of the BOS from 1990 held at the Office of the BOS, was gained in the form of three letters of authority from Andrew Goodyear, Chief Project Officer, Office of the BOS NSW for John Bennett, General Manager, dated the 17th October, 2002, 17th May, 2004, and the 8th June, 2004. 5 Amanda Weate, my first supervisor, was former Head, School of Art Education, COFA, UNSW. Dr Kerry Thomas is currently a Senior Lecturer, School of Art History and Art Education, COFA, UNSW.
47 own conditions and domain of appearance) and things (with their own possibility and field of use)” (Foucault, 1972, p. 128). The archive is the system that makes the emergence of statements possible. I located and subsequently “treated the discourse not as a theme of reviving commentary, but as a monument to be described in its intrinsic configuration” (Foucault in Burchell, Gordon and Miller, 1991, p. 60). The documents or ‘monuments’ of history have been read for their discursive formations, which are subject to specific rules, in order to understand the processes and politics within the field of art education and those discourses which were selectively appropriated and recontextualised to construct the particular form and content of the official curriculum texts. In analysing the selection, transformation and relocation of discourses to create the form and content of the 1987 and 1999 matriculation syllabuses, these documents help illuminate the way in which power was exercised in sanctioning certain choices and decisions relevant to the discipline.
The interaction of syllabus and curriculum is of note. Simply put, the curriculum is the contextual policy agenda or register for the syllabus. The curriculum is the macro and the syllabus the micro agreements (Goodson, 1993, pp. 3-4). That is, a Foucauldian approach to this study provides a way of understanding the operation of curriculum at a macro-level, as part of a system, and at a micro-level, the Art Syllabus Committee, as the individual local site. Ball (1994) suggests that it is important in educational environments to “bring together structural, macro level analysis of educational systems and education policies and micro level investigation, especially that which takes account of people’s perception and experiences” (Ozga, 1990, p. 14). This context may be overt and easily configured. For example, the current imperative for outcomes is acknowledged as an organising category in all syllabuses as well as infecting the language and obligations the syllabus prescribes. On the other hand, covert, unrecognised effects may be embodied in a curriculum expressed without declaration in the syllabus. In utilising this approach, I will demonstrate how the macro (curriculum) and micro (syllabus committee) perspectives operate simultaneously.
Curriculum is viewed in this inquiry as a contradictory and disputed discursive space that serves to constitute subjects through being an element of governmental assemblages. I am particularly interested in the role of the Art Syllabus Committee in the development of syllabuses as a prime site for analysing the discourses that serve to constitute the Visual Arts. The Art Syllabus Committee is the site of discursive activity where issues, problems and solutions are defined. The syllabus committee’s record of the ‘speaker’ along with their method of engaging in the discourse allows a micro-level analysis of idea formation behind this discursive activity. As texts, the curriculum documents and commentaries are also sources of information about the debates and issues of contestation of their time. Syllabuses need to assert newness even though
48 they are almost universally unable to do that. A syllabus is hardly ever a Habermasian ideal speech act.6 The rules of syllabus discourses appear to be common and predictable. Everything must be claimed as new, essential, improved and better able to respond to perceived and imagined problems, with mistakes in the syllabus being overturned. Rather than answer from the minutes, the syllabus documents give some indication of the delimitation mobilised by each usage.
1.4 The Boundaries of this Study
The substantive analysis undertaken in this study is entirely based on text sources. The focus of this inquiry is not the enacted (lived) curriculum of human respondents or their authorial intent, but rather, the discourse of the written curriculum. In keeping with a genealogical and textual analysis, I do not pretend to represent the ‘felt’ experience of being a member of the Art Syllabus Committee. I have not held this position, nor have I attempted to interview or canvas their views. Rather, the syllabus committee meeting minutes are interwoven with the syllabus text, correspondence and memoranda, working notes, consultation drafts, examination papers and other reports and policy texts that are my data. I found the syllabus committee to be the enunciative authority most concerned with constituting the subject: advise, represent the subject, and set policy. The conclusions drawn represent only one interpretation (or ‘truth’) of the ways in which the subject Visual Arts is constructed in the selected documents. I am aware that data drawn from other sources, such as interviews with individuals involved in syllabus development and implementation within the bracketed period may produce differing perspectives of power relationships and what is considered knowledge in the visual arts curriculum.
Although Foucault insists on the monument, the remanence of the archive and libraries, the documents utilised as data are possibly limited, incomplete and often abbreviated and cryptic. Research such as this is dependent upon the existence, archiving and availability of or potential access to records. Foucault has much to say on this matter of the preservation and accumulation of the archive:
6 Jurgen Habermas is a German sociologist and philosopher in the tradition of critical theory and pragmatism. He made a major contribution to contemporary social theory was his work The Theory of Communicative Action (1984). Habermas grounds his arguments in the concept of ideal speech and the ideal speech situation. ‘Ideal’ speech refers to “a situation in which everyone would have an equal chance to argue and question, without those who are more powerful, confident, or prestigious having an unequal say. True positions would prevail under these circumstances because they are more rational” (Wallace and Wolf, 1999, p. 178).
49 The archive cannot be described in its totality; and in its presence it is unavoidable. It emerges in fragments, regions, and levels, more fully, no doubt, and with greater sharpness, the greater the time that separates us from it: at most, were it not for the rarity of the documents, the greater chronological distance would be necessary to analyse it (1972, p. 130).
In this investigation, I discovered that records had not been kept, or later destroyed, making this task harder. Little status has been attributed to the continued existence of the document. I too am constrained by the extant, traditional, orthodoxy of curriculum as conditioned by reform. The reasons for the absence of documents might be a function of curriculum practice at the time whereby these activities were not deemed worthy of preserving or archiving. Perhaps curriculum was imagined to reveal its decisions and meanings in the actual syllabus document, which appeared in varied draft editions.
Further to the doubtful availability of the material record is the uncertain transgression of language and authorship. Heyning (2001) cautions:
Examining the faculty meeting minutes and memos as “discourse” presents unique problems because the minutes were records of meetings that were tempered by form, objectivity and an emphasis on parliamentary procedure. They also represented the interpretations of one person (generally the note-taker) but were then circulated among all faculty for review (p. 292).
In examining the data, I consider the absence of documents an issue of power. People become founding subjects. Who is speaking, when, where and with what authority (Ball, 1990a) repeatedly becomes the cause for acceptance. Much like the ‘speaker’, the Art Syllabus Committee is defined by their function within a discourse. They are identified as a symbol of discourse ideology. Within the Art Syllabus Committee, the speaker is an authority in decision- making and their role defines the syllabus committee’s purpose and activity. From all the possible individuals who are engaged in a discourse, the speaker is given privilege. Foucault asks: “What is the status of the individuals who – alone – have the right, sanctioned by law or tradition, juridically defined or spontaneously accepted, to proffer such a discourse” (Foucault, 1972, p. 50). The speaker is an effective mechanism of influence and their importance is often derived from outside the syllabus committee, principally in their daily work/role. Additional texts produced by members of the Art Syllabus Committee may establish the individuals’ reception, processing and means of transferring ideas. Discourses that counter those of individuals and groups who have the power to influence and shape the decisions of the Art
50 Syllabus Committee are silenced and discouraged and as such do not gain sufficient credibility to be recorded in the meeting minutes.
Ball’s (1994) discussion of policy as text and discourse is also pertinent in relation to these issues. It examines shifts in meaning of policy text both as it is constructed and then as it is interpreted. Ball argues that the writing of texts is an unstable process as policy texts are rarely the work of one author but rather “the product of compromises at various stages … and products of multiple (but circumscribed) influences and agendas” (p. 16). In spite of the fact that syllabus documents are the authoritative statement as to what constitutes knowledge to be taught in the Visual Arts, they are not univocal. Working parties and subcommittees have no formal representational obligations, incomplete records and indeterminate membership. It is therefore difficult to identify the status and interests of individual writers and their contradictory expectations and demands.
Furthermore, the meanings and interpretations of policies shift in the arenas of politics as representations and key interpreters change inside the state. Despite the purpose and intentions of policies being reworked and reoriented over time, Ball (1994) argues that there is no control over how policies will be acted on or their immediate effect as problems posed by policy texts are localised. In spite of these factors, Ball maintains that the enactment of texts involves productive thought, invention and adaptation:
Policies do not normally tell you what to do, they create circumstances in which the range of options available in deciding what to do are narrowed or changed … Policies typically posit a restructuring, redistribution and disruption of power relations, so that different people can and cannot do different things (pp. 19-20).
The relationship between policy intentions, texts, interpretations and reactions is complex as policy texts enter established power relations. In his discussion of policy as discourse Ball argues that the effect of policy is primarily discursive: “We are the subjectivities, the voices, the knowledge, the power relations that a discourse constructs and allows … we are spoken by policies, we take up the positions constructed for us within policies” (p. 22). Policy ensembles are the ‘regimes’ of truth through which people govern themselves and others. Education policy discourses are consequently sites of struggles and negotiations over the construction of competing, contradictory and unequal educational identities. In this study, the Art Syllabus Committee is viewed as the site where competing, overlapping and contradictory discourses worked to construct a set of possibilities for thinking about visual arts curriculum.
51 This initial chapter has detailed the methodology utilised in this study and considered its application in relevant studies from the field of art education and education more generally. It is upon these foundations that the next chapter will build an analysis of educational and curriculum structures in NSW (1976 – 1999).
52 CHAPTER TWO DEBATES AND DYNAMICS: SECONDARY SCHOOL EDUCATION AND CURRICULUM STRUCTURE IN NEW SOUTH WALES
2 Introduction
The governmental and disciplinary alignments and allegiances that provided the conditions of existence of particular discourses in art education in the 1980s and 1990s are the focus of this chapter. The institutional mechanisms that framed and regulated the flow of information and facilitated the selection and organisation of particular forms of knowledge in the visual arts curriculum are introduced and analysed. These institutional mechanisms function to attract, select, change and normalise discourse practices within education through various mechanisms of transfer and influence. I map the organisational terrain of the established structures and processes impacting upon discourses of art education by introducing the key agencies and agents involved in the development of the visual arts curriculum across the two decades. In doing so, I will show how the functions of the Art Syllabus Committee, between the periods 1976 to 1999, were managed by their governing bodies as part of the operation of governmentality. Documents emanating from the syllabus committee exemplify these principles in operation, particularly as a technology of control.
Fairclough (1989) explains the purpose and function of power and authority within institutional structures:
How discourses are structured in a given order of discourse, and how structuring changes over time, are determined by changing power relationships or power at the level of social institution or of the society. Power at these levels includes the capacity to control orders of discourse; one aspect of such control is ideological-ensuring that orders of discourse are ideologically harmonised internally or (at the societal level) with each other (p. 30).
This chapter will consider the relevant operations of institutional power in a detailed study. The primary agent under scrutiny is the Art Syllabus Committee, which acted as an arm of the Board (detailed in a later section of this chapter). The Board’s aim was to ensure that administrative and educational directions set by the government became part of the curriculum. I will evidence how external control, in the form of the Board, which was ultimately responsible to the State
53 government, tended to work punitively through coercion. Internal control worked largely through cooperation in the form of self-management.
Preceding an account of the formal arrangements of representation (the nature of the work and the personnel responsible, along the lines of report and accountability for the respective Boards and each syllabus committee), in the first section of this chapter I review studies that have theorised school subject and curriculum change. I begin my discussion with an examination of selected papers presented at the Occasional Seminar Series in Art Education. These papers are a sample of the sparse discourse on the historical development of secondary art education in NSW.
2.1 Occasional Seminar Series in Art Education
The Occasional Seminar Program was initiated in 1989 by the Head, School of Art Education, COFA, UNSW, Professor Neil Brown. This annual professional development program held at COFA and supported by the university, provided opportunities for the presentation of research by faculty members and research students in the School of Art Education, as well as invited speakers working in the field, including primary and secondary teachers and local and international scholars. COFA effectively managed the construction of art education discourse through this lecture series. The first occasional seminar began with an investigation of the theoretical and philosophical grounds of the four Focus Areas of the 1987 senior Visual Arts matriculation syllabus. This and the eleven subsequent seminars provided an ideal forum for the presentation, discussion and publication of research and debate significant to the field. In addition to being a permanent record of the particular concepts and practices of knowledge endorsed by the School of Art Education, the published seminar papers provided for the regulation and dissemination of art education discourse to the public sphere. In this way, the active role of COFA, as an institutional exercise of power that assembled and produced a history of the field, was affirmed.
Elliot (1997), McKeon (1992, 1993, 1997, 1998), Weate (1997) and Collins (2001) maintain in their occasional seminar papers that the force of external discourses rather than those idiosyncratic to the field of art education has predominantly produced curriculum change in art education. Elliot (1997)7 disputes that changes to the art curriculum in Australia, particularly within NSW, have been driven from within the field. The position adopted by Elliot is in continuity with my assertion that research within the field of art education concerning NSW is
7 This paper was presented at the COFA, Seventh Occasional Seminar in Art Education, Continuity and Change in NSW Art Education: The Reinvention of Practices and Content (21st September, 1996).
54 slight. It mostly stems, according to Elliot, from generalisations about the nature and direction of art education in Australia as a whole. Doug Boughton’s (1989) paper, The Changing Face of Australian Art Education: New Horizons or Sub-Colonial Politics? is critiqued as one example of the historical development of art education in Australia from the late nineteenth century to the late 1980s. Boughton identifies three main stages in Australian art education as: the ‘hand- eye training phase’ from the late nineteenth century to World War One that was based on the South Kensington system in Britain aimed at developing design skills in students through rigorous drawing exercises; this was followed chronologically by the ‘creativity’ period from the late 1930s to the mid-1960s based largely on the ideas of Franz Cizek and his philosophy of ‘child art’; and finally, the ‘studio-disciplined’ phase from the 1960s to 1989.
The representation of art education in Boughton’s synopsis of art education as a “unified and independent field throughout Australia to the point that change has been driven by the field” (Elliot, 1997, p. 21) is deemed by Elliot to be an inaccurate portrayal of the sequence of development of NSW secondary art education that ignores the existence of the centralised state education systems. Two of the sources from which Boughton cites his evidence for his historical commentary include Hammond (1981) and Knudson (1988). Hammond (1981) argues that art education in Australia has evolved over the past century through the three ideological phases identified by Boughton. During the third phase, described as the “fine art, academic, studio, skill-based, product-oriented, or disciplined-based approach” (p. 86) that began in the 1960s, art education, according to Hammond, failed to assert from within the field its own explicit ideological position. On the contrary, it was related to broader, social and educational needs and values. Art educators in Australia, from Hammond’s point of view, largely ignored a critical analysis of art in modern society in terms of its social relevance. This in turn encouraged a conservative attitude and uncritical view of the nature of art and its place in society. As a result, “there is little solidarity among art teachers, the status of art education is in decline, but there is also a growing recognition among art teachers themselves of a need to learn to articulate clearly the values and objectives associated with their work” (Hammond, 1981, p. 86). Despite the disciplined-based approach being adopted in most states, Knudson (1988) argues that NSW differed from this central ideology of art education and “incurred the derision of Herbert Read and his disciples of “free expression” and “education through art” (p. 12) until the mid-sixties.
In an effort to negate Boughton’s simple trajectory and characterisation of “the ideologies associated with the three phases as drastically altering the course of art education” (p. 21) Elliot traces similarities between the eight secondary art syllabuses produced in NSW from 1911 until 1987. Three major trends are identified as continuing through all the art syllabuses. They are: ‘Drawing from Imagination’, ‘Drawing from Reality’, and the ‘History of Art’. Elliot maps
55 these key themes in a series of charts that illustrate the ways in which these areas of continuity are located in the content of the syllabuses through a selection of phrases and common words. For example, the use of the term ‘immediate surroundings’ in the 1911 syllabus reappears in the 1987 syllabus as ‘immediate and accessible’ despite it being considered a revolutionary concept in secondary art education (p. 24).
Boughton, Hammond and Knudson not only fail to identify these three major areas of continuity in NSW art education, according to Elliot, but they also neglect other significant factors. Curriculum changes are regarded as a response to the power of the centralised Department of Education in NSW and the systematic restructuring of secondary education in general (p. 26). Elliot charts the link between secondary art syllabuses in NSW and educational initiatives to elucidate this.
Similarly to Elliot (1997), McKeon (1997)8 notes the lack of published commentary concerning art education in NSW. That which does exist, McKeon argues, is generally directed to the ‘making’ components of syllabuses in the subject, with the exception of the first syllabus set out by John Branch in 1911 in which art history was present (p. 41). McKeon acknowledges three instances of art education critique in NSW, the first being Boughton’s (1989) paper. Like Elliot (1997), McKeon considers this paper to be an orthodox synopsis of art education in Australia that fails to deliver on specified goals or address the different domains of the subject in schools, or gender issues (p. 41). The second reflection on the subject recognised by McKeon is the 1983 special edition of Art in Education titled ‘Living with Change’, guest edited by Dr Terry Smith, Chair of the Art Syllabus Committee. Smith’s proclamation that the 1987 syllabus was revolutionary in its focus on Australian and the contemporary is regarded as “symptomatic of the educational absence of memory” (p. 42). McKeon proceeds with an appraisal of instances where historical studies in art education in NSW have included an Australian component. Thirdly, disdain is expressed at the attention given to a paper by Len Rieser in the same edition of Art in Education that reprises the changes in art education from the fifties to the early eighties, due to its “inaccuracies and errors of fact” (p. 46). For example, McKeon rebuffs Rieser’s declaration of the difficulty of incorporating Australian art into the curriculum – “In the face of 50,000 years across three continents, Australia’s 193 years seems trifling” – by clarifying, “Had indigenous culture been routinely included in earlier curriculums, the content for studying historical material would have exceeded a “trifling” 193 years” (pp. 46-47).
8 This paper was presented at the COFA, Seventh Occasional Seminar in Art Education, Continuity and Change in NSW Art Education: The Reinvention of Practices and Content (21st September, 1996).
56 The education system in NSW, according to McKeon, has failed to advance a clear vision for historical study in schools, which has resulted in historical and critical study being judged as too hard or elitist or alternatively, resorting to a school of art history that exists nowhere else other than in the classroom. McKeon chronicles art history in NSW art education across eight-five years and contends that an art historical version of a ‘school art-history style’ has been created due to three enduring characteristics of the teaching of the subject. These three characteristics are: firstly, that art in schools has been traditionally a subject for girls; the second contributing factor is the subject’s technical educational focus; and finally, the consistent failure on the part of system authorities to generate adequate intrinsic reasons for the study of art history in the school years (p. 35). Arthur Efland’s paper The School Art Style: A Functional Analysis (1976) stipulates that the school art style is individual, irregular, and visually pleasing. This rule-bound school art emanates from a child-centred philosophy of instruction where individualism, creativity, and free expression are valued. The application of this definition to the kinds of school art found in Australian secondary school systems is regarded as incommensurate with the values of art history, which McKeon believes, are “widely interpreted as intellectual, elite and specialised, making the subject resemble other academic disciplines” (p. 37). McKeon speculates that art history is not discussed in Efland’s paper due to its absence or imperceptible inclusion in North American models.
The 1987 syllabus attempted to reconcile the role of making and studying in school, according to McKeon, however it inadvertently preserved the school art style in schools due to its “psychologically grounded, studio-oriented, process model of perceiving, responding, organising, manipulating and evaluating” that privileged the student experience and environment over all other perspectives (p. 45). In doing so, this syllabus failed to provide students with “an understanding of historical traditions of knowing” (p. 45). McKeon (1992) is similarly disgruntled in an earlier occasional seminar paper by the marginal position historical knowing occupies in favour of a focus on the personal exploration of student experiences and the primacy of the environment in the NSW Visual Arts Syllabuses. The 1987 syllabus eschews the intrinsic value and relevance of historical knowing to the education of the individual and the group, according to McKeon, by positioning it as an instrumental means for focusing student experiences and academic aptitude. Historical pursuits in Australia, “have variously been conferred with status as a sorting machine for matriculation purposes to lend some rigour to a subject otherwise thought of as “soft” (p. 29). The necessary position of historical encounters in the Visual Arts is advocated and an alternative interpretation to conventional assumptions about art history in art education is proposed. The acquisition of this general or comprehensive kind of historical knowing involves the interpretation and solution of problems regarding artworld practices. This is considered feasible for both the primary and secondary years of schooling. The
57 first of four cognitive processes proffered by McKeon that students may undertake in order to gain successful learning encounters in art history “entails identifying frameworks or applying alternate frameworks” in their “re-examination of classical historical topics” (p. 35). One year on, McKeon’s optimism is evident in her occasional seminar paper that “the draft revision of the present syllabus which institutes the device of framing and reinstates the realm of art history and art criticism beside art-making is another reconciliatory attempt” (1993, p. 65) at achieving a more balanced synthesis between artistic and aesthetic ways of knowing and other knowledge domains.
McKeon (1998)9 acknowledges the attempts by art educators to revise and improve upon the art syllabus including the provision of practices, the interpretive modeling of the frames, and the use of case studies and other learning devices in the 1994 junior syllabus and in the approved 1996 Draft Syllabus, “that went a long way to addressing the very qualities which the Board cites as characteristics of softness in the subject” (p. 55). The valiant efforts by those in the field to engage in debates surrounding policy development involved:
a considerable body of evidence marshalled from diverse sources to demonstrate the intellectual demands and benefits, the community relevance, the scholarly rigour, the vocational scope and the respectability of the visual arts as a learning opportunity for the diverse range of students in the school years (McKeon, 1998, p. 53).
In spite of this, McKeon continues to be frustrated that this material has been ignored and that the present “geriatric syllabuses” (p. 53) continue to determine the fate of Visual Arts. This is regarded as a consequence of the economic rationalist and political forces underlying the government’s bureaucratic agenda. McKeon examines the context of politically driven reforms of the visual arts curriculum, arguing that hidden forces underlying change has resulted in those in the field feeling naïve with regards to the present reforms, despite the arbitrary nature of the reasons for change. The McGaw green paper, which clearly laid out the government’s agenda for change, is criticised as lacking adequate and proper knowledge of the history and evolution of Visual Arts as a subject in the NSW system. McKeon condemns that these errors of fact have gone unnoticed and fears that “the erroneous history will become for the next generation the uncontested historical fact, by virtue of being published and endorsed with the authority of government reports” (p. 51). For the purpose of historical accuracy and curriculum coherence, McKeon identifies curriculum reforms that substantially impacted the subject, Visual Arts. For example, the ‘lumping together’ of visual arts with music and other subjects in the Key
9 This paper was presented at the COFA, Eighth Occasional Seminar in Art Education, The Forces Underlying Current Art Educational Developments (9th October, 1998).
58 Learning Area (KLA), Creative Arts, is regarded as a worrisome reflection of our economically rationalist era where one subject can be readily exchanged for another (discussed further in Chapter Five).
Weate’s (1997)10 genealogical account of the meanings of ‘creativity’ (detailed in Chapter One) identifies three recurring “distinct components, assumptions or ontologies of creativity” (p. 87) within the three fields of philosophy of aesthetics, psychology and art education. The three components are: the creative subject, the creative process, and the creative product. Weate points out the inclination of art education to be influenced by extrinsic forces rather the intrinsic values of the field: “creativity is variously used as one or another of these components and persists in art education by the authority that is imposed from discourses or fields other than art education” (p. 91). The sources of authority for each of the three components of creativity are investigated. In doing so, the way in which creativity as an object and strategy has been valued and used across the visual arts curriculum, specifically in two Visual Arts Year 7-10 syllabus documents, is examined. The continuity and change with which creativity appears in the 1987 and 1994 syllabus texts is “not interpreted as a shift in visual arts educational thinking subject only to its own control, permission momentum and discourse” but rather a consequence of “what ‘we’ are allowed to do and say, with how dominant discourses reward other discourses” (p. 96).
Collins (2001)11 discusses the evolution of the Visual Arts in NSW amidst the history of curriculum in Australia. Three possible starting points for curriculum design are offered as including perceived imperatives arising from: knowledge to be taught; the learners and how they are understood and learn; and thirdly, arguments about the nature of the society the learners are being prepared for (p. 43). Despite the ‘jostling’ of these three imperatives for space in the Australian school curriculum and its subject departments, the secondary school curriculum in NSW, including the School of Art Education, COFA, is regarded as being founded upon the first of these three options. Collins provides a brief appraisal of how the different imperatives have dominated the Visual Arts across different eras from its focus on drawing in the late nineteenth century and its occupational associations, to an emphasis on the creative expression of the self in the middle of the century, and finally, to its inclusion of art history and art criticism in the seventies. The Visual Arts were confronted, according to Collins, with the challenge of bringing these three imperatives together, “ravelling up the divisions of history and
10 This paper was presented at the COFA, Seventh Occasional Seminar in Art Education, Continuity and Change in NSW Art Education: The Reinvention of Practices and Content (21st September, 1996). 11 This paper was presented at the COFA, Tenth Occasional Seminar in Art Education, Reassessing the Foundations of Art in Education (2001).
59 the different visual curricula offered to different socio-economic classes and divisions of children to create something more fertile and exciting for children and for art than we have ever had before” (p. 46). Collins argues that this challenge was impacted by the additional entry and intervention of government in curriculum in the 1990s. Her response to this and recommendations for the field are detailed in Chapter Five.
It is evident from these studies that an array of definitions and various rationales of the Visual Arts in contemporary thinking have gained acceptance. Yet despite this, few have managed to secure and maintain considerable improvement in the status of art education. In aspiring to be recognised as a necessary and worthwhile subject within the school curriculum, art education has struggled to satisfy “philosophical and pragmatic demands” against a background of social and educational reform, and as result, the field has adopted an “eclectic stance in search of an identity” (Sullivan, 1993, p. 5).
2.1.1 Historical Studies of School Subject and Curriculum Change
This section provides an overview of the ways in which school subject and curriculum change has been theorised in fields other than the Visual Arts or in education more generally. A number of scholars have investigated the historical development of school subjects in an attempt to understand the contemporary curriculum and how socio-historical events and circumstances have influenced and shaped school knowledge.
The socio-historical, curriculum theory of Goodson (1988, 1993) and Goodson and Marsh (1996) shows that the construction of educational discourse typically involves processes of struggle and contestation over meaning as vying groups and individuals seek to bring about particular outcomes in curriculum development and change. Goodson (1988) defines ‘curriculum’ as a “central mode by which external agencies from the state downwards have sought over time to penetrate and control the ‘license’ of the individual classroom” (p. 6). For Goodson and Marsh (1996) one important reason for studying school subjects is that “they create justificatory discourses or ‘regimes of truth’ for the organisation of school knowledge” (p. 3). As dominant discourses, school subjects set parameters for practice. Goodson is interested in this dichotomy between the written curriculum and the curriculum as classroom activity, the links between school subject knowledge and classroom pedagogy.
Goodson (1988) refers to the need to acknowledge this conflict over the ‘symbolic significance’ of the written curriculum as well as its practical significance. The written curriculum, or syllabus, according to Goodson represents the public expression of officially endorsed
60 ideologies and rhetoric. It is: “(1) an important part of a consolidated State system of schooling; (2) that sets ‘standards’ and defines statements of intent; and (3) that it provides clear ‘rules of the game’ for educators and practitioners, parameters but not prescriptions” (1988, p. 9). Curriculum statements that have been established in part for the public evaluation of schooling are therefore subject to a number of competing agendas:
Statements about what should be in the curriculum exemplify what things powerful groups in a particular society think students should learn, and encapsulate value judgements about what sorts of knowledge are considered important, and what attitudes students are expected to emerge with (Paechter, 1999, p. 2).
The evolution of a school subject from a utilitarian or pedagogic version to a subject with academic status is of interest to Goodson. Utilitarian knowledge or the pursuit of a child-centred or progressive approach to education is:
related to those non-professional vocations in which the majority of people work for most of their adult life. The low status of utilitarian knowledge also applies to the personal, social and commonsense knowledge stressed by those pursuing the pedagogic tradition (Goodson, 1993, p. 25).
Based upon his investigation of the development of geography, biology, rural studies and environmental studies as established subjects in schools, Goodson contends that subject communities seek legitimacy for their subject through their appeal for disciplinary status. This process of seeking and gaining academic respectability involves ensuring that their subject includes a body of examinable content and is taught by specialist teachers trained in the discipline at university level.
School subjects, according to Goodson, are “never final, monolithic entities” (1988, p. 10) but rather “in continual flux – a recurrent terrain of contestation (Goodson, 1991 in Marsh, 1997, p. 262). This is a proposition with which I agree, and a similar type of evidence is examined in this study. My investigation incorporates Goodson’s valuation of school subjects as contested sites or domains in which struggles for the controlling definition of the philosophy, content and practice are played out. Curriculum change is the outcome of these continual struggles between a variety of agents, groups and individuals. Changes at micro-level are concerned with teachers, school classrooms and subjects and at macro-level with processes of policy-making and its implementation. For Goodson, to understand how a subject changes over time, it is important to understand the subject groups’ response to new ideas and opportunities presented at the macro
61 level. The way in which curriculum decisions involve this interplay of power and control is pivotal to the research context of my study.
School subject communities are neither harmonious nor homogeneous and members do not necessarily share particular values, subject definitions and interests. Their diverse membership comprises “a range of conflicting groups, segments or factions” (Goodson, 1993, p. 25) including teachers, academics and other interested groups that are conducive to contest, conflict and tension both within a subject and with other subject areas. For Goodson and Marsh (1996) it is a “highly contested, fragmented and endlessly shifting terrain … [where] the actors involved deploy a range of ideological and material resources as they pursue their individual and collective missions” (p. 131).
Kirk (1992) builds on the insights produced by Goodson in his study of the social production of physical education as a field of knowledge in schools. His work is suggestive of the ways in which vying individuals and groups represent their understandings of a school subject. The act of defining physical education, according to Kirk, “what the subject is, and how its aims, subject matter and pedagogy have been defined by competing interest groups” (p. 2), is not fixed and unchanging but the outcome of constant struggle and negotiation among multiple, unstable and circulating discourses. Discourse, according to Kirk, refers to the written, spoken and visual representations of what constitutes knowledge and meaning in school physical education. The pertinence of this piece amongst the literature is Kirk’s interest in those discourses that form the underpinning structure of physical education in the school curriculum and the struggle this school subject has endured to control the ideological terrain it occupies.
The actions of vying social, political, cultural and educational forces are referred to as ‘discursive formations’, which Kirk argues are generated out of socio-cultural conditions and institutionalised practices carried out in particular sites. Defining physical education in the written curriculum involves selecting and articulating ideas in a particular way that privileges the interests and values of those groups who have a substantial and disproportionate impact on the construction of the school curriculum. As will become apparent, such dynamics are also a feature of curriculum production in the Visual Arts.
This review now moves to a focus on studies from Australia. Harris and Marsh (2005) examine the discourse of curriculum change and the different junctions and disjunctions various education sub-groups and stakeholders experience within curriculum change processes. Junction is a reference to “the shape or manner in which things come together and a connection is made”
62 whilst disjunction conveys “an act of breaking a connection” (Webster, 2004 in Harris and Marsh, 2005, p. 16).
‘Innovation diffusion theory’ is one frame used by Harris and Marsh (2005) to understand the curriculum change process. They survey the various influences and channels that effect the course of change, under four subheadings: the role of context; stakeholders; disjunctions as rhetoric, and, disjunctions in action. They contend that curriculum initiatives are diffused or mediated through various contexts that can have a positive or negative impact on curriculum change processes. Within these different contexts there are various stakeholders in Australia involved in curriculum initiatives, policy and practices that have the potential to impact upon curriculum reform. Harris and Marsh outline the respective spheres of influence of these stakeholders at state, national and federal level before focusing upon the different junctions and disjunctions stakeholders experience as they develop, enact and evaluate curriculum initiatives. At state and federal level, various interest groups attempt to influence key players who participate in decision making whilst at the national level, the decision making by national leaders must take into account the autonomy of the eight states and territories. Disjunctions as rhetoric frequently occur, according to Harris and Marsh, between federal and state agencies and at intra state levels. Educators at all levels champion rhetoric for education change as it generates perceptions of dysfunction. The interests and responsibilities of various stakeholders require them to adopt a stance on curriculum rhetoric resulting in differences or disjunctions within the educational community. Stakeholders with the necessary resources, such as the Federal Government and state education systems, will transform rhetoric into action according to Harris and Marsh. Action can take many forms including official curriculum policies and statements, legislation and Acts of Parliament, and professional development programmes. They argue that rhetoric on educational reform needs to be more transparent and openly discussed and contested to ensure cooperation between stakeholders.
Similarly to Harris and Marsh, O’Neill (1992) examines the negotiation process of curriculum construction that in turn produces a diversity of readings and teaching practices. Her focus is on the ways in which this concept of curriculum negotiation has varied in different syllabus developments within the subject area of English in Western Australia. There are various groups interested in the design and development of a curriculum that are involved in this negotiation process, notably the syllabus committee. The value of this work is to show how the curriculum development process, including content, classroom practices and assessment and examination practices is characterised by contestation as these interest groups compete for what constitutes disciplined knowledge in the development of school curricula. Crucially, according to O’Neill,
63 discrepancy exists between academics, teachers and representatives of business and commerce about what defines English as a field of study.
One of the interesting and relevant findings of O’Neill’s work for concerns the interests of tertiary institutions that are entrenched on syllabus committees and examination panels (discussed in Chapters Three and Five). O’Neill contends that this is a means of ensuring that secondary school syllabuses relate to course offerings at these institutions. In doing so, students are adequately prepared for the courses offered and even encouraged to apply for entry to their institutions. Others factors that O’Neill suggests may affect the direction of syllabuses include the divergent needs, interests, competencies and backgrounds of the student clientele.
According to O’Neill, syllabuses are not produced from a “unitary conceptualisation of the subject discipline” (p. 9). They are hybrids of different orientations. These competing orientations produce different ideological bases that, in turn construct different teaching and reading practices, kinds of knowledge about texts, as well as the kinds of questions it is permissible to ask in examining the syllabus. O’Neill presents four competing orientations to English in this paper and examines specific instances of syllabus change in Tertiary Entrance Examination English in Western Australia with a focus on the ways in which the examination has influenced the operational syllabus.
The view is taken by O’Neill that the structure of an examination paper, as well as the kinds of questions asked, are impacted by the reading of the syllabus privileged by the examining panel, as well as time constraints. I agree with O’Neill’s position that, “the negotiated model of syllabus development ensures that competing orientations to English are included in syllabus statements in such a way that what is feasible within the constraints of the examination system defines the operational syllabus” (p. 21). My inquiry will also show how the examination was used as a mechanism to identify the course of study and explain content in the Visual Arts.
For O’Neill, the examination format should address different aspects of the syllabus as well as reflect the weightings of the school assessment structure. Diverse reading and teaching practices of a syllabus are encouraged with the condition that students are equipped with the knowledge of “different reading practices of texts and the ways in which these different practices construct different reading of texts” (p. 20). This would allow for new and differing assessment and examination tasks rather than the standardised examination format that has defined the syllabus in Tertiary Examination English in Western Australia for the last twenty years.
64 Like O’Neill, Horwood (1994) focuses on the struggle for control of the curriculum in Australia that has involved fluctuating coalitions: “subjects are to be viewed as constantly shifting coalitions of individuals and variously sized groups whose members may have, at any specific moment, different and possibly conflicting missions and interests” (Horwood, 1994, p. 11). Horwood is interested in the role of schools, universities, students, teachers, parents, governments and others in the making of curriculum and how this struggle has fundamentally impacted the aims and ideals of mathematic courses. The development of the mathematics curriculum in Victoria is examined against the backdrop of the changing roles of the examination boards. The senior secondary mathematics curriculum is there the responsibility of the coalitions represented on the Mathematics Standing Committee. It is the role of the standing committee to ensure distribution and assessment of the curriculum. An examination board mediates the work of the committee. For Horwood, examination boards “provide a chart to track the shifts in power and ideology that beset curriculum” (p. 11). The coalitions that comprise the examination boards and the subject committees and the tensions that exist between these two are surveyed. Horwood anticipates that secondary school mathematics teachers will also join the debate for control of the mathematics curriculum due to their conflicting interests with institutional players. Such dynamics are also played out with regard to the visual arts examination in NSW (this is taken up in Chapter Three).
There are several different definitions of educational change found within the literature. Squire and Reigeluth (2000) identify this confusion in their study of ‘systemic change’. They argue that there are four distinct conceptions of systemic change: statewide, districtwide, schoolwide, and ecological. Statewide changes in tests, curriculum guidelines, teacher-certification requirements, textbook adoptions, and funding policies, aim to improve the entire educational system. This ‘expert-driven reform’ is formulated by a small group of people including legislatures, task forces, teachers unions, and administrators who believe that reform of educational policy at state level will infiltrate and support local restructuring. Districtwide systemic change produces changes in the curriculum or programs throughout a school district. The key stakeholders in the school district include administrators, teachers, teachers associations, staff, parents, and community members. Districtwide approaches also consider the support network in schools needed to implement change such as transportation, food, extracurricular activities and accounting. Schoolwide systemic change in concerned with instituting change within individual school buildings. The principal, key school leaders, teachers, and building administrators are the key stakeholders involved in schoolwide change. Squire and Reigeluth present a convincing argument for ecological systemic change. From this point of view, the educational system “is a complex social system that can be defined in a number of ways and can be understood only by being viewed from multiple perspectives” (2000, p. 2). This multi-faceted approach subsumes
65 the other three meanings as it involves an understanding of the interrelationships and interdependencies within a system and between the system and its external environment. Ecological systemic change involves a broad range of stakeholders with a variety of perspectives, experiences and understandings of the educational system.
Ball and Bowe’s (1992) work on the implementation of the National Curriculum is a broad study of systematic change in schools. Their notion of a ‘policy cycle’ consists of “significantly different arenas and sites within which a variety of interests are at stake” (p. 98). There is slippage and contestation in the interpretation of top-down prescriptions or policy texts across educational sites according to Ball and Bowe that will be changed in unintended and unanticipated ways once applied in schools. As a result of unforeseen and unavoidable difficulties, they characterise this process of interpreting and implementing policy as involving “resistance, accommodation, subterfuge and conformity within schools and between departments” (p. 100). Resistant readings of text and policy “may well fracture and diversify the implementation process” (p. 101). This is akin, I contend, to Foucault’s (1978) concept of resistance that allows for individuals or groups to respond to the effects of power with a counter-movement, that is, forms of resistance. This produces the basis upon which existing forms of rationalities can be challenged with the aim of separating the power of truth from the prevailing forms of social hegemony.
Four concepts for understanding the process of change and subjects departments are identified by Ball and Bowe (1992). The first impacting change is that of ‘capacity’. This is a reference to the experience and skills of department members. Ball and Bowe are interested in the extent to which “teachers’ priorities, experience and professional expertise” (1992, p. 105) supports or opposes mandated change. The second concept is ‘contingency’ – staffing, student recruitment, inherited facilities, amongst others. ‘Commitment’ is the third concept according to Ball and Bowe that is described as the “existence of firmly held and well-entrenched subject or pedagogical paradigms within a department (or school)” (p. 112). A ‘history’ of curriculum change within departments and institutions is the fourth and final concept. If a department or school has been successful in implementing change previously, than its members are more likely to be willing to engage in another change process. Ball and Bowe suggest a lack of ‘history of innovation’ results in a high degree of reliance on policy texts, external direction and advice, which can lead to uncertainty, confusion and in some instances, a sense of threat. The interplay of these four concepts produces different possibilities of response to curriculum change within departments and across schools.
66 These studies have provided insight into theories of curriculum production, change and conflict that is suggestive for my investigation. They illustrate that the historical constructions of school subjects are contested sites, domains in which struggles for the controlling definition of content and practice are enacted, which is an essential feature of this research’s context. My study builds upon and extends the theories pertaining to school subject and curriculum change discussed in this section by applying Foucault’s (1980, 1982) concept of knowledge, truth and power. It focuses on identifying the productive aspect of power that impacted the construction of knowledge in the Visual Arts, rather than discussing power merely as a repressive force. That is, the way power circulated through a range of discourses and social institutions, that in turn, affected the subjects’ identity by creating new ways of seeing and speaking about the Visual Arts, is examined in this thesis.
2.1.2 Conceptions of Syllabus Development and Control
In this section I survey literature that theorises syllabus construction and control in NSW. Central to this survey is the importance of understanding the criteria that has underpinned various syllabus development and the rationales used to justify syllabus decisions and selections against a backdrop of social and political events. The patterns of power that influence syllabus construction, determine inclusions and exclusions, and the effects this may have on schools, teachers and students is a crucial aspect of curriculum analysis.
Orthodox accounts of the complex relations of state and federal governments regarding the curriculum assert subject authority is invested constitutionally in state instrumentalities, for example, the NSW BOS. The 1980s and 1990s intervention of Federal government in curriculum practice, evidenced in the National Curriculum Project (detailed in Chapter Four), placed considerable stress on this convention and introduced another competitor and authority to curriculum functions in NSW. Harris and Marsh (2003) examine the relationship between education policy and curriculum in Australia at both a federal and state level and suggest that federal education policy is beginning to play a more active role in the formation of state education policy and curriculum. They argue that the dichotomy of authority over education in Australia and the varied relationships that exist between national and state bodies result in disjunctions between Australian Federal and State educational policies. This has created inter- state and intra-state policy tensions and they present NSW as one of two case studies.
State and Territory responses to the introduction of National Statements and Profiles in the early 1990s are examined as an example of federal attempts to influence State curriculum policy. Harris and Marsh (2003) argue:
67 the effects of both National Statements and Profiles and a number of other international and national curriculum trends such as decentralised administration and re-centralised curriculum, rigorous accountability mechanisms and an increased emphasis on examination of student knowledge, continue to create ‘ripples and waves’ across and within the eight Australian States and Territories (p. 2).
Each of the eight Australian States and Territories contributed to the development of the National Statements and Profiles, with the Curriculum Corporation developing and encouraging the implementation of national curriculum principles, however the level of adaptation and adoption of the statements and profiles varied and was in fact minimal over the period 1994-96, with the exception of NSW and Victoria.
The National Statements and Profiles were trialed in NSW throughout 1993-1995 however NSW was most wary of the national agenda and did not implement these curriculum statements due to fear of increased federal control over State policy, a lack of coordination between national and state policy makers, and their incompatibility with NSW syllabuses. NSW “vigorously defended its right to maintain independent control of educational policy-making” (Shearman, 1992 in Harris and Marsh, 2003, p. 5).
The politics of the National Curriculum Project were arguably reduced to state’s rights. NSW’ repudiation of Federal attempts at curriculum control was epitomised by the Premier’s vote to relegate the National Statements and Profiles into the hands of the State which in turn contributed to the demise of the federal curriculum framework. Irrespective of its downfall, Harris and Marsh identify two legacies of the National Statements and Profiles, despite the organisational and ideological problems they pose for schools and subjects within NSW. They are the institution of outcomes-based syllabuses in NSW as well as a continued reliance on KLAs as curriculum organisers.
For Harris and Marsh (2003), curriculum determination continues to be an area of contestation in NSW with power structures that govern the development of the curriculum and support its implementation dispersed across several organisations (p. 7). They argue that tensions in curriculum governance are a consequence of the antagonistic relationship between the two agencies responsible for developing, implementing and supporting NSW curriculum policies – the BOS and the NSW Department of Education and Training (DET). The politicisation of the curriculum agenda in NSW by the state government, according to Harris and Marsh, impacts upon the functioning of the BOS.
68 The Inquiry into the Provision of Public Education in NSW: report of the ‘Vinson Inquiry’ (Vinson, 2002) examined this tension between the centralisation and decentralisation of educational policy making in NSW. This inquiry revealed the authoritative control of the centralised system of curriculum determination. One of the recommendations of the Vinson Inquiry was the integration of the Office of the BOS into the DET. This contentious suggestion, according to Harris and Marsh, brought into focus the issue of curriculum governance with ramifications for curriculum determination in NSW. Considering the lack of consultation with the most important stakeholders (teachers, students, parents and the community), Harris and Marsh welcome the opportunity however for greater consultation in decisions regarding curriculum policy that this recommendation provided. They suggest “curriculum reterritorialisation is a useful way of conceptualising the shifting federal/state, state/state and intra-state boundaries and relations that have occurred as a result of educational reform over the last two decades” (p. 3).
In a further study with pertinence to my work, Harris (2003) examines issues of control and contestation between multiple, competing bodies over curriculum governance in NSW. Her specific focus is the formal development of the 1998 Stages 4-5 History syllabus. Harris examines major changes that occurred at the BOS, immediately prior to and during, the development of the 1998 syllabus and how these impacted on the syllabus development process. An agenda circumscribed by the BOS as well as ministerial pressure is identified as the impetus for the syllabus. The value of this inquiry is that it enhances my understanding of the political processes and patterns of power involved in the selection, organisation and transmission of educational knowledge in NSW. My investigation extends Harris’s analysis of the roles these segments of the profession play in the curriculum-making process into the realm of Foucault’s ‘governmentality’.
The relationships between the twelve key policy agents involved in the development of the 1998 syllabus and the BOS highlights issues of curriculum control – “who has it, who doesn’t, why and to what effect” (Harris, 2003, p. 52). Five of these policy agents are discussed in detail including, the NSW DET, the NSW Premier and the Education Minister, Academics, the NSW History Teachers’ Association, and Teachers. Harris acknowledges that the power structures that govern the development of NSW curriculum and support for its implementation are shared between the BOS, who is responsible for the development and dissemination of curriculum, and the DET, who provides support in the way of teacher professional development. As the BOS is accountable to the NSW state government it has a legislated duty to mandate educational curriculum policy.
69 I support Harris’s interpretation of the large role academics have traditionally, and continue to, play in the determination of school curriculum, whilst teacher participation in the syllabus development process varies from representation on the Board of the BOS to secondment positions during policy reform. She shows how systemic reform and mandated change processes that influence syllabus development in NSW has significant implications for the role of teachers. For example, the NSW History Teachers’ Association lobbied for greater influence in curriculum determination during the syllabus development process however “their protectionist role in the change process has been characterised as that of gatekeeper” (Hilferty, 2000 in Harris, 2003, p. 52). Harris argues that this top-down form of change process “where new policies and assessment procedures are developed by the ‘state’ and implemented by the ‘system’” (p. 53) produces unequal power relationships with teachers having a limited role in the decision-making processes associated with syllabus development. This is often justified by labeling teachers as “resistant, intransigent and perhaps too old to change” (Bailey, 2000 in Harris, 2003, p. 53), however ironically it is the teachers who are accountable for the success or failure of the syllabus in the classroom.
It is Harris’s contention that, “as both systematic and mandated change initiatives are founded on the preservation of historically constituted control mechanisms, a political model of accountability often prevails” (p. 54). These rigorous accountability measures are often a consequence of the policy-makers’ belief that this will result in greater educational standards. The negative consequence of such measures identified by Harris, is the implications for teachers, who are often blamed when the actual outcomes of change are divergent from the intended outcomes.
Harris provides a very useful discussion of how curriculum control is linked to issues of subject knowledge. Those who control the curriculum in turn define knowledge, “and thus legitimate the function of bureaucracies and the social reproduction of the class system” (Harris, 2003, p. 54). She notes that what counts as knowledge in the curriculum also influences the manner in which the document is read, taught, learned, and assessed. In analysing the formal processes governing syllabus development in NSW, Harris clearly demonstrates how the preservation of traditional curriculum control structures and the continued bureaucratisation of the BOS has resulted in the marginalisation of teachers and subject associations in the syllabus development process. My study builds upon this hierarchical interpretation by applying Foucault to show the productive dimension of power. That is, the juridical and negative concept of power in the curriculum development process is supplemented with a positive account of the constitutive character of discursive practices in the Visual Arts from within the field. In doing so, I will show how the field of art education was simultaneously free and constrained.
70 Interestingly, in an earlier paper, Harris (2001) explores how subject communities and departments can play a more productive role in the development and implementation of new syllabuses. She surveys literature that explores the subject department as an agent of change before focusing on three possible barriers to the implementation of syllabus change at both an internal or micro (school/department) level and external or macro (system) level. These include lack of commitment, resistance, and pragmatic curriculum development. Harris argues that individual and department responses to curriculum change are more affected when imposed by external, top-down curriculum change processes.
Harris conducted a case study of the history department at Illangara High School and their response to the 1999 Stages 4-5 (Years 7-10) History syllabus. Interviews and focus groups with three members of the department revealed that ‘commitment’ to the new syllabus was reliant on five key issues:
1. The nature and extent of teacher participation in the change process; 2. The professional development opportunities offered to support implementation of the new syllabus; 3. Departmental commitment to the 1992 Years 7-10 History Syllabus; 4. The structure and function of history within the department under the previous syllabus and the perceived impact of a new syllabus; 5. Issues of philosophical and pedagogical congruence: How similar are teachers’ beliefs about the teaching and learning of history to those projected in the new syllabus? (p. 16).
Harris highlights how the unsettling and unpredictable nature of change may result in teachers feeling threatened and consequently ‘resistant’ to that which is out of their control. The gradual dissolution of the history department’s initial resistance to the new syllabus at Illangara High School came about through ‘pragmatic curriculum development’. Teachers in NSW are required to develop curricular programs based on the guidelines, prescribed as a series of focus questions, and suggested content in the syllabus document. Programming days at the high school provided the department with the opportunity for “collaborative communication” (p. 21). This communication, coupled with the existence of a unified vision of history and dedication to their students, allowed the department to overcome issues of commitment, resistance and pragmatism and in return, promoted understanding and restored the department’s faith in the new syllabus.
71 I contend that there is potential for further elaboration and inclusion in Harris’s study of Foucault’s concept of positive power, notably his position on the issue of ‘resistance’. For Foucault, power and resistance are conditions of possibility for each other. He insists, “there are no relations of power without resistances” (Foucault, 1980, p. 142). Foucault is particularly concerned with resistance against forms of subordination that makes individuals into subjects of control. He sees the possibility of resistance, in this instance the localised efforts of teachers to attack mechanisms of power, leading to new forms of subjectivity and self-creation. In Harris’s study, the subjects who considered themselves ‘powerless’ (teachers) had innumerable means of deflection, submission, resistance, and localised action to external constraints. The teachers were therefore endowed with some capacity even when it was oppressive. This capacity is a ‘technique of self’, an exercise of power, intended to bring about positive effects on oneself (Foucault, 1988a, pp. 18-19). Drawing upon Foucault, for a system to exercise power, teachers must act or be prepared to act in response to its demand. Considering this, the recalcitrant actions of the teachers in response to external attempts to direct their conduct, illustrate power in the productive sense that ultimately enables its subjects. My study incorporates this conception of power as not merely prohibitive but also as dynamic. In doing so, I will show that power was not primarily exercised from above in the Visual Arts but widely distributed and circulated in a multitude of forms.
Similarly, Young (1993) provides a useful discussion of this concept of power that operates in dispersed sites through various groups with multiple and sometimes conflicting agendas. She addresses issues of control and the diverse stakeholders vying for dominance or at least inclusion in the decision-making and development process involved with curriculum change. Her particular focus, like Harris (2001, 2003), is in the subject area History, and the challenge facing this subject to justify its nature and purpose in the secondary curriculum. This is amidst significant changes in education in NSW as a result of three major reports (Carrick 1989; Scott 1989; and Metherell 1989). The proposed directions and recommendations of these reports, according to Young, provided the bases for the Liberal State Government’s Education Reform Bill of 1990 that resulted in:
sweeping educational change involving the implementation of corporate models of school and bureaucratic management, centralised development of outcomes driven curriculum, increasing control and regulation of assessment procedures and credentialing, increased stratification of schooling and the forging of a direct link between educational goals and current economic imperatives (1993, p. 29).
72 Young acknowledges the authority of the NSW BOS to initiate and direct change however she argues, “ultimately, the power to determine policy rested with the Minister for Education and Youth Affairs” (p. 29).
The discussion paper, Excellence and Equity (Metherell, 1989), according to Young, laid the foundations for curriculum reorganisation. The History Teachers’ Association of NSW expressed concern over the guiding principles of this document and a protracted debate ensued. The History teaching community within the government sector was further rattled by the “unsettling systematic reorganisation” (Young, 1993, p. 31) following a major management review of the system in the Scott Report (1989).
The diverse groups, identified by Young, who were instrumental in the struggle to produce policy change in History include: the BOS, the Curriculum Committee of the Board, the Key Learning Curriculum Committee for Human Society and Its Environment, the Years 7-10 Syllabus Committee, professional historians, and historical and professional associations. A chronological account of the events surrounding the development of a new junior history syllabus in NSW in 1992 is provided. This was stimulated by the turbulence associated with the school reform agenda in NSW as well as curriculum restructuring and various Board decisions affecting the place of History in the curriculum. The force of external pressure groups and individuals further inhibited the selection and structuring of knowledge in the history syllabus. The potential of these external forces to produce curriculum change was dependent, according to Young, “on their power to influence public perception and opinion and their professional status” (p. 43). This raises a series of pertinent and recurrent questions for Young related to curriculum control and ownership that are central to the research context of this study including:
Who should and who does make major decisions related to the processes and product of syllabus change in NSW? The Board, individual Board members, the Curriculum Committee of the Board, the Syllabus Committee, academics or teachers?
Should greater weight be given to the views of particular interest groups and individuals? If so, why? On what criteria should such input be based? (p. 43).
According to Young, the answers to these questions, regarding power relationships embedded within curriculum change, impact the development of the curriculum product as well as the teaching and learning of knowledge within the discipline. This is a proposition with which I agree and this is evidenced in my investigation.
73 Reynolds (2001) provides a detailed framework for examining the multiplicity of relations involved in syllabus change and development. These are: the environment, the process, the individuals, and the syllabus text. She developed these four segments of the framework as a result of studying changes in social education syllabuses in NSW from 1967 to 1989, more specifically the SOSE or social education (Human Society and Its Environment in NSW) area of the curriculum. Research over this twenty-two year period focused on how and why this area of the curriculum changed and how these changes inform current practice. Reynolds was guided in the development of this model from two directions. Firstly, following a review of the literature in the areas of policy, curriculum, educational history, social science pedagogy, and sociology. Secondly, from discussions with syllabus committee members from this period, reading their responses to a survey, and examining the syllabuses produced (p. 1). While this framework is not included in my investigation, it is suggestive of the dynamic networks of social alignments that may be involved in syllabus development and change. It establishes reference points for my examination of the complex web of power relations involved in the construction of knowledge in the Visual Arts.
The first facet of the framework, ‘environment’, includes the interrelationship between the social, political, economic, and cultural factors of the period and the ideology in educational circles that is pre-eminent at the time (p. 1). The ‘processes’ involved in syllabus development and change is the second segment of the framework. This refers to the administrative constraints or processes that confront syllabus committees. Reynolds argues that various groups, for example university pressure groups, are instrumental in promoting change in school subjects. My inquiry supports this hypothesis and will demonstrate the considerable influence Universities had on the Visual Arts secondary school syllabuses, particularly through membership on the syllabus committee. The third facet of the framework concerns the ‘individuals’ associated with the development of syllabuses, their lived experiences and interests. Reynolds acknowledges that numerous studies focus on the involvement of individuals in curriculum change however she cautions, “a narrow focus on the people … can atomise the study and make what is a very complex issue seem too simple” (p. 5). The deconstruction of the ‘syllabus text’ is the fourth and final segment of the framework. In addition to these four segments of the framework, Reynolds argues that the ‘researcher’s perspective’ and life experiences will also influence the manner in which the curriculum is investigated.
In this section I have reviewed theoretical positions regarding syllabus development and control in NSW. These studies provide insight into the criteria that underpin decisions and selections in the construction of knowledge that forms a school subject. This includes the interests, identities,
74 resources and status of the individuals and groups at work within the curriculum-making process. These studies have ultimately enhanced my understanding of the patterns of power operating across multiple sites that determine subject knowledge and influence the curriculum, which is crucial to my study of the Visual Arts.
2.2 Configuration of Boards
This section demonstrates how the relationship between the respective Boards and Minister of Education across the period of interest can be viewed as part of Foucault’s technology of governmentality. That is, the activities of a particular population, in this instance the Board, were accountable to the educational goals set by government. The Minister developed mechanisms of control over the activity of the Board by supervising the recruitment of its members, setting timelines, and approving the release of emerging syllabus texts. Through these forms of disciplinary practice, actions of the Board were sanctioned or dismissed.
The functions of the BSSS, constituted under the Education Act 1961, were to advise the Minister of Education in three areas. These were matters relating to: the conduct of examinations for the HSC and the awarding of such certificates; determine courses of study for the final two years of secondary education; and, appoint each subject of the secondary school curricula for higher school certificates special committees for the purpose of recommending to the BSSS the content of any such course of study.
The BSSS had overall control of the curriculum and education in secondary education however it was responsible to the wider society through the Minister of Education. During my period of interest, three Ministers of Education were in office including Eric Bedford (1976-1979), Ron Mulock (1981-1984), and Rodney Cavalier (1984-1988). The BSSS and the Department of Education were separate entities. The BSSS was placed under the Minister of Education and his portfolio, to be serviced by, but not part of, the Department of Education. The arrangement was “done as an economy measure to make use of existing administrative machinery rather than have a small unit duplicate the various branches of a larger department” (NSW Department of Education, 1978, p. 26).
The Department’s role was the provision of secondary education through government secondary schools and it carried out a number of functions to assist the BSSS in their day-to-day activities. The Director General of Education was the Chairman of the BSSS and the Deputy Chairman of the Board was a person designated by the Minister of Education. Having individuals with overlapping interests at play provided an internal control mechanism, by ensuring a close,
75 productive relationship between the Department and the Board and between the Department and the non-Government sector.
Importantly, while the BSSS was accountable to the Minister of Education for its actions, the BSSS had in excess of thirty syllabus committees assisting them, including the Art Syllabus Committee, each comprising fifteen to twenty members who advised the Board in matters related to their particular subject area including the introduction and revision of syllabuses used in Years 11 and 12. The BSSS was an entity and agent within this governmental network that also utilised and deployed whatever resources it had, for example the Art Syllabus Committee, for its own purposes. The relationship of the BSSS to its Committees is shown diagrammatically in Figure 2:
Board of Senior School Studies (November 1961 – June 1987)
Joint Registration of Higher School Certificate Schools Committee Examination Consultative and Executive Committee
Executive Committee
Planning and Communications Committee on Development Committee Committee Examining
Syllabus Committees Examination Committees
Figure 2. Committee structure of the BSSS (Adapted from Board of Senior School Studies. (1979). Annual report 1979. Sydney, Australia: Author).
The Education and Public Instruction Act commencing on the 17th August, 1987 repealed the 1961 Education Act by which the BSSS was established. Three major changes contained in the 1987 Act included: “(1) the abolition of the School Certificate and provision of a Certificate of Secondary Education; (2) the creation of a BSE; and (3) revision of arrangements for the certification and registration of non-state schools” (Barcan, 1988, p. 14).
76 The responsibilities of the BSE covered the continuum of secondary education from Year 7 to Year 12 in both Government and non-Government schools, including the preparation, monitoring and evaluation of syllabuses used in all secondary schools in NSW. The BSE comprised twenty to twenty-one members including ex-officio members, the Director-General of Education and the Director-General of Technical and Further Education or their nominee, as well as representatives of government and private schools, school teachers, industrial groups, and parent organisations.
As it was the function of the BSE to determine courses of study in secondary schools, the Board continued to exert disciplinary power by appointing committees (illustrated in Figure 3) to assist with the content of courses of study in any area or subject or in any other area of its responsibilities. The BSE appointed five standing committees and ninety-three syllabus and examination committees, including the Years 11-12 Visual Arts Syllabus Committee.
Board of Secondary Education (August 1987 – June 1990)
Resources Executive Committee Committee
Planning Assessment and Curriculum Registration Committee Credentials Committee Committee Committee
Examination Consultative and Syllabus Committees Executive Committees Committee
Figure 3. Committee structure of the BSE (Adapted from Board of Secondary Education. (n.d). The nature, role and responsibilities of the NSW Board of Secondary Education: A draft response to the Carrick committee. Sydney, Australia: Author).
Despite this vast assemblage of forces, Federal power sought to intervene in educational decision-making. The educational directions set by the Department rendered the BSE effectively managed and controlled by the government given that both the Director-General of Education continued to hold the position of Chairperson of the Board and a senior Department Director,
77 the Executive Officer of the Board. Riordan and Weller (2000) argue that the Carrick Report (1989) understated the situation when it noted the considerable influence of the Department of Education on the Board’s decisions and on its procedures (p. 14).
A Report of the Committee of Review of New South Wales Schools (September, 1989), chaired by Sir John Carrick, recommended the constitution of a new BOS, with curriculum responsibility across K-12, to replace the existing BSE. The Scott Review (1989), Riordan and Weller (2000) continue, also expressed concerns about the level of administrative influence exerted on the BSE by the Department of Education. Despite it being considered advantageous to the Board that the majority of professional, administrative and financial support was provided by the Department of Education, this can be seen as a deliberate government strategy to shape and manage the Board towards desired ends.
A Ministerial Memorandum (1990, February 2, p. 1) from Dr Terry Metherell MP, (1988-1990), notified the Chairman, BSE, of the Government’s intentions to act on the recommendations of the Carrick Committee of Review into NSW to set up a BOS to cover all school years from K- 12. It argued, “that the expense of separate bodies could not be justified … The Carrick Committees recommendation for an independent K-12 Board, supported by its own bureaucracy, and with a President responsible to the Minister was accepted” (p. 13). The apparent ‘need’ for a curriculum continuum that could not be easily achieved by separate bodies resulted in a centralised education system that significantly impacted curriculum development in NSW by altering the power relations involved in the negotiation of the written curriculum.
The Education Reform Act 1990 (proclaimed on the 9th June, 1990) abolished the BSE and constituted in its place the BOS, an independent statutory authority of the State. The BOS was established as a curriculum and assessment body independent of state governance however the BOS was accountable to the NSW state Government and therefore has a legislated duty to mandate educational curriculum policy. The BOS is today supported by the Office of the BOS, comprising a network of officers and committees responsible for advising on and implementing policy regarding the K-12 curriculum, School Certificate (SC) and HSC Examinations and Assessment, and the registration and accreditation of non-government schools. Curriculum Development and Registration is one of eight branches of the BOS.
Young (1993) acknowledges, “the framework for curriculum reorganisation was initially mooted in late 1988 with the release of the discussion paper, Excellence and Equity” (p. 29). The Ministry of Education and Youth Affairs issued Excellence and Equity – New South Wales Curriculum Reform, as a White Paper in November 1989 for the Minister, Dr Terry Metherell.
78 “In direction, nature and scope” Riordan and Weller (2000) maintain Excellence and Equity “sat comfortably with the Carrick Report” (p. 5). Smith (1990) argues:
The overall effect of the White Paper is to significantly increase the control of the Minister and central authority over the curriculum studied by students in schools and to restrict the choice students have in choosing patterns of study. These technical interests of control using centrally-developed rules and procedures rather than site-based curriculum initiatives are continued in the proposals of the Education reform bill, where the powers of the Minister, as in Thatcher’s Bill, are significantly increased and curriculum decisions increasingly placed in the hands of the Minister and his political colleagues (p. 5).
These disciplinary techniques identified by Smith relate to what Foucault terms a sovereign notion of power. This form of power is understood as primarily residing, emanating from, or possessed by a central sovereign authority. It is evident that Smith considered that the practices of the Minister and Board would work to dominate, repress, or exclude other groups, such as students and schools, in the curriculum development process. Foucault does not legitimate relations of power in terms of sovereignty but rather shifts the level of the exercise of power to its disciplinary and regulatory functions.
Disciplinary power is evidenced by the Ministerial authorisation of the selection of membership of the Board as part of the government’s deliberate strategy to manage the population and increase its potential of securing desired outcomes. Between 1990 and 1999, two Ministers of Education were in office including Virginia Chadwick (1990-1995) and John Aquilina (1995- 2001). The first President of the Board was employed by, and directly responsible to, the Minister. The other Board staff including three ex-officio members from the DET and nineteen representative nominees from the primary, secondary and tertiary education sectors, including industrial, professional and community bodies, were technically employed by the Executive Director of the Ministry however directly responsible to the President. The BOS was managed in a way that was seen to promote the welfare of individuals and at the same time this process improved the efficiency of the force or government that managed them. According to Brady and Kennedy (1999), “if the Board is sufficiently representative of community views, the Minister should be confident that the recommendations coming from the Board have been adequately discussed and debated” (p. 19).
Using the concept of governmentality, it is also possible to understand how particular sites, in this case the BOS and the Minister, interacted in ways that reinforce one another. The BOS is
79 responsible for the development of both primary and secondary syllabuses however the Education Reform Act enhanced the powers of the Minister in relation to content of courses of study and the right to approve syllabuses: “The Minister may approve particular syllabuses developed by the Board and may give general approval for syllabuses endorsed by the Board” (NSW Government, 1990, Section 14(2)). Both the BOS and the Minister were required to give their consent before the endorsement of draft syllabuses. Riordan and Weller (2000) advise that the Board regarded “a free flow of activity between the Board and the Minister as a valuable and healthy activity. True independence lies in the integrity of Board Members” (p. 18). By operating in collaboration with the Minister, the BOS overcame the problem of ‘population’ by retaining the ability to take an active role in their own governance.
A memorandum to John Lambert, President, BOS from the Minister, Virginia Chadwick, sets out the formal involvement of the Board and the Minister in the process of Syllabus Development and Approval in NSW. The process of syllabus initiation used by the Board occurred:
when the Board has agreed to a syllabus proposal prepared by the Board’s staff. Such a proposal would then be referred to the Minister for endorsement. Only following the Minister’s endorsement would the Board call together a Syllabus Committee (1991, September 26, p. 2).
Therefore, the Minister determined the rules for not only who was recruited into the BOS but also what was permissible with regard to the quality and acceptability of emerging syllabus texts. Swan and Winder (1991) affirm, “the governance of school level education was more explicitly located at Minister and state Government level” (p. 148). The points of involvement by the Minister included:
a) when the Board has approved a syllabus writing brief before the syllabus committee begins development and before the syllabus committee is appointed; b) during the developmental process, particularly when the curriculum committee is considering progress of the syllabus and when developing further writing instructions; c) after final Board endorsement for Ministerial approval.
Prior to 1990, the NSW DET played a central role in Years 7-12 curriculum development. With the introduction of the Education Reform Act, the DET became just one of the education systems in NSW with responsibilities for curriculum being largely in the hands of the BOS with
80 support from the Minister. Harris and Marsh (2003) identify that “the role of the DET was relegated to teacher recruitment, employment and professional development whilst the BOS was created to oversee curriculum and assessment” (p. 9). On the 3rd December, 1997, the Department of School Education was abolished under the Public Sector Management (DET) Order, 1997. Its branches were amalgamated with those of the former Department of Education and Training Coordination to form the new DET.
The First Board met once a month and had four sub-committees, including the Planning Committee, Curriculum Committee, Assessment and Credentials Committee and the Registration and Accreditation Committee, which also met once a month. These multitudes of forces that comprise expertise play a crucial role in establishing the possibility of legitimacy of government. The BOS delegated responsibility for overseeing, assisting and advising the Board in matters in its main areas of responsibility to these sub-committees, which generally consisted of six to eight Board members plus others persons who have particular expertise relevant to the work of the committee. The arrangements for decision-making, consultation, action and formulation of guidelines was understood by these groups and regulated in relation to authoritative criteria. The Board also established a number of advisory committees and groups including the Key Learning Area Co-ordinating Committees (KLACCs), Syllabus Committees, Examination Committees, Primary Curriculum Reference Panel, and the HSC Consultative Networks. The committee structure of the First BOS is represented below:
First Board of Studies (June 1990 – July 1994)
Planning Curriculum Assessment and Registration and
Committee Committee Credentials Accreditation Committee Committee
Primary Key Learning Syllabus Examination Curriculum Area Committees 7-12 Committees Reference Panel Coordinating Committees (KLACCs) Writing Teams Consultative Networks
Figure 4. Committee structure of the First BOS (Adapted from Board of Studies. (1991a). Annual report to 30 June 1991. North Sydney, Australia: Author).
81 The term of office for the membership of the first Board ended on the 4th July, 1994. The new government, appointed in April 1995, established the Office of the BOS as a separate agency following the abolition of the Ministry of Education and Youth Affairs (1992-1995). This new administrative office was responsible to the Minister for Education and Training. All the Board’s committees, including syllabus committees, were initially dissolved and the structure of the First BOS and process for syllabus development went through a period of transition. A new BOS (illustrated in Figure 5) met for the first time in August 1994. The previous Curriculum Committee and Assessment Committee were combined to form the Curriculum and Assessment Committee.
Second Board of Studies (August 1994 – 1998)
K-6 Curriculum 7-12 Curriculum Registration and and Assessment and Assessment Accreditation Committee Committee Committee
Syllabus Advisory Finance Committee Committee
Advisory HSC Consultative Committee on Committee Languages
Examination Technical Examination Committee Advisory Rules Committee Committee
Figure 5. Committee structure of the Second BOS (Adapted from Board of Studies. (1996a). Annual report 1996. North Sydney, Australia: Author).
At the first meeting of the new Board, the proposal for the formation of representative Standing Syllabus Advisory Committees was adopted. Standing Syllabus Advisory Committees undertook the role of assisting the syllabus development process in subject areas where the Board had approved the development of a syllabus. Their term of office coincided with that of the Board. Separate K-6 and 7-12 groups were formed, each with a maximum of fifteen members. KLACCs no longer existed. The first meeting of the new Years 7-12 Visual Arts Syllabus Advisory Committee was held on the 5th April, 1995.
82 In 1998, The Review of the Syllabus Development Processes used by the Board of Studies recommended increased direct Board member participation and accountability as a means of ensuring the production of high quality syllabuses and support documents. The Visual Arts Board Curriculum Committee (BCC) replaced the Visual Arts Syllabus Advisory Committee. From 1998, the role of the BCC in the development of a syllabus was significantly marginalised. Harris identifies, “the BCC, unlike its predecessor, serves an advisory role and has no discretionary power to veto or refuse any syllabus material” (2003, p. 51). The BCC, which included at least one Board member, provided ‘quality assurance’ and recommendations to the BOS however syllabus endorsement relied on the approval of the Board of the BOS. A project manager employed by the Office of the BOS managed the syllabus development project, developing the initial proposal, establishing consultative networks, managing consultation, and drafting and revising syllabus documentation (BOS, 2001, November, p. 1). Project teams at various stages of the syllabus development process included curriculum, assessment and publications officers, as well as contracted writers.
In accordance with one of the central tenets of Foucault’s conceptual framework of governmentality, this thesis contends that between 1976 and 1999, one of the ways in which each Board took an active role in their own governance and ‘disciplined’ itself was by appointing subject syllabus committees to assist with the syllabus development process. That is, the practices of power discussed above regulated and formed subjects through a process of self- regulation and self-discipline (Foucault, 1980). Considering this, regulation was not simply imposed from above by the Minister, but the BOS was encouraged and supported to exercise its own freedom and choices. The BOS acted upon its own subjectivity to govern itself and this was in the form of the Art Syllabus Committee, discussed in the next section of this chapter.
2.3 The Art Syllabus Committee and Syllabus Construction
The syllabus committee appears to carry the identity of the subject: its status, authority, advocacy, and initiatives. All arise from the history and force of this group of individuals acting in solidarity, despite the contested and fractious discussions portrayed [or inferred] in the minutes. The records show that the subject syllabus committee changes title from the Art Syllabus Committee, Years 11-12 Visual Arts Syllabus Committee, Years 7-12 Visual Arts Syllabus Committee, to the Visual Arts Syllabus Advisory Committee, at the same time as each new Board is constituted (illustrated in Figure 1).
The public record of the syllabus committees, from the beginning of this documentary trace on the 4th November, 1976 to the 6th November, 1997, gives some indication of their deliberations.
83 The Art Syllabus Committee held thirty three meetings during their tenure and met on average three times a year; the Years 11-12 Visual Arts Syllabus Committee held five meetings and met on average twice a year; and the Years 7-12 Visual Arts Syllabus Committee and the Visual Arts Syllabus Advisory Committee held twenty-three and fifteen meetings respectively and both met on average five times a year.
The documentary record of these meetings demonstrates the ways in which the syllabus committee is affected by the principles of governmentality, including ‘Panopticism’ and self- surveillance, which constitutes a technology of control. Part of this technology of control relies on the fact that everything is noted and recorded: “This surveillance is based on a system of permanent registration” (Foucault, 1977, p. 196). The Panoptic quality of registration or this process of recording facilitates self-surveillance. The syllabus committee took an active role in their own governance by committing their actions and intentions on paper, making them accountable and open to scrutiny. For Rose and Miller (1992):
Writing codifies customs and habits, normalising them, both transforming them into repeatable instructions as to how to conduct oneself, and establishing authoritative means of judgement. ‘Power’ is the outcome of the affiliation of persons, spaces, communications and inscriptions into a durable form (p. 184).
An analysis of the public record of the syllabus committee meetings circulating immediately prior to the introduction of the 1987 and 1999 syllabuses reveal a microculture anxious to introduce new knowledge into the visual arts curriculum. The discourse of the syllabus committee as told by the minutes is procedural. There is no evidence of any difference of opinion within the committee nor schism or other contestation. Again, this may be a function of the minuting practices. The minutes produce their own discursive object, likely at variance to members’ recollection and different again from the syllabus document itself.
The minutes are insulated from much of what is going on outside the frame of these meetings. Discourses recruited from a wider context are left unremarked. They coexist within an hermetically sealed bubble. In this bubble the hierarchy of boards and committees mediates all syllabus activity. There is little talk of the substantive content of an art curriculum, but much agonising about the powers. At no point do the minutes refer to research, other syllabus publications or any ‘external’ sources. This is not to say no such field-to-field or borrowing does not occur. It does however enter the discourses without record. For example, the attention given by the Art Syllabus Committee to the study of Australian art in both a ‘national’ and ‘international’ context is in continuity with a book chapter by Terry Smith (1986b) titled The
84 Local, the National and the International in Australian Art and reminiscent of the Power Institute of Fine Arts’ Fine Arts II and III program, ‘The Local, the National and the International in Australian Art’, however both these sources are not acknowledged in the archive (this is discussed further throughout Chapter Three).
The Art Syllabus Committee as an instrument of power is central to this investigation. Of significance is the way in which the syllabus committee perceived their role in relation to government. Instead of viewing themselves as passive recipients of a government who sought to manage the conduct of this population, an analysis of the operation and structure of the syllabus committee will show how they were able to exercise power to contest governmental intent and create their own way of operating (Chapters Three, Four and Five).
Traditionally the syllabus committee work by the consensus or agreement of members who are the expert representatives of education unions, professional teacher associations and educational employers. Working parties and other forums to track opinion, such as conferences, also contribute to the invention of a syllabus. The Art Syllabus Committee was not a monolithic entity and membership was neither fixed nor transparent. Members with a diversity of interests were brought into relationship with one another, which created the potential for dislocation of some players and domination of other players at particular points in the syllabus development process.
The syllabus committee afforded its members prestige and status. The occupant of the syllabus chair holds considerable influence. The number of Chairs for each syllabus committee included: three for the Art Syllabus Committee including Professor Eric C. Daniels, Dr Terry E. Smith, and Mr Len Rieser; two for the Years 11-12 Visual Arts Syllabus Committee including Dr Terry E. Smith and Mr Len Reiser; two for the Years 7-12 Visual Arts Syllabus Committee including Mr Len Reiser and Ms Kerry Thomas, and Amanda Weate held the position of Chair of the Visual Arts Syllabus Advisory Committee. The average number of members present (apologies included) at each syllabus committee meeting fluctuates from twenty Art Syllabus Committee members, twenty-four Years 11-12 Visual Arts Syllabus Committee members, eighteen Years 7-12 Visual Arts Syllabus Committee members, to fourteen Visual Arts Syllabus Advisory Committee members (Appendix B).
The syllabus committee ceded much of their responsibility to various working parties and subcommittees of which between 1976 and 1999, there appear to be twenty-eight in number. The writing teams negotiated the meanings of the pre-established rules set by the syllabus committee and selectively appropriated, relocated and related discourses to draft syllabus texts.
85 This practice of framing what was thinkable and permissible, required writers to be creative, productive, monitored, sanctioned and disciplined. The writing teams were the ‘docile bodies’ that necessitated the efficient functioning of the syllabus committee. This disciplinary power relied on surveillance, and the internal training this produces, to ensure obedience and a docile and useful workforce “that may be subjected, used, transformed and improved” (Foucault, 1977, p. 136).
Writing teams had the freedom to interpret a brief for the development of a syllabus text and devise strategies for its implementation however at the same time they were constrained by the boundaries set by the syllabus committee. Recruiting writers increased the potential of securing desired outcomes and the selection of writers was critical in determining whose interests would be included or excluded from syllabus texts. The working parties and subcommittees are cited as the source of advice on matters concerning syllabus revision, Visual Arts Education K-12, the Australian Art and Culture and Visual Mass Media Draft Syllabuses, a Design proposal, the National Arts Statement Brief, and achievement scales for Visual Arts, amongst others.
It is possible to view the development and implementation of a syllabus text as part of the technology of governmentality where the activities of a particular population, the syllabus committee, are planned and managed according to goals set by government – the Board. The syllabus is a complete statement of what the Board requires in a subject area. The syllabus is legislated by state parliament as NSW government policy. A syllabus is a written statement usually supported by an implementation guide however each syllabus must be capable of standing alone. In general, syllabuses should include an Introduction, Rationale, Aims, Student Objectives, Content, Assessment of Student Achievement and Evaluation of Programs. I argue that the goal of this governmental technology was ‘normalisation’. Syllabus development was restricted to and regulated by specific parameters and as a result, syllabus texts were normalised in accordance with ‘acceptable’ practices.
The Board created a system of syllabus development that was controlled, managed and organised. The Board would not approve a syllabus for which additional, supporting materials, such as notes, were essential for its satisfactory implementation. When the Board approved a syllabus, it was confident that the subject was suitable for use in schools. Setting the timelines, supervising the progress of work and approving the release of the syllabus text were all a mechanism of control over the activity of the syllabus committee. These accountability practices required self-surveillance on behalf of the syllabus committee to define and interpret what was admissible in their particular setting and how they would translate these parameters for the
86 writing and development of the official curriculum texts. Sullivan (1989b) identifies the process of curriculum development by the Art Syllabus Committee as:
long and arduous with the curriculum planning team sometimes having to contend with equivocal departmental policies and a sometimes ill-defined agenda. The process of curriculum development by committee had distinct advantages as it provided a forum for alternative views, yet it sometimes invoked a personal and political element which invariably impeded progress (p. 228).
The Art Syllabus Committee assisted the BSSS. They did not have the authority to undertake activities other than those within their subject area. The syllabus committee comprised twenty nominees from Universities, Colleges of Advanced Education, Department of Education, Secondary Teacher’s Association, Headmaster’s Conference, Association of Heads of Independent Girls Schools, Catholic Schools, and the Department of Technical and Further Education, all working together to develop and write the curriculum. Syllabus development and revision were the main activities undertaken by the Art Syllabus Committee. They also carried out a number of other important tasks including: developing and dealing with Assessment guidelines; setting prescribed texts, projects and works; subject rules for examinations; matters related to resources; election of members to the subject’s Examination Committee; and other matters referred to them by the Board.
The BSSS instituted a ten-year cycle in NSW for syllabus development, implementation and evaluation. The syllabuses were automatically reviewed once a decade. There were multiple agents and agencies involved in permitting or restricting the flow of information and facilitating the selection and organisation of knowledge in syllabus texts. The line of responsibility of the Art Syllabus Committee was from the elected chairperson to the Planning and Development Committee. Prior to, and during, the development of new drafts, syllabus committees were required to meet with the Board’s Planning and Development Committee, or its nominees, in the hope of eliminating the need for redrafting. The Planning and Development Committee were empowered to return drafts directly to the syllabus committee if it felt that changes needed to be made. The Planning and Development Committee could not however approve a syllabus on behalf of the Board. The draft syllabus was also distributed to external sources including Regional Offices, Professional Associations and teachers for comment. Following necessary amendments by the syllabus committee, the Directorate of Studies was asked by the Planning and Development Committee to appraise the new draft syllabus. The Directorate of Studies within the Department of Education was the head office division that supervised curriculum and policy decisions in terms of what was taught in schools. After consideration of the comments
87 and recommendations of the Directorate of Studies and once the Planning and Development Committee was satisfied with the new draft, the Planning and Development Committee recommended to the Board through its Executive Committee that the syllabus be made available over a two-year period for implementation by schools that wished to employ it. The Board may approve of this optional implementation or may suggest further editing. The syllabus committee carefully monitored the syllabus in operation and a detailed report of the evaluation was prepared or coordinated by the syllabus committee for the Board’s consideration, together with a revised syllabus incorporating any amendment. The Directorate of Studies would appraise the final draft syllabus and upon satisfaction, the Planning and Development Committee would recommend to the Board that the syllabus be finally implemented.
This set of principles and guidelines that governed the development of a syllabus was abandoned in 1988. It became the responsibility of the Statutory Board Directorate (SBD), the Department of Education directorate responsible for providing administrative, technical and policy support for the BSE, to monitor syllabus development. It was the role of the Curriculum Project Officers of the SBD to liaise with syllabus committees in relation to design, development and evaluation of syllabus documents. The Curriculum Project Officers were agents of the syllabus committee’s consultative network.
Under the BSE, the Years 11-12 Visual Arts Syllabus Committee, composed of nominees from tertiary institutions, the Department of Education, the Teachers’ Federation, independent schools, the Department of Technical and Further Education and Professional Teachers’ Associations, developed syllabuses with the use of a writing team and a consultative network. These groups consisted of Board members and other personnel with special expertise in the field. Consultative networks, and this concept of writing teams, whereby syllabus committees develop a brief and then select a small number of people to write the document accordingly, was supported by the newly established BOS from 1990. The writing team, drawn largely from the First BOS Years 7-12 Visual Arts Syllabus Committee, was required to produce a first draft syllabus in the minimum possible time (one or two sustained writing sessions). The syllabus committee employed a consultative network that included representatives from the wider community at appropriate stages during the development, initially before the writing brief was established, and later, once the draft was complete. The syllabus committee then made amendments or approved the syllabus.
The Years 7-12 Visual Arts Syllabus Committee, comprising four representatives from Universities, two from Teachers’ Federation, one from the Independent Teachers Association, Parents and Citizens Association, and Catholic Education Office respectively, and one primary
88 and one secondary teacher, operated under the instructions of the Curriculum Committee. The Curriculum Committee was responsible for drafting the terms of reference for syllabus committees, liaising with syllabus committees as necessary in the curriculum development process and receiving and considering documents produced by them.
It was the syllabus committees’ responsibility to coordinate the development of syllabus documents and review, update, revise and rewrite syllabuses for Years 11-12 in line with guidelines approved by the BOS. I argue that the BOS atrophied any interest in content and became experts in policing rather than the curriculum. Weller (1998) reinforces this proposition:
The work of syllabus committees has also come under more scrutiny and control. Internal and external reviews have gradually changed the role of the syllabus committees from being fully responsible for the development of a syllabus to being essentially advisory in nature. … Writers must, both as individuals and as a group, meet criteria developed by the Board. Project budgets, timelines and Board requirements are far more specific than in the past and the supervision of work in progress far more vigorous. … It might be argued that syllabus committees prior to the 1990’s were more democratically based, more likely to work consensually and be more open to teacher input and opinion (pp. 3-4).
A document titled ‘Guidelines for Syllabus Development’ issued by the BOS in February 1991 set out a formula to ensure that all syllabuses went through the same process and resulted in the same format. This is another clear example of the technology of normalisation through which “authorities of various sorts have sought to shape, normalise and instrumentalise the conduct, thought, decisions and aspirations of others in order to achieve the objectives they consider desirable” (Miller and Rose, 1990, p. 8). These rules and guidelines provided by the Board were effective tools of disciplinary power developed for the orderly regimentation of the syllabus committee. They created a normative criteria or standard of evaluation that disciplined the actions of the syllabus committee. Within these boundaries, the syllabus committee was also required to regulate themselves. Between 1993-94 the Board developed a Statement of Values, supported by a Statement of Equity Principles, and included in the Syllabus Development Handbook, to be applied to all areas of curriculum. These values provided guidance for the syllabus committee on the development and writing of the syllabus.
The approach of syllabus development under the First BOS, whereby representative syllabus committees for each subject area prepared curriculum materials, was abolished in 1994. The new Board adopted a project-based approach to curriculum development, whereby small expert
89 project teams were engaged by the Board to prepare curriculum documents over an intense period with Board officers overseeing the work of these teams. The consultative character of the syllabus development process was maintained by ensuring that individual project teams were guided by the advice of the Second BOS Visual Arts Syllabus Advisory Committee. Consultation was also ensured by circulating individual draft syllabuses for comment and discussion to the teaching and wider community at every key stage of development (BOS, 1996a, pp. 19-20). The first meeting of the new Years 7-12 Visual Arts Syllabus Advisory Committee was held on the 5th April, 1995.
Following the acceptance of the recommendations of the McGaw review of the HSC by the BOS, discussed in Chapter Five of this inquiry, it was necessary to reconsider the course structure for Visual Arts. For each Stage 6 subject, a package of materials for use by teachers was to be developed that included a revised syllabus, course prescriptions, examination specifications, and a performance scale, to be distributed with the draft syllabus. There were five stages in the development process including: Planning and Promotion, Writing Brief Development, Syllabus Development, Handover for Implementation, and Data Collection and Evaluation. To assist in planning directions for the syllabus, consultation was to occur with teachers and the wider community during each stage excluding syllabus development. Consultation involved discussions with professional teachers’ associations and school authorities, as well as independently facilitated meetings with teachers. Responses were invited from any interested individuals and organisations. The purpose of the consultation was to communicate the intentions of the syllabus development process, encourage involvement in this process, gather views of key interest groups and determine and confirm issues and trends emerging that may determine and confirm directions for the further development of documents.
Preparation of a writing brief in the second stage of the syllabus development process provided a ‘blueprint’ for the revised syllabus. Following consultation, the brief was to be finalised and used by writers in the preparation of a draft syllabus. The draft writing brief was structured according to the components of the syllabus and each component included proposed instructions for the writers to follow. In Visual Arts, Karen Maras, Senior Curriculum Officer, worked closely with Kerry Thomas, Inspector, Creative Arts, to complete the majority of the writing for the Visual Arts Writing Brief. Other writers were selected from the list of expressions of interest based on their previous experience in project teamwork and their collective expertise within the subject of Visual Arts.
A small team of expert writers engaged in the writing of the Visual Arts Syllabus, working collaboratively with the Project Manager, Karen Maras and Inspector, Kerry Thomas. Two of
90 the nine members of the Visual Arts Writing Project Team were Amanda Weate and Dr Penny McKeon, both from the School of Art Education, COFA, UNSW. Regular meetings, held as writers completed stages of specific tasks assigned, focused on the evaluation of aspects of the writing, decisions required as the process unfolded and confirmation of directions and trends. The reproduction and distribution of the Visual Arts Stage 6 Syllabus was approved in June, 1999.
This detailed discussion of the formation and processes of the Art Syllabus Committee is given to provide an accurate context from which the documents discussed in the next three chapters of this thesis were guided. The two documents under investigation in this research personify four art syllabus committees, three statutory authorities and despite overlapping membership, differing curriculum contexts. These forms of syllabus production are now extinct. The syllabus committee was the site, used by governments, most concerned with advising, representing and constituting the subject, and setting policy. In profiling the role of the respective art syllabus committees in the discourse field by their characteristics, structure, and decision-making processes, I have highlighted the ways in which the syllabus committees were affected by the principles of governmentality. This was expressed on the one hand through external control mechanisms of the Board that disciplined the syllabus committees’ ways of thinking and acting and on the other, internally, through the operation of the syllabus committee. From this perspective, “the productive elements of power move from focusing on the controlling actors to the system of ideas that normalise and construct the rules through which intent and purpose in the world are organised” (Popkewitz and Brennan, 1998, p. 19). I will show in the following chapters that despite the increasingly governed nature of the Art Syllabus Committee, they retained the ability to operate under their own control. In doing so, they took an active role in their own governance by monitoring and sanctioning their performance and outcomes through the techniques of production of a syllabus.
91 CHAPTER THREE THE FOCUS AREAS
3 Introduction
Having considered the constitution of the respective Art Syllabus Committees, this chapter now turns to examine their work, in particular, the assemblage of discourses that constituted the discipline, Visual Arts, in NSW in the 1980s. The discourse or systems of value that art education has accepted as the preferred way to articulate its identity throughout this decade is discussed. These discourses enabled particular ‘objects’ to emerge, culminating in the BSE 1987 Visual Arts Syllabus Years 11-12.
Curriculum development and practice throughout the 1980s can be distinguished by its participatory nature. Conferences, consultants and professional development programs sought to appropriate particular discourses that resonated with the more powerful and dominant interests of bureaucratic networks and reforms of government. The archives in this investigation are used to identify and trace those discourses that were selectively circulated and legitimated within the field of art education to construct the particular form and content of the official 1987 curriculum text. More specifically, the analysis of the archive will show how the discourses of the discipline were related to other authoritative discourses as a mechanism of power and control.
A persistent set of discourses occupied the Art Syllabus Committee during the 1980s. These principal, recurring discourses are matters of content; notably K-12 policies, Australia, and the examination (its size, status and regulation). This chapter will show how the privileging of these discourses lead to the Focus Areas in the 1987 syllabus, a curriculum device for classifying visual arts content. The Focus Areas became a discursive practice that enjoyed the prestige of opening up the possibility for formulating new statements in the curriculum. A discourse of ‘core’ and ‘electives’ was imported to shape the relations of the Focus Areas to other discursive statements. I will trace the discursive origin of each of the four Focus Areas as named: Art in Australia, Art and Culture, Art and Media, Art and Design.
3.1 The Discursive Authority of the K-12 Concept
In this section I examine how K-12 as a construct within the discursive formation that is art education emerged in the late 1970s. Importantly my analysis draws attention to the K-12 concept as one instance where the force of an external discourse rather than those idiosyncratic
92 to the field produced curriculum change in art education in NSW. I will evidence how the field of art education took up a position that official policy discourse constructed and allowed. The K-12 policy had important consequences for the form and content of the visual arts curriculum. The Art Syllabus Committee were motivated to admit additional discourses to the curriculum as well as selecting and organising particular forms of knowledge that complimented this K-12 discursive formation. In doing so, the syllabus committee sought to have represented their knowledge, values and norms in official discourse.
I begin by evaluating the Education and the Arts report, published in 1977 following the joint activity of the Australia Council and Schools Commission, as providing evidence for the setting up of the project for the K-12 Visual Arts Education curriculum. An article located in the data, printed in The Advertiser newspaper on the 14th May, 1973 titled, ‘PM announces enquiry on arts in education’ forecast the Federal Governments’ intentions of holding a national enquiry on the role of the arts in education. The Prime Minister at the time, Mr Gough Whitlam, declared “the moves to be part of the Government’s two-fold objective to pursue excellence and spread interest and participation in the arts” (Canberra Bureau, 1973, p. 3). Whitlam announced that the “government wanted the arts to be considered as a vital component – if not the basis – of education itself” (p. 3). This high level of interest from outside the field of art education, especially from government, in seeking to influence the place of arts in education, clearly operates as an instrument of governmentality whereby the Federal and State government are concerned with the management and welfare of the population.
The Education and the Arts (1977) report was a cooperative venture, comprising a National Steering Committee that convened study groups in each state. The study group responsible for preparing the NSW Report received submissions, held discussions and made recommendations to government departments, educational institutions, arts organisations, community groups and individuals. The study groups also acted as coordinating committees for the dissemination and implementation of the reports that they had prepared for further consultation and comment. The activities of these study groups were regulated predominantly through procedural imperatives. For example, Milton (n.d.) outlines in the Study of Education and the Arts: State Committee Brief that study groups were required to gather statistical information relating to existing provisions for arts education in their respective State; seek expert advice in the analysis of this information in order to arrive at an accurate picture of implied trends, needs and growth; clearly identify the educational philosophies and policies, both stated and implied, of authorities or bodies which directly or indirectly affect the position or future growth of arts education; clearly identify the aims, objectives and general educational philosophy both stated and implied in the
93 various syllabuses or arts programmes; and, sample a wide range of opinions (teachers, children, parent and any other interested arts organisations or individuals) (pp. 1-2).
The collaborative approach to the study provided for regular liaison between arts and education authorities and involved many people. There was an emphasis on involving teachers, artists, administrators, parents and members of the wider community, however it was also considered important to draw issues and recommendations to the attention of the responsible government Ministers and senior officials (Executive Officer’s Bulletin, 1979, February, p. 3). Although the Federal government was working in collaboration with each State, I contend that this national report emphasises the managed or disciplined nature of art education: it operated as a technology of control developed to manage the general direction of the arts in education across the nation.
The Australia Council was a powerful institutional player, established in 1975 as the federal government’s principal funding and policy-making body for the arts. It is possible to view the Federal government’s management of education through funding as a disciplinary technology of power. The ‘educational population’, or ‘social body’, was the object of government that was managed in a way that sought to promote the welfare of individuals through participation in the arts. At the same time this process improved the regulation of the arts and the efficacy of the force that managed them. Financial support from the Schools Commission and the Australia Council provided for meetings and seminars, consultancies, special assistance to State committees and the dissemination of reports through government and non-government systems and schools, as well as to art teachers, professional arts educators associations, individual artists, other interested individuals and to a number of tertiary institutions. I suggest that the inducement of funding to support this study encouraged NSW to acquiesce to some of the recommendations of the report.
The public meetings and seminars held during 1978 in several State capitals and regional centres helped to open up discussion of the reports and to identify priorities for action. The following statement on the problems and needs of Arts education was highlighted in the NSW Report:
6.17 In general, there appears to be little overall co-ordination of arts programs, either within subject areas or as a totality. A need exists for a more precise statement of aims for arts education so that the individual syllabuses and the relationship amongst them can reflect an approach consistent with the stated aims of … education (Schools Commission and the Australian Council, 1977, p. 43).
94 This statement is indicative of firstly, the attention directed toward implementing developmental progress through the various grades in arts areas. One objective of the Education and the Arts (National) report was to overcome the “lack of relationships between curricula, between primary, secondary and tertiary levels and between the various art forms by appropriate curriculum co-ordination arrangements” (p. 50). Secondly, the emphasis on ‘consistency’ is a discourse of ‘normalisation’ that supports notions of homogeneity and sameness within education more generally rather than diversity and difference. It is evident that this was intended as a means of affirming the place of the arts within the broader education system.
Roy Knudson, the Inspector of Schools, Metropolitan West Region, Chairman of the SSB Art Syllabus Committee and a recorded member of the BSSS Art Syllabus Committee between 1976 and 1988, attributes a K-12 discourse to the Education and the Arts report in his paper titled ‘How we got here – Where we’re going’12:
It was the Education and the Arts report that clearly identified that the syllabuses designed for three segments of our school system bore only a slight relationship to each other. The mid 70s saw the emergence of the K-12 concept (1984, p. 5).
The Education and the Arts report and the K-12 concept, according to Knudson, led to the establishment of a SSB Art Syllabus Committee initiative to write a rationale for Art Education upon which all future art syllabus would be based.
The Art Syllabus Committee meeting minutes show little interest in, or commitment to dissent. The syllabus committee did not contest governmental intent by creating alternative policies or their own ways of operating during this time of curriculum reform. I suggest that the aspiration of art educators to be recognised as a necessary and worthwhile subject within the school curriculum was inhibited or persuaded by this extrinsic, colonising influence of government. Importantly, Terry Smith (at that time Lecturer, Power Institute of Fine Arts, University of Sydney [USYD]) held a position on the NSW State Steering Committee for the study of Education and the Arts and he represented the University on the BSSS and SSB Art Syllabus Committees at this time. As an active agent in the field who occupied multiple roles and overlapping memberships and affiliations (detailed in a later section of this chapter), Smith was in a position to selectively appropriate, relocate, refocus and relate discourses. The extent and impact of the Education and the Arts report for the syllabus committee is captured in the words
12 This paper was presented to the K-12 Visual Arts Implementation in Schools Conference on the 3rd June, 1984 and published in the K-12 Art Bulletin, Metropolitan West Art-Craft Committee in November 1984.
95 of Smith: “But perhaps the two major areas of work which lies before us are the contributions which we might be able to make as educators to the Visual Arts K-12 Syllabus Revision and to the formation of two unit courses in art related areas” (1981, April 10, p. 1). The SSB Art Syllabus Committee recognised the power/knowledge of the Education and the Arts report and subsequently, the K-12 concept emerges as a strong ‘will to power’13 (Nietzsche in Heidegger, 1981) in the meeting minutes of the BSSS Art Syllabus Committee.
Representatives of a subcommittee (formed at the 31st October, 1977 BSSS Art Syllabus Committee meeting) were requested to draw up a proposal for a revised syllabus as well as advised to join a working party of the SSB Art Syllabus Committee, to establish a rationale for visual arts education for Kindergarten to Year 12. Individuals on the syllabus committees had the power to interpret and create a space in which this particular K-12 discourse could be articulated and exchanged between committees. In doing so they took an active role in their own governance.
The minutes report that the method used to generate the data for this investigation into the relationship between art syllabuses for primary, junior secondary and senior secondary schools was participatory (1978, October 30). Submissions were received from all Regional Arts Curriculum Committees and individual art teachers from State/Catholic and Independent schools, in order to contribute to the production of a valid rationale for art education based on the K-12 concept. As a result of these submissions, and from evidence gained through the Education and the Arts NSW report, two discussion papers, The Arts in the Education Process and The Place of Visual Arts in Education were developed by the joint working party of the two secondary syllabus committees. It was from these papers that a ‘Draft Rationale for Visual Arts Education (K-12)’ was formed.
K-12 curriculum planning had no history of success in Australia as there was no administrative structure at the state level that allowed for consultation or liaison between the Director-General of Education responsible for syllabuses for Kindergarten to Year 6, the SSB, and the BSSS about the nature and purpose of visual arts education. As Rieser notes, “new structures to do this had to be set up because K-12 Curriculum planning had never before succeeded in NSW, or elsewhere in Australia” (1984b, p. 14). As outlined in Chapter Two, the Department of
13 A key concept in Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophy is that the ‘will to power’ is present in human drives, ambitions and emotions and at a more primitive level, in the natural world. In Beyond Good and Evil Nietzsche (1906) states, “A living thing seeks above all to discharge its strength – life itself is will to power” (p. 29). Furthermore, Nietzsche (1996) claims in On Genealogy of Morals, III, “all animals … strive instinctively for an optimum combination of favourable conditions which allow them to expend all their energy and achieve their maximum feeling of power” (p. 86). Considering this, the essence of a drive or instinct is the achievement of power.
96 Education carried out a number of functions to assist the SSB and BSSS in their day-to-day activities, however the three bodies responsible for the development of syllabuses in NSW operated as separate and autonomous entities. Rieser (1980) observes:
Therefore there has been no cohesion or fundamental agreement about the nature and purposes of Art education or even the importance of education in and through the arts. The result of this situation is that the current syllabuses in Visual Arts, taken together, exhibit a number of important inconsistencies, omissions and illogicalities (p. 5).
The government positioned K-12 as the solution to problems in the education system that needed to be remedied or governed. A K-12 discourse first emerges in a document titled ‘Reading K-12’ developed by the Curriculum Division of the Directorate of Studies. The minutes record that this Curriculum Policy Statement (written between 1976-1979) was the result of intensive discussions across NSW, reflected through a series of conferences convened by the Directorate of Studies. The Minister of Education officially released this document in November 1979. The Board redistributed the K-12 discourse to syllabus committees following the endorsement of ‘Reading K-12’ in February 1980. An undated memorandum from the SSB declared their “hopes that syllabus committees might embody the principles of the policy statement within their own syllabus documents” (p. 2). In adhering to the directions set by government in this policy, the SSB attempted to manage the behaviour of its syllabus committees towards desired ends. As a consequence of this technology of control, the art syllabus committees adapted their own behaviour through the technologies of self-regulation by reinterpreting and recasting the generation and implementation of this K-12 policy into their agenda.
The meeting minutes of the Planning and Development Committee record that the SSB Art Syllabus Committee’s immediate response to the document ‘Reading K-12’ was the recommendation to convene a committee consisting of representatives from the SSB and BSSS art syllabus committees to prepare a statement relating to ‘Communicating K-12’ (1981, September 23, p. 2). The SSB Art Syllabus Committee believed that “the importance of visual imagery in today’s society and the necessity for students to become literate in ‘reading’ images” (1981, September 23, p. 2) should be reflected in the Board’s syllabuses. No reference to this suggestion for a new statement is recorded in the syllabus committee minutes. It rapidly disappears from the record after this random and isolated appearance.
Interestingly, the minutes show no motivation to disobedience by the art syllabus committees. Indeed, compliance and subjection arise at this time. Robyn Bellamy, a member of the BSSS art
97 syllabus committee, who later assumed the role of K-12 Visual Arts Curriculum Consultant to the Directorate of Studies, does however attribute a rhetoric of ‘larrikinism’ to the production of a K-12 discourse by the subcommittee of the BSSS syllabus committee14:
We were really out on a limb, and we were thought to be quite crazy. Visual Arts obviously were off on some bandwagon thinking K-12. The bosses in there said quite rightly there is no machinery in the Department for a K-12 policy of any kind … K-12 was a no no and we were almost laughed at (1982b, p. 4).
Despite Bellamy’s curious allegation that the K-12 discursive activity of the Art Syllabus Committee was discouraged, this discursive object continues to circulate in the meeting minutes of the art syllabus committees. The SSB Art Syllabus Committee persisted in their appeal in a letter to the SSB from the Chairman, Roy Knudson (1980, March 26). Knudson outlines in this letter that at the October, 1979 meeting of the syllabus committee the following resolutions were unanimously endorsed:
this committee requests that the SSB approach the BSSS and the Director General to approve in principle and provide material support for the simultaneous revision of all visual arts syllabuses K-12; The SC Art Syllabus Committee recommends that the Director General be requested, through the SSB, to establish a Task Force – representing all interested parties, and co-ordinated by the Directorate of Studies, to facilitate these revisions as a matter of highest priority; This Committee seeks the Board’s approval to enlist the assistance of the Directorate of Studies and the Division of Services in the concurrent development of supportive documents, resources and in-service activities to aid the implementation of proposed revised syllabuses.
Foucault’s (1988a) ‘technology of the self’ serves to illustrate the ways in which the power/knowledge of the K-12 discourse instilled self-evaluation in the SSB and BSSS Art Syllabus Committees and influenced their decision to revise the visual art syllabuses. The art syllabus committees took an active role in their own conduct by producing a coherent philosophical basis for the development of art syllabuses K-12 in order to transform themselves in accordance with this dominant concept. Knudson’s concluding remark in the letter: “It would
14 Bellamy, R. (1982b, November). The K-12 visual arts education curriculum statement. Art Issues: Selected articles form the Art Educators Conference, Medlow Bath, June 1982.
98 be appreciated if the requests implicit in these resolutions could be facilitated by the Board as a matter of urgency” (1980, March 26, p. 3) illustrates the art syllabus committees’ eagerness to relate and appropriate the K-12 discourse, and at the same time render themselves as more productive.
The Directorate of Studies, David Cohen, exercised his authority over the SSB in response to this letter and organised a conference on the 21st – 22nd April, 1980 to facilitate the formation of the K-12 Visual Arts Curriculum Development Project. The Director of Studies notified the Board that “a consistent K-12 Art Education policy was being formulated by the Directorate of Studies with advice from the syllabus committee associated with each Board, and with the extensive advice from the eleven Regions and other appropriate groups and persons” (1980, April 24, p. 1). The Director of Studies governed what was permissible and provided the circumstances, procedures and regulatory practices that contributed significantly to the formation of a K-12 discursive object within the visual arts curriculum. The work of the subcommittee was subsequently suspended at the beginning of 1979 when the Director of Studies established the K-12 Visual Arts Curriculum Project.
This deliberate government strategy by the Directorate of Studies to guide the formation of a succinct, philosophically coherent rationale for the K-12 concept did not however operate as a system of total control. Three ‘Art in Education’ Conferences between 1980-1982 that were participatory and generally regarded as inclusive, with representatives from a broad spectrum of art education in schools and in the community, assisted the production of the ‘Report of The Directorate of Studies Visual Arts K-12 Curriculum Development Project’. This Report encompasses the three Drafts of the Rationale for Visual Arts K-12 prepared at each conference. The first Draft was presented at the April 1980 Conference by the HSC and SC Art Syllabus Revision Subcommittees; Draft 2 was compiled as a result of suggestions for amendments made by participants at the April Conference; and the third Draft was presented to the 1980 September Conference, with previous Rationale material.
The minutes record that the process of consultation in the development of this Report was extensive and such diversity of interest contributed to the discursive resources available in its development. Bellamy (1982b) recalls “we got as many people as we could involved in agreeing on what should be the basis for visual arts education for children going from Kindergarten to Year 12” (p. 5). Despite this ‘involvement model’ (Knudson, 1984), in what appears to be a further attempt at regulating the process of curriculum development, the Department of Education established K-12 Curriculum Project Teams in 1981 to monitor the development of the new curriculum. Bellamy (1982b) recounts that the discursive practices of the syllabus
99 committee were controlled by the operation of government: “Up until this time it had been pretty well ad hoc and the Visual Arts had been really making up the game as it went along. So they caught up with us and said, “Alright, you’ve made the game up now we’re going to set the rules” (p. 6).
The Director-General of Education, Douglas Swan, constructed the conditions that facilitated access to and control of the K-12 discourse in a memorandum to the BSSS and SSB titled ‘Curriculum Development within the Department of Education: Some Structural Changes’ (1981, November 11). The new structure allowed involvement of the respective Boards by means of a nominated representative to Project Teams within certain areas of curriculum development. Visual Arts K-12 was specified as one of eleven areas of “major priority change and development within the Department” (p. 2). The goal of these K-12 curriculum projects was the development of a “framework in which the curriculum, developed by various agencies, might be seen as a whole, without artificial breaks at various stages in the child’s development” (p. 2).
The Chairman of the Visual Arts Curriculum Project Team was Roy Knudson and included representatives of the respective Boards, the syllabus committees, the functional Directorates of the Department of Education, and professional, parent and community bodies such as the Art Gallery of NSW and the Australia Council. The Visual Arts Curriculum Project Team assumed the responsibility as a single body of amending the original Draft Rationale however they were not free to transform or recontextualise discourses. Amendments were made to the Draft Rationale as a result of suggestions for change by those involved in the K-12 Visual Arts Curriculum development process. The Report acknowledges, “the Art Curriculum Team has not made independent content or editorial decisions regarding the Rationale” (1980, November 21, p. 5).
The K-12 Visual Arts Curriculum Project emerges with the strength of the sovereign.15 That is, the Art Syllabus Committee was obedient to this central, authoritative discourse. The minutes record the syllabus committee requested to have direct participation in the preparation of the K- 12 Curriculum document, including the attendance of conferences and workshops by representatives of the committee. This K-12 regulatory discourse became a ‘regime of truth’ (knowledge) in that it produced certain norms for self-governing conduct in relation to participation. The syllabus committee was incited to work within this regime of truth, with
15 Foucault (1991) uses the example of Machiavelli’s The Prince to illustrate sovereign power that is exercised from above, with the provenance of God over men and nature, and by the prince over his subjects.
100 intent and determination, believing that their “participation would complement the recognition that the K-12 document would need the approval of the Committee and the ratification of the Board” (1980, December 1, p. 2).
In response to the invitation to submit one’s contribution to the Visual Arts K-12 Project in the first Bulletin from the Art Curriculum Team in February 1981, the meetings minutes record that members of the Art Syllabus Committee were advised:
Because the K-12 project was initiated by the SSB and further developed by a joint syllabus Subcommittee of both Boards, before the Directorate of Studies was asked for assistance, Committee members could participate in any aspect of the K-12 project as members of the committee (1981, April 27, p. 4).
Seven members of the BSSS syllabus committee participated in the ‘The Directorate of Studies, Arts in Education Conference, K-12 Visual Arts Curriculum Development, May 31 – June 2, 1981’ as members of the Writing Party groups. Interestingly, two of those members, Terry Smith and Robin Allardice, held positions on the NSW State Steering Committee for the study of Education and the Arts. The Art Syllabus Committee were subservient to the co-existence and relations of social networks, for example conference participation, that provided the opportunities for discursive formations, and in this instance, for a K-12 discourse to flourish and be sustained. The outcome of this conference was the production of the Preliminary Draft K-12 Visual Arts Policy Statement based on submissions from Regional Committees and other appropriate bodies and individuals.
In what appears to be an attempt to further strengthen their position in the K-12 discursive relations, the Art Syllabus Committee agreed to reconvene the Joint Working Party of the SSB and BSSS, which consisted of members of the Curriculum Project Team, the SSB syllabus committee and the Directorate of Studies Art Team. This was done in order to consider the Preliminary Draft of the K-12 Visual Arts Curriculum Policy and to prepare a report for submission to the writing party. Smith was also a member of this Joint Working Party. The Joint Working Party prepared a K-12 Draft Rationale at a series of conferences held in October 1981.
The K-12 Visual Arts Policy marginalised the syllabus committee’s proposal for additional discourses in the visual arts curriculum however the syllabus committee wished to remain active agents in the facilitation of this K-12 discourse and expressed its “enthusiasm in considering the K-12 Policy Statement as part of the basis for future planning” (1982, March 3, p. 2).
101 In 1983, the ‘Statement of Principles For Years K-12’ became a central authoritative and mandated requirement of the visual arts curriculum. These Statement of Principles were concerned with the rationale, aims and processes for the curriculum. The document was to be used by syllabus committees to assist in the conceptualisation of syllabuses and as a guideline for framing sequential visual arts learning experiences for students based on their developing needs from Kindergarten to Year 12. The Statement of Principles became the legitimatising ‘truth’ by which the syllabus committee began to govern themselves. It privileged a child- centred discourse whereupon the Visual Arts were considered an “essential process” in the student’s discovery of “their individuality and their world” (p. 2). According to Bellamy (1982a), “the word “world” means to convey the whole, and all aspects of the student’s environment, mental and physical” (p. 80).
Five creative processes - Perceiving, Organising, Evaluating, Responding and Manipulating are specified in the Statement of Principles as contributing to the student’s “ability to use images, ideas, techniques and materials and seek solutions to problems in their own way” (p. 13). In ‘Perceiving’, students ‘explore’, ‘discover’ and ‘analyse’ “aspects of their world” through their involvement in sensory experiences – seeing, touching, hearing, smelling and tasting. ‘Responding’ involves “feeling, imagining, thinking and acting in an individual way”. Through ‘Manipulating’, students ‘explore’ and ‘experiment’ with “ideas and materials to investigate and solve problems”. The ‘Evaluating’ process involves students “analysing, valuing, comparing and modifying to develop powers of interpretation, appreciation and critical appraisal”. Finally, when ‘Organising’ students participate in the “selecting, ordering and refining of images, ideas, feelings and beliefs into physical and other forms” (pp. 10-12). This sub-set of terms, used to define the creative and interpretive processes, collectively represent a vast array of conceptual/perceptual abilities that were all marked by the student’s ‘direct’ experience with their ‘world’.
This child-centred terminology first appears in the 1978 report of the subcommittee who were delegated responsibility for establishing a rationale for visual arts education for Kindergarten to Year 12. In the ‘Preamble’ to this report, the five creative processes in this model – Making, Composing, Interpreting, Performing and Appreciating are specified as contributing to “the development of free, independent thinking individuals who have the right to see art as relevant and meaningful to their own lives and those of others, in our independent society”. This is evidence of the emphasis on process, experience, self-expression and creativity in this report. The privilege attributed to a discourse of the child/student as free and a creative artist coupled with the policy of process is further highlighted in statement such as: “create a private
102 environment which is meaningful for them” whilst at the same time “learn to respect the world they share with others” (p. 1).
The Art Syllabus Committee sought permission from the Board “to begin the process of revising the 11-12 syllabus on the grounds that the K-12 curriculum policy review is suggesting policy emphases which have implications for the present syllabus” (1982, October 20, p. 5). This report played an important role in facilitating the Statement of Principles and I will show later in this chapter how it contributed to the form and content of the revised 1987 syllabus.
3.2 An Australian Discourse
An Australian art discourse can be identified and described from the minutes of the Art Syllabus Committee. In this section I identify the ways the word ‘Australia’ is used throughout the discourse in the 1980s. The word ‘Australian’ enters the ‘talk’, within the selected time frame, in a Draft HSC Art Syllabus devised by a subcommittee of the Art Syllabus Committee in October 1978: “The creative experience of arts education contribute significantly to the personal and social growth of the learning individual and to the development of a shared Australian culture” (p. 1). The objects of knowledge of an Australian discourse are introduced in this statement as ‘creative experience’, ‘personal’, ‘social growth’, ‘individual’ and ‘culture’. Despite their disappearance in the published 1978 syllabus text, these objects of knowledge of an Australian discourse continue in the 1987 syllabus and can be described as child centred, local, immediate and relevant, and common to a K-12 discourse. The Visual Arts must bear a relation to the world of the student. Australia is a discourse of place and the environment, thought to be unique to this country, yet concurrent with the June King Mcfee and Rogena M. Degge (1977) Art, Culture and Environment: A Catalyst for Teaching point of view.16
‘Australian’ stands as the single same repeated word in both the 1978 and 1987 syllabus without qualification or explanation. Yet, at the same time, Australian is being used as new and different: “Perhaps the major change has been the positive emphasis on experience of one’s local visual culture as the basis for the entire syllabus” (Smith, 1985). The use of the term ‘experience’ highlights students’ interaction with their ‘local visual culture’ rather than just an awareness of its existence. How can the same word mean such different things and exercise two such different discourses? In one context ‘Australia’ is to be punished, in another rewarded.
16 This book emphasises the development of the individual and how they can function in relationship to society and the environment. Art is conceived as a communication system, providing a record of the student’s experience. The knowledge and skills gained through art prepare the student to deal with the complex and diverse American culture, and to directly change the quality of the environment (Marshall, 1978, p. 23).
103 Contingent with this, is the assertion reported in the minutes that the ‘old’ syllabus is ‘anomalous’ (1982, October 20, p. 5). This ‘anomaly’ occurs in the articulation of visual arts content and the structure of the examination as European, Non-European and Modern. Mansfield (1988) asserts: “the ability to pronounce the name ‘Australia’ in writing creates a national tradition. The repetition indicates that the word itself is seen as irreplaceable – there is no substitute for the national name” (p. 102). Australian writers attempt to authenticate their writing according to Mansfield by constantly gesturing at the word ‘Australia’. The word ‘Australia’ is not positioned as having no meaning despite this irreducibility. Rather, as a result of its excess of meaning Mansfield argues that the polemical value of the national name is repeatedly accepted with no more than a token definition.
The pronouncement of ‘Australian’ art appears to have synchronously seized attention across the eight Australian curriculum institutional formations in the late 1980s. Initially the increased interest in Australian art might be explained as underpinned by the forthcoming Australian bicentennial – the 1988 observation and celebration of the establishment of the first British invasion/colonial/settler community at Sydney cove. 1988 loomed large in sensibility, if not, policy discussion. The hype promulgated by the media beginning with the campaign slogan ‘Living Together’, launched by the Australian Bicentennial Authority in 1981 as “highlighting relationships – between black and white Australians, between one ethnic group and another, between city and country, between man and his environment, between Australia and our neighbours” (Horne, 1989, p. 33); sporting successes, notably the winning of the America’s Cup in 1983; and the strong emphasis by the newly elected Hawke government on consensus, muticulturalism and the environment, all produced an eruption of nationalism. The 1987 television launch of ‘Celebration of a Nation’ enriched how it was possible to think about Australia even if Horne (1989) postulates: “the answer [about what was to be celebrated] seemed to be nothing more than an incantatory repetition of the word ‘AUSTRALIA’ (p. 33).
In October 1984, the Bicentennial Australian Studies School Project (BASSP) was established through a partnership of the Curriculum Development Centre (CDC) and the Australian Bicentennial Authority as part of its national education program. The purpose of the project was to identify educational resources that supported the teaching and learning of Australian studies for long-term improvement. This project was first announced by the Federal Minister for Education, Senator Susan Ryan on the 26th August, 1984 in an address to the Association for the Study of Australian Literature. Senator Ryan posed five questions that needed to be addressed in relation to Australian studies. These questions were:
104 x What is this ‘Australia’ in ‘Australian studies’? x How can we, in constructing Australian studies, reconcile the learning of a sense of positive identity as Australians with the learning of a fearless, honest scrutiny? x What should be the stance of Australian studies towards nationalism? x What kind of knowledge should make up Australian studies? x How will this knowledge – whatever it is – be organised? (Ryan, 1985, pp. 38-39).
These questions are evidence of the conflict surrounding the various representations of Australia and the struggle for control of a self-image. The goal of Australian studies was to not only teach about Australia but also contribute to the development of ‘our own culture’. Australian studies were fundamentally considered by Ryan (1985) an “effort in consciousness and confidence in ourselves as a nation” (p. 39).
In response to government’s questions listed above, the BASSP established the School Development in Australian Studies Project to develop guidelines and strategies that would help schools throughout Australia to review and develop the Australian content of the curriculum. The following abbreviated points were guiding principles in establishing the BASSP:
(a) As an outcome of this program it was important to try to ensure that all students undertook some comprehensive Australian studies during schooling. (b) Australian content is an essential element in the school experience of all Australians. … it is essential to the overall objectives of the program for access to relevant Australian content to be increased (McRae, 1986, p. 2).
The BASSP considered it a right for students to have the validity of their own life experiences confirmed through education. During 1985, sixty-four schools in all states and territories were visited in an attempt to understand: “the central assumptions, values and meanings which underpin approaches to Australian studies”; “the extent to which all Australian students have access to and participate in Australian studies”; “existing textbooks and other resources used in schools”; and “current practice in sample schools including both conventional and unconventional approaches to Australian studies” (McRae, 1986, p. 2). These visits were compiled as case studies, synthesised into a report, and formed the subject of a National Conference. Through these sites, there was an increasing awareness of the need to promote understanding and appreciation of the Australian experience (CDC and BASSP, 1988, p. 3). This would result in students being well informed and better equipped to participate in Australian society at both local and national levels. The Australian Bicentennial Program promoted and supported initiatives in each State and Territory in collaboration and/or
105 consultation with State Education Departments, non-government systems and schools, and teacher, parent and community groups.
The CDC instigated the Bulletin series following this national review of Australian Studies in Schools. The Bulletins were designed to stimulate further development of a curriculum that promoted learning about Australia and Australian experience. Bulletin 8 is dedicated to The Arts In The Australian Curriculum (1986). In this edition, Gebhardt and Emery advocate for Australian experiences to be included as an integral component of arts programs in schools. The arts, according to Gebhardt (1986), “serve to widen and broaden our interaction with ourselves, other selves and the world in which those selves find themselves” (p. 3). Like Gebhardt, Emery (1986) considers that “the artistic process is a fundamental means of learning to know and participate in the world around them” (p. 14). With the onset of the bicentenary period, both Gebhardt and Emery in their discussion papers recommend a student-centred approach to Australian studies that begins with the students’ understanding and experience of the art and culture of their ‘immediate world’. Emery is disgruntled by the treatment of Australian art studies as an almost afterthought in the chronological approach to art history that dominates general art texts and teaching in secondary schools. In an effort to reverse this model, Emery proposes a new concerted focus on Australian art as the core study in art education: “From observation, analysis and interpretation of the imagery of everyday experience, students trace influences, origins and historical developments which have framed the Australian lifestyle and given birth to its cultural heritage” (p. 19). From this core focus, “students would then be guided to trace the origins of their own culture in past civilisations or in the artistic culture of other countries” (p. 15). Interestingly, the 1987 syllabus resembles Emery’s (1986) basic tenet that that the study of the arts within the Australian context forms the core at every year level prior to studying the art of other times and cultures. The 1987 syllabus consists of a Visual Arts Core that requires students participate in learning experiences that integrate making artworks with studying images and objects in their immediate world. Students extend these Core experiences by reference to one or more of the Focus Areas.
The BASSP advocated a curriculum that “consistently uses Australian examples and Australian material of a local, regional and national kind, in all subject areas” (CDC and BASSP, 1988, p. 88). There is no declaration or revelation of what discursive statements are circulating, preferred or adopted by the Art Syllabus Committee. I contend however that the BASSP and its emphasis on Australian studies teaching and learning was undoubtedly an apparatus of governmental power that exacted compliance from the Art Syllabus Committee who disciplined itself through a focus on ‘Australia’ in the 1987 syllabus.
106 The next part of this section will highlight the way the 1987 syllabus embraced Australian art following its lack of provision in the 1978 syllabus. The articulation of visual arts content and the structure of the examination in the 1978 syllabus is a eurocentric chronology. To understand how the categories European, Non-European and Modern exclude Australia’s pre and post settlement/invasion visual arts history, I highlight the manner in which Australia is buried amidst Modernism in the 1978 syllabus by tracing its limited appearances. Concurrently, it will be shown that the struggle by the Art Syllabus Committee over the form and content of the examination resulted in proposed syllabus structures that privileged new objects of study including that which is ‘local’ and related to the ‘environment’. The following analysis provides evidence that these objects of knowledge exist in correlation with the K-12 policy.
3.2.1 The 1978 Art Syllabus: perceived anomalies and other shortcomings
It will be apparent in the discussion to follow that the content of art history and its examination was a contentious and persistent issue in the art education community for many years. The 1978 course limited visual arts content in art history to a chronological method. In this syllabus, art content appears in lists, not unlike a series of book chapters, a discourse without a teacher or student, heavily dependent on progress through influences. A compulsory common core, ‘History of the Visual Arts’, provides “a broad general background in art history with emphasis on comparative analysis and the development of understanding of relationships between art forms, styles and cultural influences” (BSSS, 1978, p. 4). This is not unsurprising as it is consistent with university conceptions of art history at this time. For example, in 1978, the Power Department of Fine Arts, Fine Arts I course, focused on the study of modern art. Students in Fine Arts II and III had the choice of four options – A: 15th century European Art and Architecture; B: Renaissance and Baroque Art and Architecture c. 1500-1750; C: European Art and Architecture 1750-1880; and, D: Concepts of Modern Art and Urban Design. In the Fine Arts IV course, students studied the theoretical writings and the practice of certain major art historians, theorists and critics from their choice of two of the following options: 1. Museology, 2. Asian Art, 3. Roman Baroque Art, 4. The Development of Art Institutions in Australia, 5. Victorian Studies.
Terry Smith uses the word ‘anomaly’ to characterise the lack of provision for Australian art within the 1978 syllabus. The Art Syllabus Committee sought permission from the Board for a revision of the syllabus “on the grounds that … the place of Australian art and culture is anomalous with the current History of Art structure” (1982, October 20, p. 5). The anomaly Smith refers to is the content and articulation of art history as a tripartite cross-cultural examination of European, Non-European and Modern. Smith cites the rare appearance of
107 Australian art pronouncing Australia “receives less emphasis than the art of any other named country” (1982, October 20, p. 4).
Australian Art first appears in the syllabus text as an inclusion to UNIT A, History of the Visual Arts – Common Core (Compulsory), Section 1, Modern (i) c1870 – c1945 (ii) c1945 to present (BSSS, 1978, p. 4). In the elaborations, Modern Art, c1870 to c1945 and 1945 to the Present, Australia repeatedly appears as a supplement to a Eurocentric study of art. Australia appears under c1870 – c1945 Architecture as “(vi) Architecture in Australia; isolation from Europe, Canberra, eclecticism” (p. 15); Sculpture as “(vi) In Australia, sculptors with European training and background” (p. 15); and Painting as “Australia – Post-Impressionism, Cubism, Expressionism, Social Realism and Surrealism” (p. 15). Between the period 1945 to the Present, “Architecture in Australia” (p. 16) reappears; two Australian sculptors, Redpath and Klippel appear in brackets under Sculpture alongside three European sculptors as “Varied expressions of individuals: e.g. Moore, Paolozzi and Cesar” (p. 16); and Australia ambiguously appears under Painting at the end of a paragraph that begins “Development of significant European and American styles and art forms” as “In Australia, development of universal styles” (p. 16). Australian art makes it ninth and final appearance in this text under Non-European, Primitive, as “(iii) Characteristics and developments in the art of: (a) the Australian Aborigines” (p. 21). This is the only reference to indigenous Australia in this document.
A syllabus document is prone to taxonomies and produces the dividing practices that support the examination. Discursive force is attributed to statements that survive at the structural level of the examination and its prescribed rules. In the first recorded discussion of the examination, the Art Syllabus Committee identify areas of concern including: the level of content to be covered in art history relative to other subjects; the desire for greater flexibility between the requirements for art practical and art history; and the need for examinations that could allow a better comparison between the performances of 2 and 3 unit candidates (1977, September 26, p. 2). Professor Eric Daniels, Chairman of the BSSS Art Syllabus Committee, recommends in a letter to the Board, that the “suggested content of courses in both History of the Visual Arts and Creative Art should remain unchanged” (1977, November 23, p. 3). The Art Syllabus Committee requested to retain the discourse whilst at the same time transform the syllabus in order to accommodate a revision of “examination patterns, the allocation of marks and greater flexibility of choice for candidates” (1977, November 23, p. 3).
The BSSS Art Syllabus Year 11 and Year 12, 3 Unit Course and 2 Unit Course was authorised by the Board in September 1978 following the Director of Studies approval that “the proposed restructure should make great improvements in the reliability of marks from course to course”
108 (1978, August 21, p. 2). Despite the endorsement of the 1978 syllabus, this analysis shows that struggle over the form and content of the examination continued. According to Rieser, “the Senior Syllabus was criticised more strongly, mainly for its lack of Australian emphasis and its heavy load of both historical study and practical work relative to other HSC subjects” (1984b, p. 14). Students were required to answer one question from sub-sections covering different topics areas. The changes envisaged for the examination in a report on “study level and examination pressure on Art candidates” presented by a subcommittee to the Art Syllabus Committee (1980, December 1) represented a reduction in the content and extent of the material to be examined within the present syllabus. The subcommittee foreshadowed that “changes to the syllabus and exam should be as small as possible” (1980, December 1, p. 2) to ensure “acceptability” and “completion” of this restructure. Candidates would have the option to answer more than one question in the sub-sections. This would therefore allow specialisation in certain topic areas. The change to the examination was a result of the “expectation that the whole history of art on three continents needs to be taught” (Smith, 1983a, p. 7). In an effort to “alleviate this impossible situation” (p. 7) the examination was altered to include one less question and an optional, general section that provided the teacher and student the freedom to decide on what they would concentrate.
In a two-page document of undated annotated working notes of unnamed individuals, the Art Syllabus Committee responds to the Boards’ “AIM TO REDUCE STUDY LEVEL AND EXAM PRESSURES”:
We examine ALL of the syllabus, insisting on a WIDE coverage in the Unit A paper and the Unit C. We need to limit the RANGE required in the exam: a) to satisfy the Board’s awareness of students’ loads b) to make the choice of answers less of a “lottery”.
Also recorded in these annotated notes is a response to a Board memorandum to syllabus committees in October 1980 titled ‘Re-Definition of BSSS Courses’ which requested syllabus committees “indicate where additional 2 Unit Courses are envisaged”; “Submit draft syllabuses of all modified and/or new courses for the Board’s consideration”; and “Suggest appropriate titles for the separate courses in the subject”. The suggested courses in these notes include: “General Art; Art and Society; Australian Art; Art, Leisure and Work; Art and Visual Communication; Art of Filmmaking; Art of Photography; Art of Ceramics; and Other ‘Discreet’ Media/Craft areas could be added as required”. Two discourses coexist in the meeting minutes at this time: a reduction to the examination and these suggested ‘new’ courses for 2 Units. These proposed courses are evidence that whilst the examination was a driving force behind syllabus
109 revision, the Art Syllabus Committee was also anxious to change the knowledge base of Visual Arts and introduce a certain type of subject into the school curriculum.
There were multiple subcommittees involved in relocating, refocusing and relating other concepts to the visual arts curriculum as a means of creating a new structure to the syllabus. Rieser acknowledges, that the syllabus “had been amended several times, mainly by changing the examination requirements to accommodate shifts in Board policy. It has clearly been in need of a complete overhaul for some years” (1984b, p. 14). The knowledge produced in all of these sites was circulated through both formal and informal means. The power/knowledge of the examination resided with these subcommittees of the syllabus committee. The syllabuses prepared by these subcommittees established and informed the content for the curriculum and its examination. The first of which emerged as the Draft HSC Art Syllabus (1978, October).
The primary role of this subcommittee was to establish a rationale for visual arts education for Kindergarten to Year 12. As evidenced in an earlier section of this chapter, the K-12 concept was concurrently circulating in the minutes with great authority. As an Art Consultant to the Director of Studies, a member of the BSSS Art Syllabus Committee and common Executive Officer of the HSC and SC Art Syllabus Revision Subcommittees, Len Rieser occupied a position that allowed him to make authoritative statements about this object of knowledge. Rieser denies that the report was a “draft syllabus but rather a rationale for a reason to pass from the old syllabus to a proposed new syllabus” (1979, February 21, p. 2). In this report, the subcommittee’s suggested ‘Course Structures’ consist of 4 Units (A, B, C and D) to be offered with ‘Common Units’, A – Historical and B – Creative, for all candidates. In Unit A – History/Theory of the Visual Arts, the comprehensive coverage of the history of art, which characterised the 1978 syllabus disappears and a new vocabulary enters visual arts discourse. The word ‘local’ appears and is repeatedly placed in proximity to ‘environment’. Reference to “the student’s own local cultural environment” occurs on five occasions; “local visual and cultural environment” twice; “local physical environment” twice; and “local arts” also on two occasions. In Section 2, study of the ‘local’ environment is extended to include that of “different cultures”.
These objects of knowledge of an Australian discourse appear in a paper titled ‘The Development Of A Rationale For Art Education K-12 and the Need for Revision of Art Syllabuses’ prepared by Rieser (1980) at the instigation of the HSC Art Syllabus Committee and later presented at the Art in Education Curriculum Development K-12 Conference held on the 21st – 22nd April, 1980:
110 The existing syllabuses … provide insufficient opportunity for students to experience the visual culture of their own local environment. There is considerable stress on foreign cultures, with emphasis on Asian and European Art History … little emphasis is placed on the need to relate them to student experiences in their own culture (p. 9).
It can be here argued that in spite of the Art Syllabus Committees’ acknowledgement of Eurocentricism pertaining to the discursive constitution of Australian art, the syllabus committee repeatedly preserved art as the exclusive domain of ‘white’ Australia. During this period when the discourse of multiculturalism was becoming entrenched as an Australian educational and social ideal, ironically, Indigenous and non-European art knowledges, values, perspectives, and practices, were been excluded, or at best, relegated to the very margins of the committees’ curricular concerns.
The minutes record that the work of the subcommittee was succeeded by the K-12 Visual Arts Curriculum Project, established by the Director of Studies in 1981. The development of this new curriculum subsequently became the responsibility of the K-12 Visual Arts Curriculum Project Team.
Inspector of Schools, Max Sell with Len Rieser and Jim Birkett as members, convened a Working Party of the Art Syllabus Committee to “prepare preliminary material towards a possible revision” (1983, February 23, p. 2) pending a decision by the Planning and Development Committee of the Board regarding the ‘History of Art Syllabus’ and syllabus revision. The distribution and function of roles of these syllabus committee members within various discursive entities reveals the interplay of power/knowledge. Sell, Rieser and Birkett occupied positions as members of the BSSS and SSB Art Syllabus Subcommittee, formed to contribute to the production of the K-12 discursive object. Sell was the common coordinator of this subcommittee, with Rieser the common executive officer. Sell, Rieser and Birkett emerged as specialists in the position to make informed decisions about the co-existence of a revised syllabus amidst the K-12 discursive activity.
In his paper Art in New South Wales Schools: Patterns of Change, published in a special edition of Art in Education dedicated to thinking about curriculum change and syllabus revision, Rieser (1983) remarks:
a major problem has been the difficulty of incorporating Australian art into the curriculum. In the face of 50,000 years of art across three continents, Australia’s 193 years seems trifling. Yet it is the ONLY art to which most students have direct access.
111 Consequently, we also neglect the local visual environment, which influences the ways we perceive things and ideas. The HSC Syllabus Committee is currently addressing this problem (p. 11).
It is evident that the Art Syllabus Committee was anxious to confer status and privilege on those objects of knowledge signaled in the 1978 Draft HSC Art Syllabus. These include that which is ‘local’ and the ‘environment’. These changes envisaged for the visual arts curriculum were dependent however upon the enunciative authority of a K-12 discursive formation: “amendments and permission for a full review of the syllabus are to be withheld pending the Board endorsement of the K-12 Art Statement” (1983, June 22, p. 2).
The introduction of the K-12 policy and subsequent approval by the Board for a syllabus revision, enabled the Art Syllabus Committee to devise a syllabus structure that did not require the whole history of art to be taught but was oriented more towards the present experience of students. Smith (1989) admits: “the overriding aim here is to remove the obligation to comprehensive coverage and the single masterwork, in favour of concentration … on specific and special questions” (p. 40). I contend that it was the Draft HSC Art Syllabus devised by the subcommittee in October 1978 that laid the foundation for the 1987 Visual Arts Syllabus Years 11-12.
3.2.2 The Chair of the Art Syllabus Committee and the Power Institute of Fine Arts: a relation of reciprocal influence
In this section I show how the election of Terry Smith to Chairman of the Art Syllabus Committee (1981, March 16) shifts the conditions of speaking away from Professor Eric Daniels and the ‘old syllabus’ to discussion of the incorporation of the K-12 concept and an Australian discourse within the art syllabus. This is epitomised in the statement made by Smith discussed on page ninety-six of this thesis. For this reason, I begin by providing an overview of the institutional sites that allowed Smith to speak for the Visual Arts.
Smith was appointed lecturer in the Department of Fine Arts at the USYD in 1975 and represented the University on the BSSS and SSB Art Syllabus Committee from this time. Art History was not taught in NSW’ universities until the establishment of the Power Department of Fine Arts in 1968. The Herald and Weekly Times established the first chair of art history in Australia at Melbourne University in 1946 (Haese, 1981, p. 251) The founding professor to the Herald Chair of Fine Arts was Joseph Burke. A British scholar specialising in eighteenth century British Art, Burke recollects “the department set itself the prodigious task of combating
112 the deterioration of taste from which Australia, like England and America suffers today” (Burn, Lendon, Merewether and Stephen, 1988, p. 55). Burke argued that the serious and widespread decline in public taste17 could only be remedied by a strong educational effort surrounding the study of the history of fine arts. Burke is renowned as producing the first generation of graduates in art history in Australia.
Twenty years later, the Power Institute of Fine Arts at the USYD was established under Dr John Power’s bequest (1961) to:
make available to the people of Australia the latest ideas and theories in plastic arts by means of lectures and teaching and by the purchase of the most recent contemporary art of the world ... so as to bring the people of Australia in more direct touch with the latest art developments in other countries (Power Institute of Fine Arts, 1975, p. 2).
In 1979, Terry Smith and David Saunders refocused a first-year undergraduate course ‘Concepts of Modern Art’, at the Power Institute of Fine Arts, onto predominantly Australian art and architecture. As a consequence of this, by the early 1980s, courses at the Power Institute had become based on the study of Australian visual cultures. Australian Studies were taught within Fine Arts I, a course with a focus on European, United States and Australian art of the twentieth century. Each year the course Fine Arts II and III, ‘Australian Art and Culture’ (D), jointly taught by Terry Smith, Anne-Marie Willis and Joan Kerr, concentrated on certain major areas. From 1985 this course was presented in chronological scope as ‘The National, the International and the Local from 1885 to 1985’. The course Fine Arts II and III, ‘Film Studies’ (E) at the Power Institute also included a component titled ‘The ‘New’ Australian Cinema’ which mapped the institution of Australian film culture in terms of selected texts. An option ‘Sydney Art Now’ was offered within the Fine Arts IV honours course. Interestingly, the course outlook for Fine Arts II and III reappears as the title of a chapter by Smith (1986b) as The Local, the National and the International in Australian Art. In this chapter, Smith poses the question:
What it Australian about Australian art? Is it the depiction of typically Australian life (assuming that that can be defined) – or a particular attachment to a place – or is it Australian art’s obvious following tendencies originating overseas? (p. 158).
17 Burke’s narrow vision of class and pursuit of ‘good taste’ appears firmly located in art made elsewhere (Europe). It implies a subsidiary role for Australian achievement in the arts, as well as a disengagement from the contemporary practice of the arts. This could readily be critiqued by an analysis of the critical forces in Australian art during the early war years including the concept of nationalism present in the work of artists who belonged to the Heidelberg School and the regional landscape tradition.
113 It is Smith’s desire that these questions that had been asked for the past one hundred years be rephrased and asked “in a more subtle way, alert to complexities of the varieties of visual imagery which shape our culture” (p. 159). The question would then become: “how are, and were ‘the local, the national and the international’ constituted in Australian visual cultures?” (p. 159). The relationship between the local, the national and the international may take a fixed form at a given time and place according to Smith however they do not constitute an essential quality: “there are not fixed patterns of appearances” (p. 162). Such a relationship is constantly changing. Smith advocates that the study of Australian visual imagery be located in a broader, richer context.
The position adopted by Smith in the above chapter is in continuity with his ‘Submission to Committee to Review Australian Studies in Tertiary Education’ (1985, December). The commitment within the Power Institute to the study of Australian art is identified in this submission: “students of Australian visual cultures are encouraged to see them within broader contexts, to be open to the usefulness of theory originating elsewhere and alert to the positioning of Australian art and thought within more global exchanges” (Smith, 1985, pp. 9-10). Despite the “slow, embattled process” (Smith, 1985, p. 1) surrounding the emergence of Australian art as a major interest at the Power Institute, teaching, research and publication emanating from tertiary institutions in the 1980s is represented as contributing to the shift in perception of Australian art and visual cultures as a rich field of study. Staff members of the Power Institute also served on the editorial board of magazines, provided advice on policy in these areas, as well as staged conferences that focused on these issues. Smith (1985) recollects:
the contemporary seemed irremediably international to most people in the visual arts in the late 1960s, early 1970s. … It was frequently said that Australian visual cultures were not yet codified into textbooks and therefore were not accessible to undergraduates. … It was also said that Australian art was insufficiently complex and suggestive to sustain more then rather obvious historical recording and generalisation (p. 1).
Smith’s (1983b) essay, Writing the History of Australian Art: Its Past, Present and Possible Future, is directed against this cultural ‘cringing’18. In this historiography of Australian visual culture, Smith declares that there has been an increased interest in and demand for information about art, particularly Australian art. Current orthodoxies of Australian art history are
18 Melbourne critic and social commentator A. A. Phillips coined this term in 1950. Phillips believed that nothing Australian should be considered of cultural value until it is compared against the works of the British and European counterparts (Phillips, A. A. (2006) A. A. Phillips on the cultural cringe. Victoria, Australia: Melbourne University Publishing).
114 considered selective and restrictive or “struggling to find a voice” (Smith, 1983b, p. 11). A broader view is deemed necessary that is more resonant, embedded, and significant for related social practices. A Foucauldian interpretation can be applied to Smith’s representation of art history writing as a product of the social relations in which it is formed. As an institutional practice, art history is conditioned by “major conventions and constraints, personal investments and power struggles, competing ideologies and practical contradictions” (p. 11). The institutional nature of art history has privileged European, not Australian, art as the main interest of study. In response to this external focus of the discipline, Smith argues, “it is becoming increasingly apparent that Australian visual cultures not only constitute “fields” in which interesting work might be done, but also that they are demanding of us that such work be done” (pp. 11-12). Smith distinguishes six phases in the writing of histories of Australian art that can be described as “different responses to changes in Australian art, shifts in local and social ideologies, developments in education, publication and promotion and to changes in ways of writing Australian history” (p. 19). These are: The Colonial Period: 1788-1880s; Bourgeois Nationalism: 1880s to 1930s; Realism and Aestheticism; Europe vis-à-vis Australia: Modernism; The Visual Arts within Australian High Culture; and, Recent Developments. These histories of Australian visual cultures are suggested to challenge the overriding orthodoxies in art history and dominant definitions of Australian art. They must be constantly negotiated according to Smith to allow for invention and growth in both artmaking and art criticism, history and theory. Considering Smith’s reactionary position to orthodoxies of Australian art history, it is interesting that Smith’s commentary on Australian art is presented in terms of linear, chronological movements. The identification of ‘The Visual Arts within Australian High Culture’ in his schema also reproduces the tradition of the ‘elite’, which contradicts his attempts at breaking down the hierarchy between Australian and European art.
It was during this period of new knowledge bases being sought at the Power Institute that Smith occupied a position as the university representative on the Art Syllabus Committee subcommittee, formed to draw up a proposal for a revised syllabus. Using the imprimatur of the Power Institute, Smith takes the opportunity to assert and exercise his enunciative authority as Chairman in a letter to members of the Art Syllabus Committee. Smith’s evangelical mission is evident in this letter: “There is an urgent need to consider proposals developing in our Subcommittee regarding courses in Visual Mass Media, Design and Australian Art and Culture” (1981, April 10, p. 1). These proposed courses signal and anticipate the four Focus Areas – Art in Australia, Art and Culture, Art and Media, Art and Design.
The employment of both ‘urgent’ and ‘need’ in Smith’s statement produces a discourse of deficiency and pessimism at the current state of visual arts curricula. Two-unit courses are
115 advocated as the solution to this problem. Smith outlines, “Discussion of these proposals had occurred on the Committee, but we have been hampered by difficulties in maintaining a quorum” (p. 1). In an attempt to regulate and structure the possible field of action of the Art Syllabus Committee, the strength of Smith’s charge is established by his appeal to each individual as members of a population in this instance, the syllabus committee, whose objective is the production of disciplinary knowledge: “the contributions of every member are crucial if a consensus is to be achieved” (p. 1).
Smith employs a timeline in an effort to incite members of the syllabus committee in a state of readiness to review, evaluate, consult, respond, and implement this ‘new’ and ‘better’ visual arts curriculum: “For our proposals to have any chance of becoming teachable options next year, we need to notify the Board of our intentions in general terms by the end of the month, and to have submitted the draft syllabi by the end of July” (p. 1). Smith oscillates between the content of the syllabus and the mechanism of meetings, quorum and his authority as Chair to enlist the syllabus committee by his use of the word ‘our’: “our” agenda: “our continuing duty to monitor”; “our Subcommittee”; “our proposals”; “our intentions”; “our meetings”; “our syllabus drafts”.
The Art Syllabus Committee proposed to submit three additional optional 2 Unit courses to the Board (1981, April 28). They were: Visual Mass Media; Australian Art and Culture; and Design. It will be apparent in the discussion to follow that the draft ‘Australian Art and Culture Syllabus Year 11 and Year 12, 2 Unit Course’ (1981, June 18) was an attempt by the Art Syllabus Committee to isolate Australian art from the extant dominance of the Western canon that characterised the 1978 syllabus and admit additional content and perspectives to the visual arts curriculum. The Rationale to this draft syllabus admonishes: “the study of Australian visual art and culture has been largely neglected. It has been submerged in the curriculum in general and in the current art syllabus in particular. Where included, it has been treated in a peripheral manner (p. 1). Smith (1983a) attributes one of the ‘Problems in the teaching of art in schools’ in his paper Why Change the Art Syllabus? to the history of art:
The emphasis on the whole history of art has not only devalued Australian Art, it has also meant that modern and contemporary art is not receiving the emphasis it deserves, and which an understanding of our own time and place demands. A sense of history of very important, but a sense of recent history and of the structure of the present is crucial (p. 8).
116 The draft ‘Australian Art and Culture’ 2 Unit course is comprised of two areas: Cultural Studies and Creative Response. Cultural Studies involves “The study of Australian visual arts and visual imagery in a national and in an international context” (p. 2). The study of Australian art in both a ‘national’ and ‘international’ context is in continuity with Smith’s (1986b) position surrounding questions of Australian cultural identity and reminiscent of the Power Institute of Fine Arts’ Fine Arts II and III program, ‘The Local, the National and the International in Australian Art’. Creative Response involves “The expression in a visual medium of aspects of the Australian environment and heritage” (p. 2).
In this nine-page document, the word ‘environment’ appears thirty-two times. Counting its many appearances exposes how this word is privileged within this draft syllabus and continues to be conceived as an agent in the construction of an Australian discourse. The “basic concept” to this syllabus, ‘Visual Imagery in Australia’, encompasses “signs, symbols and art works produced by the aborigines, European and other settlers, to the images embedded in the natural, physical and social environments of Australia” (p. 2). A glossary at the back of the syllabus defines ‘environment’ as three categories: Natural, Physical and Social.
A Bibliography included in this draft Australian Art and Culture Syllabus, is evidence of the power/knowledge of the Power Institute. Of the thirteen books listed on Australian art history, three books are authored by Professor Bernard Smith, the inaugural Director of the Power Institute, founding Head of the Department of Fine Arts, and first Power Professor of Contemporary Art, who served in these capacities from 1967 to 1977, as well as one book edited by Terry Smith and Anthony Bradley. The Power Institute and Smith were active embodied agents in the production and circulation of an Australian discourse. These books were to act as ‘user guides’ to support the visual arts curriculum and to assert and announce a particular truth or definition for Australian art.
The Board had the authority to recommend that the introduction of additional 2 Unit courses “not be approved at this stage, but that the Art Syllabus Committee be advised that a number of issues raised by them were seen as matters of real concern to the Board” (BSSS, 1981, October 7, p. 3379). In an effort to regulate the conduct of the Art Syllabus Committee, a letter from the Board to the Chairman, Terry Smith, ‘invites’ the syllabus committee “to hold draft syllabuses”, declaring “the Planning and Development Committee were of the opinion that these syllabuses could be appropriate in an alternative curriculum” for years 11 and 12 (1981, October 13, p. 1). The Art Syllabus Committee subsequently deferred consideration of possible options for the proposed 2 Unit courses. The classificatory and predictive characters, which mark the production of these additional discourses in the Art Syllabus Committee meeting minutes as
117 ‘Syllabus Revision’; ‘Redefinition of Courses’; and ‘Proposed 2-Unit Syllabi’, cease and what becomes the discursive play is ‘The History of Art Syllabus’.
In this section I have highlighted how the emergence of an Australian discourse coincided with Smith being appointed to the Chair of the Art Syllabus Committee. The institutional sites from which Smith speaks were directly constitutive of the form of his discourse. University representatives on the Art Syllabus Committee show power/knowledge was very much at work. The 1978 syllabus was an impediment to Smith’s desire for the centrality of Australian art in the curriculum. Smith identified the opportunity to assert and exercise enunciative authority for Australian art. As a result, the 1987 syllabus denies the “closed conception of the history of art as being the stylistic sequence illustrated in the general texts” (Smith, 1989, p. 39).
3.2.3 The 1987 Visual Arts Syllabus: its forms of coexistence
The 1987 Visual Arts Syllabus Years 11-12 organises content in a completely different form to the 1978 syllabus as four Focus Areas. They were called in order of appearance: Art in Australia, Art and Culture, Art and Media, and finally Art and Design. The position adopted in this section is that, for the Art Syllabus Committee, the Focus Areas were a solution to a number of problems. These problems have been discussed in previous sections and include: the delimitation of Australia as a period in a modernist chronology; the examination; and syllabus anomalies. In this section, I will show that the Focus Areas are a discursive zone, principally a dividing practice, that also reconcile discourses of Australia and K-12. These discourses are built around a subjective and process based philosophy, oriented toward the present experience of students.
A report of a working party of the Art Syllabus Committee, convened by Inspector, Max Sell, delivered to the SSB Art Syllabus Committee (1984, February 29), signals a notable transformation in what constitutes knowledge in the visual arts curriculum with a proposal for “additional elective options” within the syllabus. An Elective Art course would consist of a Core Art course in each year or semester together with an unbroken sequence of options from either Year 8 or Year 9 to Year 10. The Elective Art courses were designed with three ‘Options’. They were Option 1: Art in Society; Option 2: Art and Culture; Option 3: Art and Media.
I suggest that the Power Institute’s Fine Arts II and III course, ‘Australian Art and Culture’ (D), with its focus on “forms of visual culture in the context of their internal traditions and their relationships to developments in Australian society” (USYD, 1984, p. 96) is redistributed as
118 elective option 1: Art and Society. Rieser, a member of the working party, defines the optional course, Art and Society, in his paper titled Changes in Schools, Society and Syllabuses published in the November edition of the K-12 Art Bulletin, as “creating an Australian environment and studying Australian images” (1984a, p. 23). In this model, Art and Society, is conceived as the agent in the construction of an Australian discourse. This course “will allow a string of Australian content to be focused on by teachers and students instead of being merely peripheral to the whole world’s art” (p. 23).
Sell prefaces the report of the working party to the Art Syllabus Committee:
the original intention in revising the syllabus was to attempt to develop a parallel with the K-12 Visual Arts Statement prepared by the Directorate of Studies. This aim was further enhanced during 1983 when both study Boards recognised the initiative of the Visual Arts Statement in the area of art instruction (1984, March 21, p. 2).
This statement is evidence of the Art Syllabus Committee’s desire to develop a syllabus that operated in concert with content that was relevant and common to a K-12 discourse. It was accepted by the committee that this ‘core’ approach was to lead to the 2 Unit Common Course in Years 11-12.
The introduction to the Draft Visual Arts Education Syllabus Years 11-12, 2 Unit Course and 3 Unit Course, presented to the Art Syllabus Committee on the 13th July 1984, further confirms: “this syllabus is based on the rationale and aims embodied in the Statement of Principles for Visual Arts Education K-12”. This draft syllabus “emphasises the primacy of direct experiences as the basis for students’ exploration of their visual world (the common Core)” (p. 1). The use of ‘world’ has been appropriated from the ‘Statement of Principles For Years K-12’ (1983), discussed earlier in this chapter, which proposes, “All students need to discover their individuality and their world” (p. 2). This draft syllabus, however, now confers authority on the common ‘core’. The Common Core:
refers to planned learning experiences which enable students to perceive and respond to their environment in conceptual and aesthetic ways. The emphasis is upon the student being provided with the opportunity to respond directly (through the senses) to events, situations and things which are accessible (p. 3).
The ‘History of Art’ disappears from the discourse with the advent of ‘Studying Visual Images’ in this draft syllabus. In this practice, “students respond to and study, images that are accessible
119 and within their immediate environment” (p. 5). Historical interpretation is “expanded in scope, oriented more towards the present experience of students” (Smith, 1986a, p. 4). The students’ experience with their environment in the common core course is extended to include experiences in one or more of the following optional areas: Art and Australia, Art and Culture, Art and Media, Art and Design. Smith (1986a) declares:
The new syllabus radically shifts the onus of resources away from these external sources to those available in the student’s immediate environment. It insists that art starts from where we are, and builds outwards by drawing in to its creative processes all the stimuli that are available (p. 4).
The discursive shift toward privileging ‘student experience’ and their ‘immediate environment’ implicitly prioritises ‘white’ understanding of their world. It was arguably a conscious attempt by the Art Syllabus Committee to grant authority to ‘white’ student experience as the normative ideal. This new emphasis effectively collapsed cultural difference into sameness, by promoting a homogenous representation of ‘Australian identity’.
In the 1987 syllabus, Australia continues as the first of four categories. These categories are officially named in this text as the Focus Areas: Art in Australia, Art and Culture, Art and Media, Art and Design. The ‘core’ exists in mutual functioning as the “student’s local (Australian) environment as a stimulus for creative action” (BSE, 1987, p. 1). The student’s experience with their ‘local’ and ‘immediate’ environment is now broadened with reference to the “wider environment” (p. 28) of the four Focus Areas. According to Smith, “students are encouraged to begin from where they are, with their locality and all the visual images that feed into it” (1986a, p. 4).
The Focus Areas are presented as comprising two parts: Making Artworks and Studying Images and Objects. The Preamble to this syllabus acknowledges a “number of new issues which reflect current educational trends and modern developments in visual arts education” (BSE, 1987, p. 1) which are emphasised in this syllabus. The importance of the students’ ‘local (Australian) environment’ is not a ‘new issue’ but rather is reminiscent of the 1978 Draft HSC Art Syllabus devised by the subcommittee of the Art Syllabus Committee.
In the 1987 syllabus document, the word ‘environment’ appears seventy-two times. The constant repetition of the word ‘environment’ further intensifies and imposes an Australian discourse in this syllabus. Of those appearances, environment is prefaced by ‘immediate’ twenty-two times; ‘own’ seven times; ‘local’ five times; and ‘Australian’ four times, amongst
120 others. Australia, and its twenty-five appearances in this text, is strengthened by the recurrence and accumulation of this analogous vocabulary. The subject matter of this syllabus is the “students’ world of experiences” (BSE, 1987, p.17). The preservation of the word ‘world’ continues to foster an authentic, K-12 discourse. In this syllabus, the “world of the student consists of his or her immediate and imagined environment” (p. 17).
‘Education for the environment’ circulates with authority in educational discourse following its inclusion as a discussion paper as part of the BASSP. Bulletin 6 dedicated to Education For The Australian Environment describes the contribution teachers and subject areas can make to education about the environment in relation to an Australian studies focus in the curriculum:
teachers have a major role to play not only in promoting knowledge, but also in helping young Australians develop a sensitivity towards the natural and built environment, attitudes and feelings of concern for the welfare of others and ecological sustainability, and a desire to make decisions and act in ways that are in sympathy with such attitudes (Fien, 1986, p. 23).
This discussion paper advocates a renewed emphasis on such goals in the aims and education policies of all school systems. Environmental education, as a distinct entity, was a phenomenon of the 1970s in Australia (Greenall, 1981) when local and global awareness of environmental issues was increasing. It received formal recognition with the establishment of the CDC’s (1978) Environmental Education Project. This project operated through offering small grants to teachers for them to describe their environmental programs or their position on this topic. It was one of the responses to the recommendations for action proposed by a Study Group on Environmental Education in Australia sponsored by the CDC. This project also fostered the formation of the Australian Association for Environmental Education as well as a joint project between the CDC and the Department of Environment, Housing and Community Development titled ’Environmental Education for Schools’. The final phase of the CDC’s environmental program was the inclusion of ‘environmental studies’ as one of the nine essential areas of knowledge and experience outlined by the CDC in their discussion paper Core Curriculum for Australian Schools (1980).
In addition to teaching factual and conceptual knowledge of the nature and condition of the physical and built environments of Australia, the BASSP Bulletin 6 paper identifies four areas where attention and efforts might be directed in the environmental education of Australian students. The first of these four areas is: “Helping students develop a sense of place and national identity from their learning about, and experiences in, the Australian environment” (Fien, 1986,
121 p. 24). Focus 1: Art in Australia is in continuity with this priority of providing students with the opportunity to gain an informed consciousness of personal experiences in the Australian environment as a means of understanding the environment as set out in this discussion paper. Using this Focus Area, “students make artworks by responding to and transforming their perceptions of the Australian environment” (BSE, 1987, p. 18). In Studying Images and Objects, “students study Australian art forms and images” including “historical and contemporary art forms covering all aspects of Australian art and culture” (p. 19). This Focus Area challenges the conception inscribed in the previous syllabus that art of the past happened outside of Australia. On the contrary, “we understand Australian life and society to be replete with significant art, interesting architecture, fascinating townscapes and stunning vistas” (Smith, 1986a, p. 4).
The Focus Areas, I contend, are an invention to accommodate the sensitivity that Australian art must not only be incorporated in, but be, the centrepiece of the curriculum. Weate (1989) argues:
that the Focus Area, Art and Australia, does not stand as a discrete definition in comparison with the other three Focus Areas. Rather, it is suggested that Art and Australia is best approached through Art and Culture, and to some extent the remaining Focus Areas of Media and Design (p. 28).
The Focus Areas were devised “as a way of expanding and defining the starting point in the student’s individual experience, of seeing ourselves within the society of others” (Smith, 1986a, p. 4). ‘Australia’ is supported and exists in mutual functioning in the 1987 syllabus with the ‘world’, ‘local’, ‘immediate’ and ‘environment’. I have shown that this is in continuity with the authoritative discourse of the ‘Statement of Principles For Years K-12’ (1983) that imported the ‘child’ into the discursive site of the HSC.
3.2.4 The Examination: subtending the authority of a discourse of Australian nationalism
The 1987 syllabus, some fifteen years in the making, was much anticipated. It was hoped and imagined that a new way of teaching and learning art, one designed with a late twentieth century adolescent as its subject, not a mini academic or artist, would result. Following that intention the examination, long the nub of many and varied problems, had to change. In the discussion to follow I will show how the very idea of what an examination should do and be was altered and in doing so, subtended the authority of a discourse of Australian nationalism.
122 The examination is a dominant and disciplinary discourse, occupies many hours of the syllabus committee's time, is the source of many difficulties in practice and policy, and indeed has its own subsidiary committee, the examination committee who annually set the paper. The examination is the source of much angst for the Art Syllabus Committee, is a constant topic and has one persistent and specific difficulty; the lottery. This lottery refers to an apparently simple matter of content selection that harbours deeper concerns of content, range, equity, resources and relevance. The Art Syllabus Committee responded to the lottery with an audacious idea that simultaneously solved a couple of persistent problems. In an effort to reduce some of the unknown and unexpected contents in the written examination, specifically the artworks students would be required to discuss, the examination paper is devised to include forty artworks that would be known in advance – indeed – a year ahead of sitting the examination. The forty artworks, coined the ‘40 plates’, had the added benefit of explaining, by example, the meaning of the Focus Areas. The artifice and contradictions of the Focus Areas, as written in the syllabus, had made them notoriously difficult to delineate. For example, the discursive unity of 'areas' in Focus Areas, a word whose rarity is as an object of geography, problematised the use of place as an exclusionary device. Further, the 40 plates would be different each year, and rather than merely nominate them, each student received an A4 booklet of black and white images to study, making "the choice of answers less of a lottery” observes the undated working notes of the Art Syllabus Committee.
Oddly, this new object of knowledge [the 40 Plates] devised to have such remarkable effect is given the slightest reference in the formal syllabus document. Almost an afterthought and strangely prescient – seven lines at the foot of page thirty-five of the 1987 syllabus document are dedicated to this new examination mechanism. It does however reveal the displacement and transformation of the discourses of art to the singularity of images and objects:
Each year the Board will determine a series of Prescribed Images and Objects to be studied. Up to 40 images and photographs of objects will be published in the year preceding the examination. They will cover each of the focus areas in about equal proportions. This annual provision of Prescribed Images and Objects will focus on those artists, groups and types of images and objects which will need to be studied for Part A of the 2/3 Unit examination - Studying Images and Objects (BSE, 1987, p. 35).
The 40 plates were examined three times: 1989, 1990 and 1991. In the 1989 2/3 unit examination, fourteen of the 40 plates are Australian; thirteen in 1990; and by 1991, seventeen plates are Australian-based. The annual production variations are suggestive of the difference of opinion within the Art Syllabus Committee and reflective of the wider visual arts community.
123 The examination committee, comprising six members, two of whom were not syllabus committee members, provided the opportunity for those not acclimatised to syllabus politic and debates to be heard.
The shifts in emphasis, in the definition of the actual subject being studied, evident in the written examination over this period reveals how the multiple interests at play opened up the possibility for contrasting and conflicting discourses. For example, in the 1989 examination paper, photographs of architectural structures dominate the Australian plates including images of the Sydney Opera House; New Parliament House, Canberra; a typical farmhouse; Sydney monorail; and Archibald Fountain. With three of these structures in NSW, it is evident that the emphasis was on the student’s access and awareness of architecture in their own environment. Between 1978 and 1988 [excluding 1979, 1981 and 1984], fifteen 2-unit examination questions are based on architecture in Australia, more than any other expressive form based on Australian content. Presumably, this was a function of the Chairman of the Art Syllabus Committee, Eric Daniels, a Professor of Architecture at the UNSW. I contend that the examination of architectural content in the 1989 2/3 unit examination paper is in continuity with the dominance of Australian architecture in the 1978 syllabus.
In the 1987 syllabus a different discourse/truth was produced and the student’s experience heightened by the inclusion of images from advertising, popular art and visual culture. Across the three years, the 40 plates include a film clip from Crocodile Dundee, a contemporary Australian advertisement, a magazine cover, a still from the film Mad Max, and a cartoon from the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH). According to Smith (1983a), “the dominant forms of visual imagery such as advertising and the informational arts … [and] amateur arts … constitute the major visual experience of most students (p. 8). This visual imagery endorses the importance of popular culture as knowledge and reflects the rise of cultural and media studies as academic disciplines.
The inclusion of Australian indigenous perspectives does not feature prominently in the 40 plates. Three indigenous paintings and two indigenous sculptures are represented across the three years. The curriculum, once again, effectively dismissed Indigenous art and privileged the concept of ‘whiteness’ as normative culture. This is not surprising given its limited appearance in the 1987 syllabus. Aboriginal art only appears twice under Focus 1: Art in Australia, Studying Images and Objects as: “The visual art forms studied should be selected from a broad range of possibilities including Aboriginal art, folk arts, fine arts and popular arts” and “Studies of Aboriginal artforms must be included” (BSE, 1987, p. 19).
124 With the objective of the 1987 syllabus to promote Australia culture, I have traced how the syllabus reverted to an examination of the environment, world and values of the student. Part A of the 2/3 unit examination paper comprises three parts: Type (A) Questions 1-4, Type (B) Questions 5-8, and Type (C) Questions 9-12. Students were required to answer only one question from Part A. The first question in Type A, B and C examines the Focus Area Art in Australia, the second Art and Culture, the third Art and Media, and the fourth question examines the Focus Area Art and Design.
Type (A) Questions 1-4 examine the respective Focus Areas in conjunction with the 40 plates and the student’s immediate environment. Across the three years, six of the twelve questions use the word ‘environment’. ‘Local’ precedes ‘environment’ on three occasions and ‘immediate’ twice. The remaining six questions include examination of “your local church”, “your local swimming pool” and “your local showground”; “the world in which you live”; and “the society in which you live”.
Points of compatibility are made between the Focus Areas and the 40 plates for Type (B) Questions 5-8. Each question in this section across the three years solely references the 40 plates. On eight occasions, students are asked to use the spectrum of images and “Look at plates 1 to 40”. Type (C) Questions 9-12, inexorably privilege the student experience. Students are asked to reference their “own artmaking” in consultation with the focus areas on six occasions; “your artmaking” three times; as well as “own artworks and those you have studied” and “how you developed an artwork” once respectively.
In Part B of the 2/3 unit examination paper, three alternative questions are set. Students are required to answer one question from Part B with reference to eight unseen coloured images or artworks. These images or artworks represent each of the Focus Areas, however not necessarily in equal proportions. Australian-based images and artworks dominate Plates 41 to 48 in Part B of the 2/3-unit examination paper from 1989 to 1991. In the 1989 examination, five of the eight unseen plates are Australian, four in 1990 and four in the 1991 examination. Of these twelve Australian plates, painting and photography appear on three occasions respectively as the dominant expressive forms.
The 3 unit additional examination paper was composed of four questions under each of the four Focus Areas (Part A, B, C and D). Students were required to attempt two questions from any part of the paper. A booklet of plates accompanied these questions. The images and artworks were categorised under each of the four Focus Areas. Like the 40 plates, interpreting unseen
125 artworks was an intuitively creative and subjective process. Democracy, equity and inclusiveness were promoted whereby all students were deemed capable of art.
This section has contributed to an understanding of the emphasis on the Australian and contemporary aspects of the arts in the 1987 syllabus by analysing the 1989, 1990 and 1991 examinations including the 40 plates. It is evident that the Art Syllabus Committee’s goal of promoting understanding of Australian culture was attempted by examining influences on the individual student and the relationships between broader cultural currents and the student’s own environment.
3.3 Focus Area 2 - Art and Culture
Herein, I examine the discursive conjuncture of ‘Art’ and ‘Culture’ as one of the four Focus Areas. I aim to highlight that this Focus Area was an attempt by the Art Syllabus Committee to promote understanding of ‘our own culture’. Drawing upon Foucault, the use of the phrase ‘our own culture’ can be considered an individualising and totalising technique. The subject, Visual Arts, and students were to be individualised as a function of one, single totality or ‘culture’ for all Australians. Fundamentally, this investigation traces the undeclared discursive struggle of the Art Syllabus Committee surrounding how to identify and define ‘culture’ or as it is variously spoken and added to other concepts to make new statements, ‘cultural’ and ‘cultures’. The peculiar patterning to the four Focus Areas, that distinguishes ‘Art in Australia’ from the other three Focus Areas by the use of ‘in’ as opposed to ‘and’, as in ‘Art and Culture’, verifies the forthright declaration in the Preamble to the syllabus text that “greater emphasis” is placed on “Australian art without denying the validity or influence of other cultures” (BSE, 1987, p. 1). This statement assumes a single version of Australian identity that legitimates white race privilege and power over other cultural groups. This hegemony of ‘whiteness’ has been widely critiqued by postcolonial scholars in Australia, most notably within the field of cultural studies.19 It will be apparent in the discussion to follow that the Focus Area ‘Art and Culture’ was in contention with ‘Australian’.
19 Literature contributing to the study of ‘whiteness’ in Australia includes: Docker, J., & Fischer, G. (2000). Race, colour and identity in Australia and New Zealand. Sydney, Australia: UNSW Press. McKay, B. (Ed.). (1999). Unmasking whiteness: Race, relations and reconciliation. Brisbane, Australia: Queensland Studies Centre. Moreton-Robinson, A. (2000). Talkin’ up to the white woman: Aboriginal women and feminism. Brisbane, Australia: University of Queensland Press.
126 A discourse of ‘Australian Culture’ can be first identified as circulating with authority in the meeting minutes of the BSSS. The minutes record multiple interests at play informing the development of this discourse. This discourse enters the discussion, within the selected time frame, at a meeting of the Committee of Review with representatives of syllabus committees. Representatives of the General Studies Syllabus Committee put forward the suggestion that Australian Culture “be made part of the content of General Studies and that the subject be regarded to 2 Unit level” (1978, April 5, p. 2788). In this model, Australian Culture is very broadly conceived as an agent in the construction of:
Australia in the World, Australian History, Australian Literature, Australian Drama, Australian Art and Architecture, Australian Theatre, Dance and Opera, Australian Politics especially the Constitution, Australian Communications (languages, newspapers, TV, radio) and any other Australian phenomenon which the Syllabus Committee may consider appropriate (p. 2788).
An Australian Culture course was considered a suitable progression from the Social Sciences courses in Years 7-10. Consideration of this proposal for a course in Australian Culture was deferred however by the BSSS as members experienced difficulty in isolating individual topics to be included in the course that would not overlap with existing courses. It was argued a course in Social Science “would contain a number of topics similar to those which would probably be included in an Australian Culture course” (1978, July 14, p. 5). The Board anticipated that the Social Science course “might contain, for example, studies in Australian Society, Australian History and Australian Literature” (p. 5).
In an apparent response to the authority being attributed by the Board to this discourse, Australian Culture concurrently appeared as an object of knowledge in the Visual Arts in the Draft HSC Art Syllabus (1978, October): “The creative experience of arts education contribute significantly to the personal and social growth of the learning individual and to the development of a shared Australian culture” (p. 1). In this context, Australian culture is positioned as a high art synonym in that experiences in art education can also enhance development in others aspects of life. This sentiment is redistributed as the first of five aims of this draft syllabus:
1. Provide experiences in creating, analysing, interpreting and evaluating visual communicative forms in order to promote the personal and social growth of the learning individual and the development of a shared Australian culture (p. 2).
127 In Unit A – History/Theory of the Visual Arts, the comprehensive coverage of the history of art, which characterises the 1978 syllabus is replaced and a new vocabulary of terms enters visual arts discourse. Reference to the “the student’s own local cultural environment”; “own local visual and cultural environment”; and “local cultural environment” (pp. 2-3) appears in Section 1. In Section 2, study of the ‘local’ environment is extended to include that of “different cultures” and “other cultures” (pp. 2-3). This is the first instance of culture been deployed as two contradictory discourses. The practice of the ‘local environment’ as that which is Australian is in opposition to ‘different’ and ‘other’ cultures. There is a recurrence in the use of culture from the 1978 Art Syllabus to reference civilisations, however this draft syllabus reveals the statement to be an ambiguous object by the indiscriminate use of ‘different’ and ‘other’. For example, “CREATING OR MAKING VISUAL ART FORMS which arise from the student’s direct evaluative investigations of art forms from different cultures” (p. 2).
In the 1978 Art Syllabus, the twelve appearances of the word culture(s) and/or cultural, are used to define various regions that exist under European, Non-European, and Modern. Cultures are nominated at irregular intervals as examples within regions under these three areas. Culture makes it first appearance on page three of this document under the heading History of the Visual Arts, Unit A, Section 1. In this compulsory Common Core, studies are to include: “influences from or upon Cross-Cultural-Style-Time comparisons and relationships” (BSSS, 1978, p. 3) between and across the categories European, Non-European, and Modern. This Unit is defined as providing “a broad background in art history with emphasis on comparative analysis and the development of understanding of relationships between art forms, styles and cultural influences” (p. 4).
The Art Syllabus Committees’ ambition to revise the content and articulation of art history as a tripartite cross-cultural examination of European, Non-European and Modern attracts attention from conferences and other forms of consultation, promotion and publication. This is evidenced in Rieser’s (1980) paper presented at the Art in Education Curriculum Development K-12 Conference:
The existing syllabuses (particularly the HSC syllabus) provide insufficient opportunity for students to experience the visual culture of their own local environment. There is considerable stress on foreign cultures, with emphasis on Asian and European Art History … little emphasis is placed on the need to relate them to student experiences in their own culture (p. 9).
128 In an effort to move away from the entrenched popularity of culture as the traditional art- through-the ages or elitist, off-shore way of doing things, the Art Syllabus Committee propose ‘Australian Art and Culture’ as one of three additional 2 Unit courses, following the Board’s memorandum in October 1980 titled ‘Re-Definition of Board of Senior School Studies Courses’ (1981, June 18). I suggest that this marriage of ‘Australian Art’ and ‘Culture’ was an arbitrary solution for the syllabus committee to the problem of how to define culture as art in Australia. To rewrite culture however appears to be an incomprehensible task for the Art Syllabus Committee.
Losche (1989) provides insight into the plethora of “equally positivistic” and “equally banal” (p. 22) definitions of the word ‘culture’. These definitions radically fluctuate between the sixteenth and twentieth centuries, beginning with its characterisation of the domestication of plants and animals between the sixteenth centuries to its association with civilisation by the nineteenth century in English, German and French. Losche outlines Williams’ (1976) three broad uses of the word in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries:
the first usage is that which described the general process of intellectual, spiritual and aesthetic development, roughly equivalent to the word civilisation. The second ... is that which indicates a particular way of life, whether of a people, a period or a group, and a third, which describes the works and practices of intellectual and artistic activity (1989, p. 22).
Losche references what she refers to as “nervous caveat” (p. 22) by Williams, the expert on culture at the beginning of his book ‘Keywords’: “Culture is one of the two or three most complicated words in the English language” (Williams, 1976, p. 76 in Losche, 1989, p. 22). Culture is also recognised as a product of the expansion of capitalism throughout the history of twentieth century anthropology. It is Losche’s intention in this paper to “demonstrate the operations of the institution of ‘culture’ as a tool regulating the processes of colonisation today” (p. 22). Losche does this by referencing contemporary western desert art representations.
Losche believes that Aboriginal culture, which was once seen as bereft of culture due its lack of material opulence, “is now regarded by some sectors of the population, especially those sectors who operate in the production of art and culture, as a model to be emulated” (p. 23). According to Losche (1989), our institutions persuade us to ‘buy’ spiritual and ecological sense. Three major processes in the creation of Art and Culture are identified which “attempt to absorb and commodify certain aspects of a perceived Aboriginal culture” (p. 23). The first process is reification and classification, which includes the basic practice of what books are in the library,
129 information on the walls of art galleries and museums and the “coverage of the word ‘culture’ by anthropologists, art historians and newspaper critics” (p. 23). ‘Aboriginal Culture or Cultures’ according to Losche, is both ‘created and dismembered’ by these social productions. The second process is domestication, which involves framing the object whereby certain aspects of cultures are excluded in the marketing and commodification process. The final process is fetishisation, a marketing process in which decisions are made by a series of people about what creates and expands a market for purchase. Losche considers that these three processes, extracted from the entire social and historical matrix, “package and sell certain aspects of the current historical situation thereby attempting to fill in perceived gaps in the culture” (p. 24). This paper is of interest to this inquiry in the way Losche illustrates how dominant systems and institutional frameworks shape and structure a view of culture through these regulatory processes. The Commonwealth Government cultural policy Creative Nation (Australia. Department of Communications and the Arts, 1994) provides another definition of culture as concerning the identity of the nation, communities and individuals: “We seek to preserve our culture because it is fundamental to our understanding of who we are. It is the name we go by, the house in which we live. Culture is that which gives us a sense of ourselves” (p. 5).
The Draft Australian Art and Culture Syllabus, Year 11 and Year 12, 2 Unit Course (1981, June 18) was intended for Year 11 and 12 students who had a particular interest in Australian arts and culture. The Rationale to this draft course acknowledges:
All civilisations throughout history have taken pride in passing on to the younger generations an understanding of their “cultural heritage”. Such an understanding and awareness of their culture, and hence the environment, is of vital importance if the person is to play a role in conserving as well as furthering the achievements and expression of the culture. Certain significant cultural characteristics, developments and realisations can be found only in the visual arts (p. 1).
This is evidence of the Art Syllabus Committee’s struggle to find a new way to study culture as the old way of conceiving culture as civilisation continues to be referenced. Relations between ‘culture and the environment’ and ‘culture and the visual arts’ are simultaneously challenging this concept. Interestingly, these discursive relations later inform and shape the Focus Areas, Art in Australia and Art and Culture. Smith (1986a) clarifies:
Art and Culture invites the same degree of interest in the history of the art of the past as did the old syllabus. It does not, however, encourage the rote learning of superficial
130 features of “key” works of art which are meant to distinguish the successive styles of Art (p. 5).
I suggest that the nine repeated appearances of the word ‘culture’ in the Rationale to this draft syllabus was a deliberate discursive strategy aimed at overriding the Art Syllabus Committee’s belief that “the study of Australian visual art and culture has been largely neglected” (p. 1). The interests of the Art Syllabus Committee, during this time of curriculum expansion, are evident in statements such as: “this course could provide an integrating factor in the curriculum by relating visual aspects of Australian culture, both historical and contemporary, across subject areas …” (p. 1).
In this draft 2 Unit course, ‘Cultural’ is elevated to the first of two areas. They are: Cultural Studies and Creative Response. Cultural Studies is conceived as the agent in the preservation of Australian Culture: “investigation, research, critical analysis and evaluation of significant aspects of visual imagery in Australian culture” (p. 3). Despite the constancy of the statement, no definition is provided for Australian Culture. A ‘Summary of Major Concepts and their Inter- Relationships’ on page five of this draft 2 Unit course classifies ‘Culture’ as “a difficult concept to pin down” (p. 5).
Following the Board’s recommendation that the introduction of additional 2 Unit courses not be approved (1981, October 7, p. 3379), the Art Syllabus Committee sought permission from the Board to “begin the process of revising the 11-12 syllabus on the grounds … that the place of Australian art and culture is anomalous within the current History of Art structure” (1982, October 20, p. 5).
In the report of a working party, convened by Inspector, Max Sell, delivered to the SSB Art Syllabus Committee (1984, February 29), ‘Cultural Studies’ has disappeared and ‘Art and Culture’ is classified as the second of three additional elective options as named: Option 1: Art in Society; Option 2: Art and Culture; Option 3: Art and Media. Culture endures however Australia is now excluded. As discussed in a previous section of this chapter, Australia is rewritten as ‘Society’ despite the BSSS previously relegating society to the Social Sciences. I suggest that the Art Syllabus Committee were keen to avoid this duplication or overlap of discourses in the curriculum. This is evidenced in the Draft Visual Arts Education Syllabus Years 11-12, presented to the Art Syllabus Committee (1984, July 13). ‘Art and Culture’ continues as the second of four optional areas. These Optional Areas of study are: Art and Australia, Art and Culture, Art and Media, Art and Design. Society has disappeared as an optional area and Australia and Culture are now identified as separate entities in linear
131 succession. Art and Culture is briefly defined in this draft syllabus as “including art forms and imagery, from early to modern times, seen in the context of culture and society” (p. 6). Society now reappears as an object of culture.
The urgency and appeal for some committee members in privileging Australia rests uneasily with the traditional way of talking about culture that sits with such authority and gravitas. Brown (1989a) argues, “Art in Australia is not conceptually discrete from Art and Culture. One would be more than justified therefore in believing the former to be entailed in the latter” (p. 47). There is clearly a struggle to write a curriculum with due deference to both these discourses. This is suggestive of the difference of opinion within the Art Syllabus Committee.
In the 1987 Visual Arts Syllabus Years 11-12, culture continues as the second of four categories as Focus 2: Art and Culture. Howard (1989) advocates the relevance of the study of culture, a “term and concept [that] encompasses experiences of a personal, community, national, and international nature” (p. 19), into the school visual arts curriculum. The amalgamation of the student’s experience with media under Art and Culture constitutes significant art practice for Howard. The “multiplicity and diversity of those areas that make up a students’ cultural environment” (p. 20) are recognised including, land and landscape, social and political arenas, personal and domestic situations, and art practice and its industry. The interrelationship between these areas of culture and the student’s experience that is gained through responsive interaction is always “investigative and expansive” according to Howard and “begs the input of media used expressively” (p. 20). Howard encourages the consultation of diverse references for those studying under the Focus Area, Art and Culture.
Students are required to make artworks and study images and objects from their own environment and those of other cultures under Focus 2: Art and Culture in the 1987 syllabus. These two opposing ‘culture’ discourses are reminiscent of the Draft HSC Art Syllabus (1978, October) that advocates the “students ability to identify, analyse, interpret and evaluate the relationships between the student’s local cultural environment and other cultures present and past” and “the student’s direct evaluative investigations of art forms from different cultures” (p. 3).
Utilising this Focus Area, Smith (1986a) outlines:
students are asked to choose particular periods and places, to examine them in depth, to explore how the visual cultures of past societies took shape, to see art within its specific
132 social contexts, to study the cultural institutions which sustained the production of art (p. 5).
One sentence under ‘Studying Images and Objects’, using the Focus Area, Art and Culture, is dedicated to defining these ‘other’ or ‘different’ cultures in the syllabus as the following regions: “Africa, Oceania, Asia, Europe and the Americas” (BSE, 1987, p. 21). Between 1992 and 1998, questions listed under the Focus Area, Art and Culture, in the 2/3 unit written examination paper are evidence of the imposed geographic dividing practice that separates Australia from culture. Many include the following statements: “reflect influences from outside Australia”; “a region or regions outside Australia”; “[how] one of the following regions has influenced your artmaking: Europe, Asia, the Americas, Africa, Oceania”.
Contrary to this, ‘Visual Arts and culture’ is characterised in the syllabus as: “Through the exploration of visual traditions and contemporary images students will gain an understanding of their cultural identity. In addition they will be more effective in their contribution to Australian cultural life” (BSE, 1987, p. 7). Interestingly, a Report to the Minister for Education and Youth Affairs, Susan Ryan, entitled Action: Education and the Arts (Australia. Task Force on Education and the Arts, 1985), focused on the role of arts education in establishing an Australian ‘cultural identity’:
There is now more, more than ever before, great potential for changing and enriching Australia’s cultural landscape. The Government’s belief that ‘the arts are vital to individual and social development and to the maintenance of an independent national culture’ has given arts education workers new heart. …. The diverse nature of Australian society demands the articulation and acceptance of cultural differences as a basis of our national cultural identity (p. 1).
The Art Syllabus Committee was determined to further the development of an Australian culture discourse in Visual Arts. In the 1987 syllabus Australia becomes excluded from culture by way of geographical constraints, which was the opposite result to that intended by the syllabus committee. Conflict surrounded how to distinguish the practice of that which was considered the ‘local environment’ and ‘Australian’ from ‘culture’. This struggle arises from the discursive authority of the K-12 concept. As a result, the Art Syllabus Committee developed a syllabus that included two contradictory ‘culture’ discourses. On the one hand, the syllabus is grounded in the students’ own cultural experiences. On the other, this limited experience is expanded by the study of the wider, social and historical underpinnings of this experience by the exploration of ‘other’ and ‘different’ cultures. I have revealed the two sets of rules deployed
133 under these discourses. The position adopted in this section is that the Focus Area, Art and Culture, was the product of attrition following clear disjunctions and repeated problems in recruiting alternative discourses.
3.4 Focus Area 3 - Art and Media
In this section, I highlight how the concept of media as ‘truth to materials’, a tenet of Modernism and celebrated particularly by modern architects such a Le Corbusier,20 is challenged by the statement ‘mass media’. This investigation traces the recurrent preoccupation by the ambitious growth-oriented Art Syllabus Committee surrounding how to recruit this new object of knowledge. Mass media did not yield to the psycho-logistic characterisation of the child. I will show how the Art Syllabus Committee was therefore unable to negotiate a meaning for mass media amidst the discursive authority of the K-12 concept. The discussion to follow identifies how numerous inept, groveling and failed efforts by the Art Syllabus Committee to seize the moment collapsed into the third Focus Area, Art and Media.
The traditional reference to media as the materials students use to make artworks exists in the 1978 syllabus without any clear enunciative authority. The word ‘media’ makes is first appearance in this document under the ‘Objectives’ of ‘Creative Art’: “It is expected that the ability will be developed to: …. imaginatively express personal concepts through the selection and use of appropriate skills, techniques and media” (BSSS, 1978, p. 2) and again under ‘Some Suggested Activities’ for Creative Art - Common Core (Compulsory) as “exploration of expressive possibilities of elements, media and methods” (p. 5).
A review of this syllabus by a subcommittee of the Art Syllabus Committee in October 1978 results in the Draft HSC Art Syllabus that necessitates a ‘new’ way of thinking about media. Media continues to exist as the “manipulation and experimentation with materials and their combinations in order to discover creative possibilities” (p. 6) however the Art Syllabus Committee attempt to force objects of knowledge into existence with the introduction of a new vocabulary of terms, including: ‘communicative medium’, ‘visual communicative forms’, ‘visual media’, ‘mixed media’, and ‘visual arts and technology’.
In this draft syllabus, “The primary aim of creative experience in arts education is to build active and constructive relationships to ourselves and others through the interaction of our
20 Le Corbusier remained true, honest and pure to the Modernists’ favourite materials such as ‘raw concrete’ or ‘brutalism’ in his explorations and processes of construction. Buildings were not covered but left to exist in their most primitive state. For further reading: Banham, R. (1966). The new brutalism; Ethic or aesthetic? New York, NY: Reinhold.
134 sensory perceptions and concepts within a communicative medium” (Preamble). The first of five aims of this draft syllabus is to “Provide experiences in creating, analysing, interpreting and evaluating visual communicative forms …” (p. 1). ‘Communication’ is defined under Area 1: 2 Dimensional Art as:
Research meaning – visually and verbally Solve visual problems Make visual decisions Communicate intentions visually and verbally Identify symbols and interpret meaning (p. 7).
Media appears in combination as ‘visual media’ including: “facilitate the acquisition of the perceptual and conceptual skills necessary to competent performance of practical work in expressive visual media” (p. 1); and “Concentration on the local physical environment, local arts and other visual media” (p. 2). ‘Issues and Problems’ to be studied under 3 Unit Options, Unit C, History/Theory of the Visual Arts (Specialised) includes “concern for the relationships between” ‘Visual Arts and Technology’ (p. 5). I suggest this abundance of terms associated with a media discourse highlights the Art Syllabus Committee’s confusion surrounding how to incorporate this conception of media that intersects with communication and technology. The syllabus committee appears to rely on ‘the more is better’ approach with the intention that one object will persist in the end.
In recognition of the Department of Education’s K-12 curriculum development initiatives, a visual arts working group presents two draft papers to the Board for preliminary consideration (1980, March 26): Draft Rationale For Visual Arts Education (K-12) and The Place of the Visual Arts in Education. In an unexplained and probably unaware anticipation of screen/virtual images and practices, media evolves into ‘signs and symbols’. The language of these papers reflects the influence of semiotics in such phrases as: “it is essential to develop the individual’s ability to organise and interpret visual symbols, to invent images and thus the ability to communicate visually” (p. 1); “the ever-increasing awareness of visual and symbolic relationships. These understandings are developed through activities which encourage the interaction of sensory perceptions and judgements in expressive action upon media” (p. 2). Despite the identifiable correlation of media with the field of semiology, contradictory discourses exist surrounding what constitutes media in the official record.
In a response to the K-12 concept ‘Reading K-12’, sponsored by the Department of Education, the SSB, Art Syllabus Committee recommend in a letter to Board:
135 in view of the importance of visual imagery in today’s society and the necessity for students to become literate in “reading” images, a committee be convened by the SSB consisting of representatives from the Art Syllabus Committees Years 7-10 and Years 11-12, media and other curriculum interests to prepare a statement relating to “Communicating K-12” (1981, September 23, p. 2).
‘Communication’ is a solution for the Art Syllabus Committee in their move from media as an inference to a physical thing – as natural or man-made materials. Interestingly, ‘Communication’ is one of the nine essential areas of knowledge and experience outlined by the CDC in their discussion paper Core Curriculum for Australian Schools (1980). Communication is defined in this document as including: “both verbal and non-verbal modes and relates equally to knowledge and feeling …. Visual Learning directs students towards an understanding and appraisal of the mass-media and visual competence is necessary in many school subjects” (CDC, 1980, p. 18). ‘Visual communication’ enters visual arts discourse in a letter from Mr R.J. Knudson, Chairman, Art Syllabus Committee to The Secretary, SSB, in consideration of a Board memorandum concerning ‘Core of Essential Learning’. This letter lists ‘Visual Communication’ as one of three content areas forming part of “the structured experiential processes, which lead to major works” (1980, July 10, p. 1).
The discursive production of this new object of knowledge is evident in a ten-page document of undated annotated working notes of unnamed entities of the Art Syllabus Committee. ‘Art and Visual Communication’ is one of eight courses listed under “Suggest ‘New’ Courses For 2 Units”. A definition is written alongside this suggested new course and reads, “A 2 Unit ‘Mass Media’ course”. A note at the bottom of this lists records “Other ‘discreet’ Media/Craft areas could be added as required”. These hand-written notes also include a draft 2 Unit Course titled ‘Visual Media and the Message’.21 Recorded next to this heading is “(alternatives – Corporate and Communal Art; and Visual Media and Communication)”. The aim of this course is “to increase awareness of visual communications in society, particularly through the mastery of techniques basic to visual media”.
‘Visual communication’ and ‘visual media’ continue to occupy a crucial presence in the five jotted ‘Objectives’ to this course, including: “To experience particular processes and techniques appropriate to visual media and communication”; “To research and understand visual media
21 This title appears to be a reference to Marshal McLuhan who introduced the phrase “the medium is the message” in his work Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (1964). McLuhan proposes that the form of a medium embeds itself in a message and determines the ways in which that message will be perceived (Federman, M. (2004). What is the meaning of the medium is the message? Retrieved from http://individual.utoronto.ca/markfederman/MeaningTheMediumistheMessage.pdf.
136 technology”; “To develop the ability to use these processes and techniques in an effective and communicative form”; and lastly, “To gain sufficient understanding of visual media and the processes and techniques involved to solve self-determined communication problems”. Ten ‘Suggested Focal Areas’ “which use visual communication techniques and processes” are listed as well two-dimensional and three-dimensional “aspects of the visual media which may be explored”.
A letter from D. Swan, Director-General of Education, prompted the development and maintenance of competing media discourses with the emergence of ‘mass media’ as a new concept: “The Department of Education has undertaken a review of the impact of mass media on children’s learning and has developed a draft policy on Mass Media Education” (1980, August 26, p. 1). The Preamble to this draft policy defines mass media as “those means of communicating with large numbers of people simultaneously” (p. 1). The policy statement advises:
Mass Media Education Studies should flow through the whole school curriculum from Kindergarten to Year 12 (K-12) …. As with other communication skills, it is essential that every teacher takes the opportunity to be a teacher of mass media (p. 1).
The second of five approaches lists: “In the secondary school (7-12) media studies may be developed within existing programs, provide an integrating theme between two or more subjects, or form a separate course” (p. 2). Furthermore, a media release by the Minister for Education, Paul Landa, announces the release of the new K-12 policy statement, ‘The Mass Media in Education’:
This policy statement should be seen as an “umbrella” document under which will be developed curriculum guidelines, support statements, teaching resources and at the same time encourage those initiatives which have been going on throughout the State to continue (1981, March 11, p. 1).
These policy statements that emanated from the Department of Education demonstrate the principles of governmentality. Schools and their populations were effectively managed and controlled through these centrally-developed policies by their emphasis on the formulation and implementation of a mass media discourse as emphasised by the following remark:
This policy statement represents the determination of the Government and the Department to ensure that boys and girls in New South Wales’ schools everywhere gain
137 the opportunity to develop skills of critical thinking with respect to the Mass Media (Landa, 1981, March 11, p. 1).
Mass media is regarded as a “genuinely interdisciplinary curriculum area” (1982, June, p. 9) in a document titled A K-12 Approach to Curriculum Planning and Design. This document also acknowledges the greatest beneficiary of mass media in subject terms to be English: “much of the direct involvement will relate to English syllabus committees and English teachers at the secondary level” (p. 9). Despite mass media’s alliance with the much larger and more bureaucratically organised subject of English, the authority and gravitas of the Department of Education in the formalisation and circulation of this new knowledge incited the Art Syllabus Committee to produce a 2 unit course dealing with mass media: “there is an urgent need to consider proposals developing in our Subcommittee regarding courses in Visual Mass Media” (Smith, 1981, April 10, p. 1). Mass media promotes a knowledge based on the visual and the Art Syllabus Committee considers this appropriate to the discipline of Visual Arts: “Art oriented people would be the most suited for the task” (1981, April 27, p. 2). The Art Syllabus Committee’s recognition of the power/knowledge of a mass media discourse is captured in the words of Rieser (1983):
The visual imagery of the modern media has changed the way we perceive the world and act in it. … It is fruitless for us to ignore the predominant means of communication – we must teach television or advertising somehow. Art teachers are, or should be, the best equipped to take-on the challenge (pp. 11-12).
The concept ‘mass media’ exists in the 1978 syllabus however with limited status as the first of four points under Modern Art, 1945 to the Present, Sculpture: “Historical and social changes, effects of mass media and contemporary technology as formative influences …” (BSSS, 1978, p. 16) and the last of three points under Painting: “Contemporary developments: e.g. … the influence of mass media on art, the influence of art on mass media” (p. 16).
A sub-committee presents a Draft 2 Unit Visual Mass Media Syllabus, Year 11 and Year 12, 2 Unit Course, to the Art Syllabus Committee on the 27th April, 1981. Mass media is defined as “communicating with large numbers of people simultaneously” (p. 1), which is a direct reference to the policy statement ‘The Mass Media in Education’ (1981, March 11). The ‘key concept’ of this syllabus is ‘Visual Mass Media’ (1981, April 27, p. 2) defined as “the mass media forms which are image-centred” (p. 3). These forms are all dependent on modern technologies. The many and varied implied versions of media redistributed in this draft syllabus, including: mass media, communication, visual mass media, media, symbol, technology, media
138 technology, visual communication, visual media, visual mass media communication, and visual communications technology are arbitrary and show the Art Syllabus Committee’s struggle surrounding how to identify ‘mass media’ in the Visual Arts.
From a Foucauldian perspective, the Art Syllabus Committee disciplined itself by complying with the Department of Education’s policy on mass media education. This is evident in a letter from Noel Cislowski, Chief Curriculum Officer, to Terry Smith, Chairman, who congratulates “you and your committee for the initiative taken in framing a 2 Unit course dealing with Mass Media. This is in line with the Department of Education’s policy on Mass Media” (1981, April 7, p. 1). The minutes record that a letter from the Director of Studies, F.W. Sharpe, to the syllabus committee dated the 21st May, 1981 also reiterates the Department of Education’s “offer of cooperation on developing media studies” (1982, September 15, p. 2). “Liaison” with the department had “taken place most fruitfully in connection with the Committee proposed 2 Unit Visual Mass Media course” and the Chairman “looked forward to similarly rewarding contact when that proposal was reactivated” (p. 2). Despite this commendation, no institutional practice that has a formal and authoritative role in the production of this knowledge validates the ‘visual mass media’ tag asserted by the ambitious Art Syllabus Committee. The BSSS recommends that the introduction of additional 2 unit courses “not be approved at this stage” (1981, October 7, p. 3379).
The official record highlights that the proposed 2 Unit Visual Mass Media course was doomed from the outset, as the Art Syllabus Committee did not have the authority, clout or discursive presence to sustain it. The changes envisaged by the Art Syllabus Committee for the visual arts curriculum became dependent upon the discursive authority of the K-12 concept. The meeting minutes of the SSB Art Syllabus Committee record, “In light of the information received concerning the K-12 policy, the Chairman suggested that a working party investigate revision of the syllabus for Years 8-10” (1983, February 16, p. 2). The first area listed that this syllabus committee still “felt needed to be dealt with to some degree in the syllabus” (1983, February 16, p. 2) is ‘Visual Mass Media Education’. The Art Syllabus Committee was relentless in their urgent quest to adopt this object of knowledge.
Mass Media endures in educational discourse in a curriculum support document titled ‘All About Mass Media Education K-12’, introduced in 1984 by the Mass Media Curriculum Project team. This document “attempts to clarify the philosophy of mass media education and to provide a basis for planning continuing mass media learning experiences based on the developing needs of the student” (p. 3). The 1981 ‘Mass Media in Education’ policy was to be used in conjunction with this text “as references for teachers K-6 and for the development of
139 mass media syllabuses K-12” (p. 3). In Visual Arts, ‘a mass media perspective’ was used to study the “meaning of pictures and images, its creation and manipulation, layout, design, place of art in a mass media dominated society” (p. 33). Of particular significance here is the concept of ‘design’ now existing as a key component of mass media.
A concern with the effects of the mass media was widespread and a serious motivation for the introduction of this new discourse in art education. Despite this, the expansionist attitude of the Art Syllabus Committee appears defeated in a report of a working party of the syllabus committee delivered by Inspector, Max Sell, to the SSB Art Syllabus Committee (1984, February 29). ‘Mass media’ disappears and reverts to its abbreviated form as ‘media’. This media discourse is however elevated to one of three ‘additional elective options’. They are Option 1: Art in Society; Option 2: Art and Culture; Option 3: Art and Media. A Core Art course continues through Year 7 to Year 10 to provide continuity and relate to the K-12 concept. Students commence one of the Elective Art courses from either Year 8 or Year 9 to Year 10. It is evident that mass media rested uneasily for the Art Syllabus Committee with the prevailing discourse of the child in art education.
Mass ‘communication’ as the central organising concept of media ceases in this report and the ‘Art and Media Based Course’ is characterised as offering students “the opportunity to explore in greater depth a specially selected medium or media” (1984, February 29, p. 2). Media returns as a descendant of semiotic theory involving the “study of the use of signs, images, symbols and materials to express and communicate” (p. 2). The evaluation of a lesson, unit, program, option or course includes the following question: “Were students involved in using and responding to MEDIA in terms of the communication of ideas and feelings using signs, symbols and materials?” (p. 3).
‘Art and Media’ is again privileged as one of four optional areas in the Draft Visual Arts Education Syllabus Years 11-12 (1984, July 13). ‘Media’ is allocated its own heading in this draft syllabus and continues to be circulated on the one hand as:
Media, whether visual or verbal, should be understood by students as consisting of signs, symbols and images which convey feeling or meaning and of materials which are shaped to form that meaning (p. 4).
The optional area, ‘Art and Media’ on the other hand, can be classified as all-embracing, including “art forms and imagery, from early to modern times, which show significant influence of media, or a medium, on their formation” (p. 6).
140 This duplication of a ‘media’ discourse continues in the 1987 syllabus. In one instance, ‘media’ appears as ‘The Content of Visual Arts’. ‘Media’ is constantly traversed under content in this syllabus with the ‘communication of ideas and feelings’, ‘materials’, and ‘symbols’:
In Visual Arts, ideas and feelings are communicated through different kinds of media. Media are made up of materials and symbols.
Materials are things used to make artworks.
Symbols are used to convey ideas and feelings in artworks.
Materials become media for expression when they are used to make artworks.
Students create symbols when they attach meaning to the images and objects they make. Symbols become media for expression when they are used to communicate ideas and feelings in artworks.
Students should be encouraged to develop their own way of working with materials and symbols to communicate their imagination and insight (BSE, 1987, p. 16).
‘Art and Media’ also emerges in this syllabus as the third of four Focus Areas. Using Focus 3: Art and Media, “students make artworks in response to the direct experiences they have with their environment and through the expressive use of signs, symbols, images and materials” (p. 22). In ‘Studying Images and Objects’, “students study historical and contemporary images, objects and art forms which show a significant influence of media (or one medium) on their formation” (p. 23). Willis (1989) questions the designation of ‘Art and Media’ as one of the four Focus Areas in the 1987 syllabus. Two plausible yet incommensurable interpretations of the title ‘Art and Media’ are offered as being, on the one hand, a focus on the different media of artmaking including “a taxonomy of techniques, materials, modes of artistic production – something descriptive, demonstrable, but not necessarily analytical or speculative” (p. 15). On the other, the second interpretation suggests an exploration of the connections between art and mass media. Smith (1986a) confirms this association, suggesting that the approach to activities under the Focus Area, Art and Media, “be seen within the broader processes of … the workings of the mass media (media in the larger sense)” (p. 5).
It seems clear, in light of the above analysis, that the Art Syllabus Committee had a recurring struggle surrounding how to identify ‘media’ in the Visual Arts. The failure of either a ‘visual media’ or ‘visual communication’ discourse attaining hegemonic status resulted in mass media
141 emerging, not as a correlation of the two terms, but rather as a whole new concept. The Art Syllabus Committee sought compliance with this new discourse and monitored their behaviour through the disciplinary technology of self-regulation. Mass media was however a forced existence and the Art Syllabus Committee could not negotiate this discourse in art education amidst the tenacity of the K-12, child-centred concept. The solution to the competing and contradictory discourses surrounding what constituted ‘media’ was its inclusion in the 1987 syllabus as the third Focus Area, Art and Media. Under this Focus Area, media continued to oscillate between a physical thing as ‘materials’, as ‘symbol/s’, and as ‘the media’ in contemporary culture. This latter characterisation of media was an appeal to technology in education. In the next section of this chapter, I examine the shift from speaking about ‘technology’ under the media umbrella to the inclusion of ‘design’ as a key component of the rhetoric of technology in education.
3.5 Focus Area 4 - Art and Design
In the previous section I highlighted how particular patterns of media discourse including those that incorporated technology arose and fell in prominence in the official record. This was suggestive of their competing and evolving nature. The Art Syllabus Committee was evidently confused about what counted as ‘technology’ and its role in the visual arts syllabus. In this section I will show how the syllabus committee’s struggle to embrace media culture and the effects of new technologies resulted in ‘communications’ as the model for the Focus Area, Art and Media and ‘industrial’ design as the focus of the fourth Focus Area, Art and Design. Like technology, design appears both as an object and as knowledge and technique. The knowledge and skills students acquired from the design process under this Focus Area were related to those needed by professional designers. This was promoted as being necessary for students to make well-informed individual judgements and critical appraisals of the environment in which they lived which was fundamental to the 1987 syllabus. Smith (1986a) demonstrates this argument:
Art and Media and Art and Design both have two sorts of emphasis within them: permitting a concentration on the creation of designed objects and autonomous works of art, but at the same time, requiring that these activities be seen within the aesthetic management of the whole environment (design in the largest sense) and the workings of the mass media (media in the larger sense) (p. 5).
In the 1978 syllabus, ‘Design’ makes its first discursive appearance under Creative Art, Unit B. In this compulsory Common Core, Design is one of ten Creative Art fields listed. The very broad field of Design encompasses six fields of specialisation. They are Design, Interior Design,
142 Graphic Design, Stage Design and Functional Design. ‘Suggested Activities’ are outlined in this text under each of the art forms available to students and are “intended as a guide and are not prescriptive” (BSSS, 1978, p. 22). Two examples of major works that students may elect are provided for each field of specialisation. These major works are outlined in specific detail including number, colour scheme, presentation and size. For example, a major work in the area of Interior Design could be evidenced by:
(i) A set of six two-dimensional drawings/designs for interiors, accompanied by plans, perspective and sections to scale, specifications and samples of materials as would be presented to a prospective client (p. 22).
These suggestions of major works function as a system of classification for a discourse of design. This technique fixed limits for the discourse and as such, a domain of objects that were selected, organised and controlled defined the discipline of design. These objects of Design include: posters; two-dimensional drawings/designs for interiors; a three-dimensional model for interior or architectural design; a children’s book; carton or package for a commercial product; dust jackets for books, design and printed; illustrations for a novel, anthology of verse or a play; design of the set for a theatrical production; costume designs for a theatrical production; and a designed and constructed article of furniture. The educational function of these objects in this syllabus appears to be preoccupied with promoting awareness of design by way of the consumer product.
A design discourse does not circulate in the official record until it was agreed, in response to a memorandum entitled ‘Re-Definition of BSSS Courses October 1980’ requesting that all Syllabus Committees “indicate where additional 2 Unit Courses are envisaged” and “Submit draft syllabuses of all modified and/or new courses for the Board’s consideration”, that a “sub- committee should look further into a Design Course to work within the Art Syllabus” (1981, March 16, p. 2). The resolve to produce new 2 Unit courses is evident in the letter, detailed earlier, from the Chairman, Terry Smith to Members of the Syllabus Committee: “there is an urgent need to consider proposals developing in our Subcommittee regarding courses in Visual Mass Media, Design and Australian Art and Culture” (1981, April 10, p. 1).
Volunteers from various unspecified agencies were called upon to form a Sub-Committee to develop a 2 Unit Design Course. It was the Art Syllabus Committees’ hope that members from these agencies could provide assistance with this project. It is apparent that the proposal to develop a 2 Unit course in Design was an impetuous decision by the Art Syllabus Committee as expertise in the area of design provided difficulties for the syllabus committee.
143 The Art Syllabus Committee intended to submit a proposal to the BSSS for an additional optional 2 Unit course in Design. In a ten-page document of undated annotated working notes of unnamed entities of the Art Syllabus Committee, a draft 2 Unit Course titled ‘Visual Media and the Message’ is included. The aim of this suggested course was “to increase awareness of visual communication in society, particularly through the mastery of techniques basic to visual media”. Discourses of media and visual communication are circulating with great authority in the official record, as discussed in the previous section of this chapter. The heading ‘Media’ is included in these notes as a practical component of this suggested course. Under this heading, two-dimensional and three-dimensional aspects of visual media that may be explored are listed.22 The notes outline that the list is not “exclusive, nor all-inclusive. Selected categories may make use of a variety of combinations of media”. These lists are evidence of the correlation that existed between ‘visual media’ and ‘design’ for the Art Syllabus Committee. The categories listed under two-dimensional products involve graphic communication and the three- dimensional products are closely aligned to the ideologies underlying technology studies as they involve the design and making of ‘functional’ products.
The inclusion of a design course was an attempt by the Art Syllabus Committee to accommodate the demands of technological change with regards to economic, social and educational development. The acquisition and development of skills and awareness involved in the design process was considered to be a strategy for dealing with the climate of change in education during this time. In what Boughton (1989) argues was a “clear and deliberate broadening of the art curriculum beyond traditional fine arts study” (p. 203), the National Policy: Visual Arts Education (1986) developed by the Australian Institute of Art Education (AIAE) recommended the inclusion of design arts (environmental, graphic, and product design) amongst other art forms in Visual Arts. Design studies offered students an alternative way of creating images that was compatible with the technocratic nature of schooling that came to prominence in the 1980s. Design was considered to provide greater transparency and instrumental relevance to the time by offering a more ‘useful’ model than the Fine Arts. The visible models of design activity were easily demonstrated in the world of work alongside their apparent value in terms of the economic necessities of a productive society. This position is adopted by Boughton and Aland (1989) who propose that art advocates should strengthen the links between visual arts education and industry by “sharpening curricular focus upon the (real)
22 Listed under ‘Two-Dimensional’ is: Newspapers, Periodicals; Comics; Cartoons; Books; Brochures; Catalogues; Packages; Posters; Prints; Labels and Logos and Letterheads; Illustrations; Fabrics and Furnishings; and, Communal Art Projects. Listed under ‘Three-Dimensional’ is: Interior Design; Industrial Styling; Environmental Design; Architectural Design; Fashions Design; Theatre Design; Costume Design; Display/Promotion Design; Engineering Design; Scientific Design; Exhibition Design; Video/Film Design; Communal Design Projects.
144 relationship of art and work, to increase the emphasis upon all forms of design in industry, to develop effective ways to bring schools and industry into closer contact” (p. 46). In a response to Boughton and Aland (1989), Brown and Haynes (1990) argue that to advance the relevance of art to the development of contemporary culture reduces art to an instrument of technical ends and implies “the replacement of art by a marketable product” (p. 34). While they concur that “the arts must be prepared to explore the new technologies” (p. 32) Brown and Haynes consider it a mistake to redefine the Visual Arts as design. The “identity of art need not be presented as one that is incompatible with the design/technology model” however for Brown and Haynes it is “important that an appeal to instrumental value is not mistaken for the reconstruction of a subject in terms of the usefulness of some other field” (1990, p. 34).
The minutes record that the Design Sub-Committee was hampered in preparing a 2 Unit Design Syllabus as, “members have not been able to shed work commitments” (1981, June 18, p. 2). The preparation of the syllabus was deferred until early 1992. Members of the sub-committee were selected from the wider field, as they possessed skills, knowledge and expertise in design. A discourse of design however lacks strength in the official record as the sub-committee’s external commitments hindered their contribution and impeded its development.
The Art Syllabus Committee’s commitment to the inclusion of design in the Visual Arts is captured in their ‘invited comments’ by the SSB Art Syllabus Committee Chairman, Mr R. Knudson, regarding the Industrial Arts Course subject name change in Years 9 and 10 to ‘Applied Design’ (1982, September 22, pp. 2-3). Responses include:
- Visual arts education is very much concerned with design. The gap between designing and applying the design is small. - Art departments are already involved in design and applied design. - Art teachers may have the opportunity in the future in teaching a design course, a course in applied design will place limits on visual arts education and may take opportunities away from the designing process. - We can only presume to know what we do in design not what other subjects do. Protest in relation to our design process. - There may be confusion about the content of the Applied Design course and there may be a suggestion of overlap between courses.
The introduction of a design discourse in Visual Arts was however dependent on the Board’s endorsement of the authoritative K-12 Art Statement. Following the Board’s notification that the introduction of additional 2 Unit courses would not be approved (1981, October 7, p. 3379),
145 the Art Syllabus Committee was invited to hold the draft syllabus pending a decision on the Board’s initiatives with regard to alternative curriculum and on the progress of the K-12 Visual Arts Policy. In a response to this information received from the Board regarding the K-12 policy, the Chairman suggested that the SSB Art Syllabus Committee establish a working party of the syllabus committee to investigate the revision of the syllabus for Years 8-10. One of seven issues listed that “the Committee felt need to be dealt with to some degree in the syllabus” (1983, February 16, p. 2) was ‘Design’.
The release of the Department of Education’s statement ‘Technological Change and its Impact on Society: A discussion of the extent to which this issue is addressed in the syllabuses of the Study Boards in NSW, by the Directorate of Studies (1983, May) outlines what “the more obviously relevant syllabuses have to say about the impact of technology on society” (p. 22). Recognised under ‘Visual Arts’ is the “major new curriculum statement on Visual Arts Education K-12” (p. 26). The K-12 statements’ acknowledgement of technology is outlined: “Technology has made mass communication a reality with information and meaning being conveyed increasingly in a visual way” (p. 26). The K-12 statement further:
calls upon syllabus developers to provide opportunities for students both to learn how technology has changed the way in which information is communicated, and to develop the competency in visual communication that is now seen to be vital for all educated people (p. 26).
Already grappling with definitions of ‘technology’ (as in media), the obvious solution for the Art Syllabus Committee, in accordance with this operation of government with its emphasis on technology in the K-12 statement, was to build a design focus into the visual arts curriculum. It has been shown that design had already been increasingly associated with technology in the official record. The Art Syllabus Committee regulated their behaviour in order to accept the challenge of new technologies and privileged ‘Art and Design’ as one of four optional areas in the Draft Visual Arts Education Syllabus Years 11-12 (1984, July 13). Despite its elevation to an optional area, problems continued to surround how to define ‘Design’ with the word only appearing four times in this text. ‘Art and Design’ is allocated a minimal and elusive definition as: “including art forms and imagery from early to modern times which are associated with problems of design, and innovative solutions” (p. 6).
In the 1987 Visual Arts Syllabus, Years 11-12, ‘Art and Design’ continues to be named as the last of four categories as Focus 4: Art and Design. The Focus Areas repeatedly appear in the same set or series comprising Art in Australia, Art and Culture, Art and Media, and Art and
146 Design, in an apparent implied hierarchy. A discourse of design receives the least recognition of the four Focus Areas in the Art Syllabus Committee meeting minutes. The design ‘product’ that characterised this discourse in the 1978 Art Syllabus as Design, Interior Design, Graphic Design, Stage Design and Functional Design, is replaced by a new discourse built around the students’ experiential world and the world of art.
The Focus Area, Art and Design requires students to respond to design problems through the making and studying of images and objects. As with the other Focus Areas, the emphasis is on the students’ “direct experiences of their environment”. Under this Focus Area, this includes “their perception of the function of design in society” (BSE, 1987, p. 24). The practices of design are closely identified with the processes of ‘problem solving’ under this Focus Area. Of the four learning experiences listed under ‘Making Artworks’, students are required to find solutions to ‘design problems’ on three occasions: “Students should explore particular events, objects and images in order to perceive and identify design problems …”; “These skills will enable them to communicate in a visual form their personal answers to design problems”; “Students should suggest a variety of solutions to a design problem and then decide on the most effective solution” (p. 24). This Focus Area encourages students to develop a better understanding of themselves and the world in which they live through problem solving.
The inquiry model suggested under this Focus Area is the ‘design process’. Sullivan (1989a) maintains that this process “almost always is presented as a sequential procedure which begins with the identification of a problem, followed by experimentation and the proposal of particular solutions and subsequent testing” (p. 11). The defined outcome guides the planning and production process. Sullivan (1989a) argues, “In an age of information overload the quest is not so much knowing “it”, but how to get “it” and use “it” (p. 12). In this model the process of knowing and learning comes before the product.
‘Studying Images and Objects’ under this Focus Area requires “students study historical and contemporary visual images, objects and art forms which are concerned with the problems of design” (BSE, 1987, p. 25). The various forms of visual communication and problem solving skills used by professional designers in a consumer oriented technological society are introduced into this discursive configuration. The main aim of this component of this Focus Area according to Sullivan (1989a) is “to develop students’ critical sensibility, knowledge and understanding of the many potential factors which contribute to design decisions” (p. 11). This is encouraged in the syllabus by analysis of design products in relation to various factors such as: “practical methods of construction or composition”; “the visual appearance, the use of
147 imagination and the creative procedures”; “materials and symbols”; “human needs and environmental factors”; and, “economic and political restraints” (BSE, 1987, p. 25).
The 1987 syllabus provides a more focused study of the function of design in society than previous syllabus content. The role of designers and the process of designing is promoted as being relevant to the total lived experience of the students’ world. The broad interpretation of design in the syllabus closely corresponds, according to Sullivan (1989a), with the accepted model of Experiential Learning:
The syllabus describes direct experiences, problem finding, the perception and reflection on new possibilities, research and development, the communication of ideas, and decision making regarding the most effective solutions (p. 13).
Sullivan argues, these elements, in consultation with “intuitive consciousness” which is promoted throughout the syllabus, creates a “mode of knowing ideally suited to the interpretation of our complex realities” (p. 13). That is, implicit in this Focus Area is the process of ‘consciousness raising’ of the individual both with respect to knowing themselves and knowing the pluralistic technological society in which they live.
‘Design’ also appears in the syllabus as the second of thirteen ‘Forms of Images and Objects’ that students should consider in Making Artworks and Studying Images and Objects. Industrial design courses once again broadly define this form as “all forms of design, including architectural, environmental, functional, interior, package, poster, stage” (BSE, 1987, p. 39).
In summary, it has been argued that the Art Syllabus Committee’s search for the inclusion of media and appropriate technologies resulted in the Focus Area, Art and Design. Technology became a matter of increasing concern for the Art Syllabus Committee as they recognised the need to expand its use in the curriculum. It was the K-12 statement that provided the syllabus committee with a discourse of technology. At the centre of the syllabus committee’s interpretation of technology was design. Design starts from a requirement and defines the methods of its realisation or implementation. The Focus Area, Art and Design, encouraged experimentation and increased inventiveness but in particular, design awareness offered students a key to understanding their natural and constructed environment.
148 3.6 The Intervention of Alleged Legislative Risk
In this section I will demonstrate how the intervention of alleged legislative risk brought about a loss of control and a rupture to the direction of visual arts discourse. In 1991, the third year examining the 40 plates the BOS wrote to the Years 7-12 Visual Arts Syllabus Committee warning they were potentially in breach of copyright legislation. Section 200(b) of the Copyright Act, amended in 1989, states: “The copyright in an artistic work is not infringed by reason only that the work is reproduced as part of the questions to be answered in an examination, or in an answer to such a question” (Commonwealth of Australia, 1968, p. 131). This amendment was the reason advanced, requiring, “the need for a new format for the 2/3 Unit examination written paper” (Rieser, 1991, June 24, p. 1).
Copyright had attracted some occasional difficulty for the Board who had sought permission from artists and others for clearance to enable the sale of past examination papers. Otherwise copyright was unknown and unimportant territory to the Visual Arts Syllabus Committee. It appears the contention pivoted on the definition of an examination. Could an examination extend across twelve months, which would be the duration of the 40 plates booklet? How could the 40 plates be regulated if student's had possession outside controlled and invigilated examination sites? Are the plates akin to a prescribed text as used for many years in English syllabus? The following memorandum from the Board suggests these issues were anticipated:
The accompanying Visual Arts Plates booklets are supplied for distribution to Year 11 students studying Visual Arts for the HSC examination in 1990. The number of copies is strictly limited by an agreement between the Department of Education and the Copyright Agency Limited and NO extra copies have been printed. You should keep a record of students who have been issued with this book. The copy issued to students must not be taken into the HSC examination room. A copy will be issued to candidates in the examination room (1989, November 13).
Rather than challenge the copyright warning, the Visual Arts Syllabus Committee preferred to change the examination paper and remove the 40 plates. Within weeks of students commencing this part of the course, the Chairman of the Visual Arts Syllabus Committee, Len Rieser made this recommendation to the President of the BOS, John Lambert:
The Board should seek other means of providing Visual Arts teachers and students with information and resources in relation to contemporary issues in Visual Arts and thereby
149 expand or amplify the content defined in the syllabus – as circumstances dictate (1991, June 24, p. 1).
The demise of the 40 plates was presented as problems of copyright however dissent and doubt had surrounded the 40 plates since their inception. One year after implementation there was a shared view expressed by the Art Syllabus Committee that short statements accompanying the prescribed images and objects were required to “bring out the spirit of the syllabus” (1989, March 2, p. 2).
Two years later in the letter from the Chairman to the President, BOS, this sentiment was redistributed as one of four declared justifications for the cessation of the annual issue of the 40 plates booklet: “The original intention of the “40 Plates” appears to have been misinterpreted on occasion in the past. Therefore it has been decided that such prescriptions tend to inhibit and distort the study of Visual Arts and so deny the spirit of the syllabus” (1991, June 24, p. 1). The compliance to the copyright warning suggests some members of the Visual Arts Syllabus Committee welcomed the abrogation of the 40 plates. Already demonised as a problem this rupture led to the formation of new discursive practices.
A restructure of the examination was proposed to manage the different form of content. The discourse of examination as structure and arrangement would be revised to include a range of alternative questions that ‘reflect’ and ‘amplify’ the four Focus Areas: “The proposal was that the ‘40 Plates’ be replaced by a series of written statements that would reflect and amplify the four Focus Areas of the syllabus” (1991, June 26, p. 2). The constant preoccupation with how to examine the Focus Areas led to the formation of a new discourse built around ‘Descriptors’. The regulative discourse of ‘Prescribed’, defined by the Oxford Dictionary as “to lay down or impose authoritatively” (Moore, 2004, p. 1020), was replaced by statements intended to depict, portray, illustrate, express and/or explain the Focus Areas. The BOS now provided two statements, to later be called Recommended Areas of Study (RAS), without images, for each of the four Focus Areas as Part A of the examination. Part B of the examination remained unchanged, comprising eight unseen coloured plates and three alternative questions. Unseen, a curious idea, does however continue the discourse of the single example. Students were now presented with artworks of which previous study or practice would be a complete ‘lottery’. The Visual Arts Syllabus Committee was obliged to set up a working party to assist the Board in revising “all of the regulatory documents and publications affected” (1991, June 24, p. 2). Uncertainty surrounding the implications of these changes to the syllabus and examination questions is apparent in the meeting minutes. The question is raised if “Examination questions should be based on the content of the syllabus or 4 Focus Areas?” (1991, June 26, p. 3). It
150 appears in this instance that the Visual Arts Syllabus Committee did not recognise the Focus Areas, without the 40 plates, as curriculum ‘content’.
Five months after the copyright warning, a memorandum to principals and teachers of Visual Arts set out the decision, the reasons for the change and the new structure to the examination paper. The core and Focus Areas would be examined in lieu of the 40 plates. The Visual Arts Syllabus Committee received approval from the BOS to convene a working party of examination committee representatives to decide on “RAS to replace the 40 Plates” (1991, October 30, p. 6).
The restatement of ‘areas’ in ‘Recommended Areas of Study’ suggests a coexistence and mutual functioning was anticipated between the RAS and the Focus Areas. The Focus Areas appeared as an organising device, invented as a solution to the perceived shortcomings of the previous syllabus including the examination and the place of Australian art. The RAS were subsequently developed as the Focus Areas provided the conditions or field of practice for visual arts curriculum however they were stealth in providing the tools necessary to make and study images. The two statements, or “detailed suggestions of content for the making and studying of art” (Weate, 1991, November 22, p. 1), supplied for each Focus Area were to provide clarity for teachers and fix the boundaries of the Focus Areas. Five days after their inception into visual arts discourse, principals and teachers learned of the RAS in a memorandum advising, “amendments have been made in the Visual Arts and the Examination Specifications as a result of which, for 1992, they will be replaced by the following RAS for each Focus Area” (1991, November).
The field of memory embracing environment, local and immediate across all four Focus Areas in the 1987 syllabus disappeared. The RAS adopted an alternative discursive configuration appropriated from the ‘perspectives’ on page thirty-five of the syllabus. Many begin with “The function, meaning and purpose of …”; “The expression and communication of ideas, feelings and perceptions about/of …”; and/or “The characteristics and significance of …". The word ‘Australia’ does not feature prominently in the RAS, appearing only nine times from 1992 to 1999. A discourse of traditional art history chronology returns with the RAS. This discourse is fostered by the use of “historical and contemporary” in eighteen of the thirty-two RAS across the eight years.
Despite a new vocabulary of terms entering visual arts discourse, it is important to trace how a discourse of Australia is retained in the examination by the continuance of the student’s “own local environment”. In Part A of the 2/3 unit examination, a range of three or four questions are
151 set under the heading of each Focus Area. Students were required to answer one question from Part A. The three types of questions under each Focus Area are reminiscent of the previous examination structure. The first question requires students discuss aesthetic and/or conceptual concerns within their “own local environment” in relation to images, objects and artworks associated with the Focus Area; the second question asks students to demonstrate their understanding of “historical and contemporary” images, objects and artworks; and the third and final question under each Focus Area requires students to discuss issues, styles, artists and themes who have influenced their “own artmaking” and their own study of images and objects.
Part B of the examination was composed of three alternative questions. Students were required to answer one question from this section. The eight examples of visual images or artworks provided for Part B of the examination are representative of each of the Focus Areas. The 3 unit additional examination paper remained unchanged with four questions under each of the four Focus Areas (Part A, B, C and D). Students continued to be provided with a booklet of plates to accompany these questions.
It is clear that a curriculum reform was ruptured by the intervention of alleged legislative risk. This is interesting as copyright was originally conceived with author’s rights, education, and equity in mind. Without the practices, instruments and institutional formation to support the 40 plates and its scant regulatory reference, ironically, the examination was relied upon to carry the day.
3.6.1 The Recommended Areas of Study
The RAS were conceived as the agent in the construction of the examination paper, providing explanation and clarity for visual arts curriculum content. They were conceived as combinations of perspectives and images or artforms and provided known topics to direct teachers in planning and articulating selections of content for study in a respective Focus Area. It will be apparent in the discussion to follow however that they too failed to provide greater interpretative content for the visual arts curriculum.
The Visual Arts Syllabus Committee had worked in anticipation of the possibilities for a syllabus and examination restructure, “to devise a reasonable satisfactory solution and to prepare adequate support material in time” (Rieser, 1992, April 4, p. 1), following the BOS’ decision not to issue the 40 plates for 1992. Following this flurry however, the syllabus committee expressed their disappointment in a letter from Rieser to Lambert titled ‘The Removal of the 40 Plates and their replacement by RAS’ that the support document did not
152 reach schools until March 1992 despite its readiness in November 1991 (1992, April 4, p. 1). The implications of this delay “caused considerable anguish in schools” (p. 1). The BOS was accorded the responsibility for this curriculum reform however the teacher was the agency of prescribed pedagogic practices. Teachers’ conduct was self-regulated to review, evaluate, consult, respond and potentially implement this new and “better” curriculum policy with minimal guidance or explanation from those sites possessing a formal and authoritative role in the production of this knowledge. In this instance the Visual Arts Syllabus Committee believed the actions of the BOS “reflects badly upon the credibility of this committee and the Board” (p. 1).
The Visual Arts Syllabus Committee received letters from high schools and professional art organisations concerning the RAS. Discourses of concern were expressed in statements such as: “not enough information to explain adequately what it is we are required to do in terms of areas to be studied”, “continual changes”, “a bit sudden”, and “continual need to expend financial resources”. This can be considered a strange response as the RAS redistributed accumulated statements.
The RAS were regulated by the Visual Arts Syllabus Committee to be optional, not compulsory and suggestion only. This sentiment is evidenced in letters from the syllabus committee to the high schools and professional art organisations who expressed their concern. The language used to illustrate this includes: “My personal feelings are that you are over-reacting as none of the recommended areas have to be addressed at all, or one would be amply sufficient” (Rieser, 1993, October 29, p. 1); and “It is important to remember that if you do not want to address the Recommended Areas of Study you don’t have to” (Thomas, 1993, December, p. 1). The ‘Recommended’ Areas of Study reject and contradict the previous ‘Prescribed’ Images and Objects.
Despite the ‘unstable nature’ of the RAS, a Report to the BOS recognises the “preparation of the RAS for the 1998 HSC with attention being given to further advice for teachers” (1997, September 1, p. 1) as one of their achievements during 1996-1997. This ‘advice’ was in the process of development to “assist teachers in their understanding of the relationship between the RAS and the Focus Areas in the Syllabus” (p. 2). Five years on, the Visual Arts Syllabus Committee was still attempting to rationalise the reciprocal functioning between the Focus Areas and the RAS.
Foucauldian methodologies examine the impact of “historical accidents, abrupt interruptions, and the play of surfaces” (Bouchard, 1977, p. 17). In an effort to circumvent the uncertainty of a
153 ‘lottery’, the Visual Arts Syllabus Committee altered the discursive grounds of the examination. This entire undertaking was undone when the syllabus and examination were determined by the BOS to infringe copyright legislation. The bizarre result of this thwarted attempt was the coexistence of two discordant discourses. The coexistence of the RAS and the Focus Areas was a forced relationship. The supposed revolutionary framework for studying art reverted to an examination structure of the very type of content and questions originally intended to be over- turned. An incompatible tension between equity, the self-expressive needs of the child, and the status of art returned. This collision permeated visual arts education discourse for nearly ten years.
3.7 Summary
The discursive formation of the Visual Arts in the 1980s was produced out of a network of discourses and power relations. This genealogical inquiry has shown the ways in which the field of art education adopted various characteristics according to the range of subjective dispositions that official policy discourse constructed and allowed. The means by which the field selectively appropriated, transformed, relocated, and related different discourses imposed from or interdependent with authoritative discourses external to the field has been determined.
I began this chapter by providing an overview of the tenacious child-centred discourse, that adopted a psychologically grounded, process model of perceiving, organising, evaluating, responding and manipulating in ‘planned learned experiences’, that was inspired by the official K-12 policy rhetoric that was informing curriculum activity at the time. Woven through the substantive concerns of the Art Syllabus Committee were the discursive strategies of this K-12 formation that ultimately infused art education discourse throughout this decade.
Following this, I examined how ‘Australia’, or as it was variously spoken ‘Australian’, ‘Australian art’ and ‘Australian culture’, produced objects and statements of varying force. The university representatives on the Art Syllabus Committee identified the opportunity to assert and enunciate authority for ‘Australia’ and the subsequent and related progeny of the Focus Areas. The 1987 syllabus embraced Australian art, following the perceived anomalies and other shortcomings of the previous syllabus, in particular the delimitation of Australia as a period in a modernist chronology. The archive also revealed the recurrent demand for accommodating the vexed questions of media and technology in the art curriculum amidst the discursive authority of the K-12 concept. The knowledge and ideas that these discourses embodied were often quite arbitrary and eventuated in one definition that descended from semiotic theory, whereby the
154 media was more than the material substance of the work but taken to include signs and symbols, and the other from industrial design in the 1987 syllabus.
Finally, this chapter has highlighted how the Focus Areas were perceived to be the solution to a number of problems including the structure of the examination. Following the demise of the 40 plates precipitated by copyright difficulties the RAS were developed. The RAS did not replace the Focus Areas but were intended to be read and interpreted in conjunction with the appropriate Focus Area. Despite the RAS being identified as foundations to the study of art as described within the syllabus, the control or regulation of the curriculum by the examination was a contested issue. The Art Syllabus Committee was compelled to harness all the ‘spin’ available and the goodwill of teachers (a currency too often relied upon) to recover from this unanticipated intervention that disrupted the types of statements and practices encouraged and facilitated by the 1987 syllabus and its 2/3 unit examination.
In Chapter Four, I move to an examination of the impact of Federal government intervention on curriculum discursive practices in Visual Arts in NSW in the 1980s and 1990s. In doing so, I will show how the national collaborative curriculum projects revealed the politics of curriculum practice.
155 CHAPTER FOUR NATIONAL CURRICULUM INITIATIVES AND FRAMEWORKS
4 Introduction
The intervention of Federal government in State curriculum in the 1980s and 1990s as evidenced in the national collaborative curriculum projects in Australia is examined in this chapter. Federal governments hold neither brief nor constitutional responsibility for curriculum, which is invested in States, although their interests and priorities overlap; for example, countries, not individual States represent education internationally through the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, and employment is a Federal responsibility. The national curriculum exercise adopted a structure that utilised existing State instrumentalities and enlisted the support of State education Ministers and senior bureaucrats through the Hobart agreement (Australian Education Council [AEC], 1989). Subject specialists organised as KLAs won responsibility for the production of written curriculum policies, materials and resources, by the commercial bargaining process of tender submission. The national curriculum initiatives were a local reprise of Thatcherite policies that were widely copied internationally (Yates and Collins, 2008). These national projects pioneered new models for writing curriculum in NSW.
This chapter reveals the politics of curriculum practice. I begin this by providing an overview of the ‘core’ curriculum as one of the broader discourses shaping and framing the formulation of the national curriculum projects with a view to better understanding the context in which The Arts National Statement and Profile were conceptualised. Following from this, I identify the sources of political power and processes behind the discourse mechanisms shaping the national curriculum projects. This aids understanding of the circumstances under which the ideas and values formed and emerged in the published texts. Considering this, it is argued that discourses of accountability and standards central to the national effort and articulated by Dawkins in Strengthening Australia’s Schools (1988) influenced the selection and arrangement of school knowledge for The Arts learning area and for art education in NSW. Of interest in these debates are the discursive authorities that regulated what constituted valid knowledge in the arts. I map the development of the statements and profiles before tracing, examining and analysing discourses in the official texts titled A statement on the arts for Australian schools (AEC, 1994a) and The arts – a curriculum profile for Australian schools (AEC, 1994b). Despite the publication of these documents appearing to unite the field of arts education, consensus was not complete. The Briefs, Statement, and Profile for the arts gave rise to contestation, struggle and compromise between the art educational community and agencies in the field. Professional art
156 educators, particularly in NSW, criticised the structure and content of the statement and profile (Rieser, 1993, March 31; Brown, 1993, March 31, 1994a, 1994b; Thomas and Milton, 1993, March 31; Weate, 1992b, 1993; McKeon, 1996, 1998; Grundy, 1994; Gaudry, 1994; Karaolis, 1994). The final sections of this chapter present an analysis of the regulative discourses selected and embedded in the texts that were so vigorously refuted. The aim of this chapter is to identify the forces that produced and defined the discourses in the national curriculum frameworks that ultimately impacted on the constitution of art education in NSW.
4.1 The Core Curriculum
Curriculum development at the national level had previously been attempted. The establishment of the Schools Commission and the CDC under the Whitlam Labor Government of 1972 – 1975 marked the beginning of national work in education. The CDC, an independent statutory body established by Act of Parliament 1975 with offices located in Canberra, liaised with states to produce a wide range of national curriculum resources for subject areas. The emergence of the CDC is significant as it signaled and institutionalised the Commonwealth’s entry into the curriculum area and legitimated the concept of national curriculum development (Piper, 1992). As Marsh and Prideaux (1993) point out, the CDC:
was created at a time when Commonwealth-State relationships were at a high-point, and previous cooperative ventures between States augured well for a centralised agency which could provide leadership in curriculum development activities and provide information services (p. 32).
This federally funded organisation believed that curriculum and schools, thus teaching and learning, can be improved by better school resources, and in turn offset socioeconomic disadvantage. The CDC embodied the happy coincidence of a significant injection of funds from Federal sources with the theory of curriculum resource inputs. As Connell (1993) has argued, “the establishment of the CDC was an indication that the study and development of curriculum in Australia had begun to move forward rapidly to the point where it could be seen as a serious and important field of inquiry and practice within the discipline of education” (p. 550). The CDC, as a central, authoritative institutional site, supported relations of power through existing structures in the States and Territories that enabled more work to be conducted in Australia in the curriculum field.
The CDC, with Malcolm Skilbeck the inaugural Director, adopted a scholarly-enrichment- model: writing policy, positioning papers and producing resources. Skilbeck, a scholar of
157 international reputation, strongly supported progressive ideas and was a driving force in projects at the CDC. The formation of a program to review school practice, theory and research on core curriculum was encouraged by Skilbeck. Barcan (2001) suggests, “interest in a core curriculum was a response to the confusion arising from school-based curriculum policies and the new pressures on the curriculum. It was also a response to the proliferation of subject areas in secondary schools” (p. 58). A centre, or core of broad areas of knowledge that must be included in the curriculum was an authoritative measure aimed at circumscribing the freedom of school communities in determining their own curriculum policies, designs and resources. Power and control could be reconsolidated in a central authority.
In response to the growing disillusion with school-based curricula, the CDC published the discussion paper Core Curriculum for Australian Schools in June 1980. This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of the idea and content of a core curriculum by a national working party, set up in 1978, which reviewed the extensive literature on core curriculum and commissioned case studies of core curriculum operating in Australian schools. In addition to this document, three subsequent documents were prepared: Core Curriculum and values education: a literature review (CDC, 1981); Core Curriculum: descriptions of practice in nineteen Australian schools (Fifield, 1981); and, Core curriculum in Australian schools: case studies of relationships between values and core curriculum (Toomey and Chipley, 1981). The interrelationship between the development of generally agreed objectives for education and the identification of fundamental knowledge, experience and skills, which should be central to the curricula for all schools, was recognised in the discussion document. Although core curriculum was not widely supported in States and Territories, the CDC attempted to reconceptualise existing school subjects into a framework consisting of nine broad curriculum areas of knowledge and experience with the caution “that it is a mistake to treat the core simply in terms of subject content” (CDC, 1980, p. 17). This was in addition to learning processes and environments.
With limited power directly to influence schools or school systems, the CDC, as a national body, generally aimed to work through existing structures in the States and Territories, with “no legal responsibility for what schools teach or prescriptive authority in relation to schooling” (Skilbeck, 1980, p. 21). Widely debated at the time, this document was not intended to be prescriptive or an externally examined process. Rather, it was a stimulus for discussion on “broad directions for Australian schools to follow in deciding on core curriculum” (CDC, 1980, p. 5). As a policy discussion paper the document set out approaches to core curriculum for consideration by schools, systems and other educational authorities as well as for the public at large.
158 The nine specific areas of knowledge and experience central to achieving common aims for education and schooling in Australia are: arts and crafts; environmental studies; mathematical skills and reasoning and their applications; social, cultural and civic studies; health education; scientific, technological ways of knowing and their social applications; communication; moral reasoning and action, value and belief systems; and work, leisure and lifestyle. Citing Skilbeck (1980, p. 7), Marsh (1994) acknowledges, “the nine groupings do not represent new subjects but they do redefine areas of concentration, which reflect more accurately social realities resulting from the complexity and speed of social and technological change” (p. 9). ‘Arts and crafts’, as one of the nine broad areas of knowledge and experience, is defined as:
Arts and crafts cover a wide and diverse area including literature, music, visual arts, drama, wood, metal and plastic crafts, and many others. While in some respect it is not satisfactory to group these together, in the school setting they have many features in common … The neglect of particular art forms, divided opinions about the need for general aesthetic education as distinct from expression through the arts, and the uneven approach to basic craft teaching in many schools suggest the need for a comprehensive review of these areas of the curriculum. We have yet to define essential elements of experience, understanding, appreciation and skill, and to select a manageable array of learnings for schools. Until this is done and strong rationales produced, there will be a tendency on the one hand to multiply options and on the other to treat the arts as dispensable in schooling when other pressures obtrude. In fact, they represent major, fundamental forms of human expression, understanding, appreciation and communication. Given the range and diversity of arts and crafts, further studies are needed on the selection, organisation and direction of a sequential core program through all years of schooling (CDC, 1980, p. 18).
Confusion and uncertainty surrounding this area is clearly apparent by the use of the phrases: ‘We have yet to define essential elements of experience’; ‘there will be a tendency’; and, ‘further studies are needed’. The lack of clarity concerning what kinds of knowledge and experience this area might cover appears to be a consequence of the writers’ admission that the unification of diverse forms of art and craft is ‘not satisfactory’. This area therefore has the potential to be ‘dispensible’ or assigned a minor role in schooling when authority is imposed from discourses external to the field. Considering this, the document argues, “a redefinition of core curriculum is needed because our traditional way of packaging knowledge into required subjects no longer satisfies either society or students” (CDC, 1980, p. 7). The term ‘core curriculum’ identified as “a long standing, unresolved issue in educational theory” (Skilbeck, 1981, p. 6) is not synonymous with the teaching of a narrow range of measurable skills in
159 literacy and numeracy: “the Centre by outlining these nine areas has endeavoured to displace conventional notions of the “basics” (literacy, numeracy together with some others which are usually incompletely specified” (Skilbeck, 1980, p. 29). The CDC envisaged ‘core’ as more than subject content but rather a set of learning experiences, resources, manual skills, values education and reasoning processes common to all students.
This attempt to produce a common curriculum framework had limited appeal. In 1981 the CDC’s activities “fell victim to a conservatively minded and economically pressured Federal Government” (Connell, 1993, p. 557). Marsh (1994) argues, “the virtual dismissal of the CDC core curriculum document was partly due to philosophical and educational reasons but also due to growing concerns about the national economic needs and views that the educational systems in States and Territories were inadequate” (p. 38). The disestablishment of the CDC as an independent statutory authority was followed by the progressive emasculation (Connell, 1993, p. 558) of its successor, the Curriculum Development Council within the Commonwealth Schools Commission. This can be interpreted as signaling more direct Commonwealth government control over the activities of the centre and a reduced role for the States (Piper, 1992). After a further review of its functions, the Curriculum Development Council ceased operation by the end of 1987.
4.2 National Intervention in Education
The historical record credits national intervention in education in the late 1980s with the Federal Minister for Employment, Education and Training John Dawkins.23 Dawkins is attributed the responsibility for setting the agenda of the national curriculum project (Marsh, 1994, p. 43). In May 1988, as part of a broad economic statement by the Labour government, Dawkins released, Strengthening Australia’s Schools: A Consideration of the Focus and Content of Schooling.
23 John Dawkins served for eighteen years in the House of Representatives for the Australian Labor Party. When the Hawke Government came to power in 1983, Dawkins entered the ministry as Minister for Finance (11th March, 1983 to 13th December, 1984) and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister on Public Service Matters (1st July, 1983 to 13th December, 1984). From the 13th December, 1984 to 24th July, 1987, Dawkins served as Minister for Trade and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Youth Affairs (13th July, 1984 to 24th July, 1987). Dawkins was Minister for Employment, Education and Training from 24th July, 1987 to 27th December, 1991. It was during this period that he became associated with the decision to reintroduce changes for tertiary education students in the form of the Higher Education Contribution System. When Paul Keating became Prime Minister in December 1991, Dawkins was appointed Treasurer (27th December, 1991 to 23rd December, 1993). Dawkins reassigned from politics in 1994 to pursue a career in business. Black, D. (2006). John Dawkins: Member for Freemantle 1977-1993. Retrieved from http://john.curtin.edu.au/fremantle/dawkins.html. Parliament of Australia, ParlInfo Search. (August, 2008), Biography for DAWKINS, the Hon. John Sydney. Retrieved from http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;page=0;query=john%20dawkins;rec=4;res Count=Default.
160 Acknowledging the constitutional barriers to Federal influence on schooling, this statement invites the co-operation of the States and Territories in developing and implementing a national effort to strengthen Australia’s schools. Dawkins proposed: “the development of a common framework that sets out the major areas of knowledge and the most appropriate mix of skills and experience for students in all the years of schooling” (1988, p. 4).
This statement also nominates a common approach to assessment and reporting: “a common approach to benchmarks for measuring student achievement, assessing school performance and public reporting in school-level education must be a further objective of a national effort” (p. 5). Central to this proposal is the idea that strengthening Australia’s schools is an essential component of economic reform. The statement stresses the critical role of schools in providing the foundations for “a more highly skilled, adaptive and productive workforce” (p. 2) as the basis for a well-informed and cohesive society. Therefore, it is unsurprising to find commentators noting its economic impulse. For example, Marsh (1994) argues, “Dawkins’ statements in this document about the need for a common curriculum framework were largely economics-driven, coupled with assertions that education had failed” (p. 44). Government priorities are directed towards English, Maths, Science and Technology in this document. Significantly, in the context of this study, the role of the arts does not make an appearance.
Dawkins’ (1988) paper fuelled intense collaborative curriculum activity however Crump (1993) correctly notes the antecedents of a national curriculum in the CDC policy:
The factors encouraging the CDC towards the development of a more formally constructed national core curriculum were surprisingly similar to those outlined by Mr Dawkins eight years later: social change, community concerns, innovations, limited resources, outdated subject organisation and future needs (p. 7).
Curriculum Initiatives (Speedy, 1992), a commissioned report of the National Board of Employment, Education and Training, also identifies the CDC core curriculum document as preceding the national curriculum project. Crump maintains that the CDC’s commitment to a broad education is replaced by this corporatist conception of education with its technical/occupational focus that is consumer-oriented. Similarly, Piper (1989) argues:
the proposals put forward in Strengthening our schools are nothing new in the Australian educational debate, particularly at the national level. What is new is that the debate has become much more overtly political, and directly linked with the Commonwealth government’s plans for restructuring the Australian economy (p. 4).
161 Dawkins was able to transform this rhetoric into practice through the AEC. The AEC, a body comprising all the relevant state and territory ministers of education and their permanent department of education heads as well as the Federal minister, became the major institutional site for national education policy development during this period. In 1986 the AEC had resolved “to support the concept of national collaborative effort in curriculum development in Australia, to utilise to maximum effect scarce curriculum resources and to ensure that unnecessary differences in curriculum from state to state be minimised” (Boston, 1994, p. 43). Aided by the AEC, Dawkins and the Federal government were able to influence the national educational debates in a way that had not been possible in the past. As Braithwaite noted, “Commonwealth’s preoccupation with economic performance and the instrumental role that education can serve in meeting national economic goals ensured that the nature of the curriculum and its control entered the national political agenda” (1994, p. 545). Accompanying this influence was a re-figuration of Commonwealth-State relationships. This featured new bureaucratic agendas, as Kennedy (1995) observes:
It is true that Mr Dawkins brought a new dimension to the task, not to mention a different personality and operating style. He was also equipped with a new set of bureaucrats disdainful of the sensitivities of Commonwealth-State relationships in the area of the school curriculum (p. 155).
The first attempt at formulating a set of national goals for schooling was the endorsement by the AEC of ten Common and Agreed National Goals for Schooling (the Hobart Declaration of 1989). These goals explicitly provide a set of priorities for all Australian schools. With state government authorities retaining a high degree of control over their own, disparate educational systems, Crump (1993) argued that, “this declaration was not spontaneous but preceded by earlier attempts and a painful bringing together of different systems and ideologies” (p. 7). Similarly, Braithwaite (1994) identifies the tension surrounding state-federal relationships that was taken into consideration in this national policy formation given the constitutional division of powers:
because of the zealously guarded policy of the states to retain control over primary and secondary education … the goals are generalised statements that avoid conflict with state rights in the curriculum policy area but symbolise an important stage in the formulation of national curriculum policy (p. 546).
These goals reflect the principles outlined in Dawkins’ policy statement Strengthening Australia’s Schools and are an attempt to capture the new curriculum initiatives, priority areas
162 and direction of school education for the coming years. They play an important role in framing the national curriculum projects.
Another major outcome of the Hobart meeting in April 1989 was the establishment by the AEC of the Curriculum Corporation of Australia (CCA). The CCA was another institutional apparatus and administrative mechanism aimed at enhancing and maintaining the exercise of power for the AEC. The functions of the CDC were transmuted into the CCA: “any new proposals for national curriculum and assessment must build on existing strengths and patterns of recent curriculum development in systems, on the work programs of other agencies with significant impact on education nationally (for example, the Schools Commission, CDC)” (Kemmis, 1990, p. 16). The CCA is governed by a Board of directors consisting of representatives from each state and territory department of education, with NSW latterly becoming a member; the Commonwealth Department of Employment, Education and Training; the National Council of Independent Schools Associations; the National Catholic Education Commission; and the National Board of Employment, Education and Training. As the premier national organisation, the purpose of the CCA is to develop and encourage the implementation of national curriculum principles. This includes: facilitating activities in curriculum development; encouraging the more effective use of resources, publishing and making available high quality curriculum materials, and providing curriculum information within the parameters of cooperation with collaborating organisations and client groups. CCA projects are supported by all the states and the Commonwealth, and reflect national priorities as determined by the AEC. The CCA’s significance is succinctly identified by Kemmis (1990) who argues:
The formation of the Curriculum Corporation by the Australian Education Council is perhaps the most important national initiative in education of the last fifteen years. It represents a commitment to significant educational reform partly in response to the major economic, social and cultural transformations already underway in Australia, and partly as a contribution to shaping the future course of these transformations (p. 1).
Following the Hobart declaration, the AEC initiated a ‘national mapping’ of curriculum under the supervision of State and Territory Directors of Curriculum however NSW did not participate. Forster (1995) argues, “Traditional ‘States’ rights’ thinking was evident in Dr Metherell’s attitude, along with the assumption of NSW superiority in terms of the educational standards and academic excellence” (p. 208). The first phase of this exploratory strategy began in 1988 and involved identifying shared goals across the States and Territories and the similarities and differences in curricula, either existing or being undertaken by educational authorities in eight curriculum areas: Mathematics; Science; Technology; English; Studies of
163 Society and Environment; Health; The Arts; and LOTE. This was the first step in developing a platform for discussing national curriculum frameworks, including the need for preliminary explorations of national statements, as well as identifying impediments to national co-operation in curriculum development. The preparation of a literature review document replaced the national mapping process. This major document comprising an annotated bibliography of key curriculum resource material including syllabus texts, policy statements, curriculum development and support material, that were currently in use in each of the arts areas was surveyed and reported by the CCA (Appendix C). A Review of Literature and Resources in the Arts was published in 1991.
In 1991 the AEC approved the eight areas of learning and affirmed that national statements and profiles would be produced for each of the eight areas. This task was to be completed by June 1993. The AEC delegated responsibility for overseeing the production of national statements and profiles to the Curriculum and Assessment Committee (CURASS) in early 1991. CURASS comprised representatives from the Commonwealth, States and Territories, New Zealand, Catholic and independent schools, parents, teachers, the AEC Secretariat, the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) and the Curriculum Corporation and was supported by a secretariat with representation from all States and Territories and the Commonwealth. CURASS was responsible for establishing steering committees, project teams and reference groups for each learning area, and for overseeing the national collaborative projects, including the budgets, timelines and monitoring of performance. The quality of drafts and their progressive approval was controlled by CURASS. It was required to ensure that there was adequate consultation at all phases and to develop policy options, strategies and recommendations for consideration and review by the AEC. The institutional practices within CURASS regulated the rules and frames of reference within which writers were able to work in constructing a discourse for the arts.
National collaboration produced sixteen documents: a statement and a profile in each of the eight areas of learning. The statements provide a framework for curriculum development by education systems and schools: “A national statement sets out an agreed position on the curriculum, defining the particular area of learning, outlining its essential knowledge, skills and processes and showing what it distinctive to the area” (CCA, 1994, p. 2). Expanding on the Common and Agreed National Goals for Schooling (which represents a consensus about the purpose of the curriculum) the statements do not provide a syllabus but rather a foundation for courses to meet students’ needs and contribute to an understanding of how students learn in each area. Statements are organised according to ‘strands’ and ‘bands’. Strands are the major structural organisers of a learning area. They can be groupings of content, processes and
164 conceptual understanding (p. 2). Bands are the broad stages of a sequence for developing knowledge and skills in a learning area (p. 3). These statements emerge following an intensive process that included the curriculum mapping exercise. National curriculum statements are accompanied by assessment profiles that attempt to provide benchmarks for student achievement at different levels of schooling. A profile is a description of the progression in learning outcomes typically achieved by students during the years of schooling in one of the eight areas of learning (p. 3). The profiles were the work of teams of expert writers who examined the statements and set out to describe what students would learn when taught a curriculum consistent with the statements. They are “designed to assist in the improvement of teaching and learning and to provide a common language for reporting student achievement” (p. iii). The structure of the statements and profiles is based around sequential learning and the development of concepts and skills that can be assessed. The CCA, the AEC-funded body, was responsible for editing and publishing the final national Statements and Profiles after the AEC had referred them to the States and Territories for review.
The nationally developed statements and profiles were presented to the AEC in July 1993. Despite eighteen months of work, State education ministers refused to endorse the national key competencies or curriculum statements and profiles and CURASS was disbanded (Marsh, 1994, p. 54). One explanation for the 1980s and 1990s demise of the national curriculum is that State’s rights prevailed. Seddon (2001) provides one such account of the events of the national curriculum:
ultimately this control by agreement and uncertainty, which underpinned the Commonwealth’s attempt to manage by consensus unraveled in the face of traditional state-federal politics. States would not undercut their historic control of school education (p. 318).
Curriculum became subject to “outcomes-based funding and performance indicators”, which Seddon (2001) asserts, “endorsed traditional power relationships” (p. 320). This governance and control did however provide for the reconstitution of curriculum as a “diversification of identity” (p. 326). That is, the events of the national curriculum project provided the opportunity for different social groups to define and customise their own powerful knowledge and educational pathways. A range of curricula could then be tailored to meet client demands and needs. These groups could “begin to erode the stranglehold that dominant social groups have on what is taught and to whom” (p. 326). States and Territories made separate decisions about the extent to which they would adopt the nationally developed statements and profiles. According to Seddon, “national curriculum reform was overtaken and diffracted by diverse State politics”
165 (2001, p. 318). Similarly, Clements (1996) argues, “there can be no doubt that the nationally- developed curriculum materials for the eight KLAS have had a large influence on subsequent developments in the States and Territories” (p. 15).
Despite the national curriculum project as a distinct event failing, with the AEC deciding, “to scuttle the nationally consistent curriculum project” (Ebert, 1993, p. 63), the responsibility of curriculum resting with the States and Territories meant that apparatuses and instruments of its formation continued. The publication of statements and profiles became the prerogative of each State and Territory:
The national statements and profiles are now in the hands of the States. This is both appropriate and timely. … The material is now ready for consideration by those with the constitutional responsibility for school education … It is now time for the statements and profiles to stand or fall on their merits, and for each State and Territory to review the materials at its own pace (Boston, 1993).
The individual states continued to circulate the discourse of a national curriculum irrespective of the sovereign position. NSW continued to be vigilant in preserving State’s rights until a change in Minister resulted in the NSW Department of School of Education enthusiastically embracing the national curriculum frameworks. Forster (1995) argues, “the Department used the national outcomes as the basis for a substantial pedagogical shift towards outcomes-based teaching and learning in NSW government schools” (p. 210). That is, the Department used the national outcomes as an apparatus or practical technique to exercise their power/knowledge. In doing so, they articulated institutional power.
In the next section of this chapter, I examine the ways in which the centralised education system in NSW negotiated the national curriculum frameworks. This will illustrate a clear relationship between the discursive practices of the Visual Arts and the network of power relations of which these discourses were a part.
4.3 Educational Reform in New South Wales
Educational reform was initiated in NSW in the late 1980s. Following the March 1988 elections, the Minister for Education and Youth Affairs in the new Liberal party government, Dr Terry Metherell, initiated a series of reforms culminating in the Education Reform Act of May 1990. This Act incorporates elements of the Schools Renewal Plan (Scott, 1989), the Report of the Committee of Review of NSW Schools (Carrick, 1989), and the White Paper on the curriculum,
166 Excellence and Equity (Metherell, 1989).
In September 1989, the NSW Government commissioned Sir John Carrick and thirteen representatives from the education, parent, union and business fields to conduct a comprehensive review of education in NSW schools. Two major recommendations made by this Report had important ramifications for curriculum. The first was the replacement of the BSE with a BOS responsible for K-12 curriculum and the second was the requirement that the primary curriculum be defined within a framework of six KLAs.24 One of these six areas is Creative and Practical Arts, which encompasses craft, drama, music and visual arts. This restructuring reform is evidence of the power of government to influence and control the curriculum. The consolidation of individual arts subject syllabuses into this broader framework under this governance was a curriculum initiative aimed at producing greater effectiveness in curriculum planning, and ultimately, national coherence (Temmerman, 1991).
In November 1989, Dr Metherell, issued a white paper, Excellence and Equity, New South Wales Curriculum Reform, containing seventy-nine proposals. The sixth reform of this white paper, in accordance with the Carrick Report, organised the curriculum around eight KLAs.25 Creative and Practical Arts is rewritten for the secondary school curriculum as Creative Arts:
This involves expressing ideas and feelings, and responding with critical awareness to the arts and environment; learning about the history and practical applications of arts; developing technical competence and skills of planning, observing and performing (Metherell, 1989, p. 17).
In Years 7-10, the KLA, Creative Arts, includes Dance, Drama, Music and Visual Arts. In Years 11-12 this is expanded to Classical Ballet. The curriculum is delineated in legislation for the first time in terms of KLAs in the Education Reform Act (1990). The Act reflects the key directions and recommendations made in the Carrick Report. Smith (1990) identifies, “this is the first time in NSW, maybe for the first time in Australia, that the elements of a school curriculum have been so clearly defined in an Act of parliament” (p. 5).
The BOS governed the production of the KLAs as a central and authoritative component of the
24 Broad learning areas in the NSW curriculum context: English; Mathematical Studies; Science and Technology; Human Society and its Environment; Creative and Practical Arts; Health, Physical Education and Personal Development (Eltis, 1990, p. 14). 25 “The six primary level Key Learning Areas will, therefore, be slightly rearranged into eight to encompass the secondary school curriculum: English; Mathematics; Science; Human Society and Its Environment; Modern and Classical Languages; Technological and Applied Studies; Creative Arts; Personal Development, Health and Physical Education” (Metherell, 1989, p. 15).
167 school curriculum. At the inaugural meeting of the Years 7-12 Visual Arts Syllabus Committee, Mr Sam Weller, General Manager, Curriculum, informed the committee that the “BOS had accepted all the recommendations in the Government’s White Paper, Excellence and Equity, and these decisions will be implemented over the next few years, commencing in Year 7, 1992” (1990, October 25, p. 2). Despite the ‘apparent’ coherence the KLAs gave the curriculum, the white paper recommends:
the new BOS will undertake a comprehensive review of the subjects within and across KLAs to identify those which do not fit easily within the Learning Areas and inappropriate duplication between subjects. Where appropriate, the Board will rework syllabuses and redefine subjects (Metherell, 1989, p. 18).
The government clearly foreshadowed that the grouping of discrete subjects into KLAs posed potential problems. Resistance to the KLAs is evidenced at the inaugural meeting of the Visual Arts Syllabus Committee. The syllabus committee moved “that the Board be asked to explain the assumptions upon which the grouping of subjects in the Creative Arts KLA category was made” (1990, October 25, p. 3). A letter from the President of the BOS, Mr John Lambert, in response to this request from the syllabus committee concurs: “It is true that Excellence and Equity does not provide a detailed philosophical or theoretical basis for the grouping of subjects within the Creative Arts KLA” (1991, February 25, p. 1). Mr Lambert affirmed the need of the BOS “to provide teachers of the Creative Arts with a rationale which will identify common educational goals and clearly explain the role of the Creative Arts in education and society” (p. 1). The BOS delegated responsibility for developing a rationale as part of the Creative Arts Framework Statement to the Creative Arts KLACC.
The Board established KLACCs for each of the eight KLAs. These committees were responsible for “providing advice on K-12 perspectives; advise on subjects and courses within KLAs; and develop K-12 Framework Statements for the KLAs” (BOS, 1991c, p. 9). In the Creative Arts area, the KLACC comprised the chairpersons of the five syllabus committees (Visual Arts, Music, Dance, Drama, Classical Ballet), the Chairperson and Team Leader of the K-6 Curriculum Design Reference Group, the two Board Inspectors and the General Manager, Curriculum who was the Chairperson.
The status of these individuals within institutional power structures accorded them membership on the Creative Arts KLACC. With membership based on “expertise rather than representation” (BOS, 1990, July 23, p. 14), their institutional credentialing qualified them to ‘speak’ for this KLA. Like syllabus committees, the KLACC reported to the Curriculum Committee.
168 In March 1991, in response to the Carrick Report, Excellence and Equity, and the Act, the BOS issued The Implementation of Curriculum Initiatives: Information and Discussion Document. The ‘Purpose’ of this document was to:
x inform school communities of new requirements under legislation and government policy; x outline current development and changes; x invite comment on proposals still under consideration by the Board (BOS, 1991c, About This Document).
The KLAs are defined in this document as “providing students with a broad, balanced, quality, contemporary curriculum which takes into account the needs of students of differing abilities and backgrounds and seeks to provide for all students an enriching school experience which develops their potential” (BOS, 1991c, p. 1). They are a means of “ensuring that syllabus development and revision within any KLA always occur within a K-12 perspective” (p. 10). Within the Creative Arts Framework Statement, the prevailing discourse of K-12 shapes the object of which it speaks. The discourse of K-12 was expressed clearly under the Creative Arts ‘Rationale’ in statements such as:
- Students discover and develop their individual ideas, feelings, insights and responses to the environment; - contribute to and be a part of their society; - students learn to enjoy, value and understand the arts in our own culture and other cultures; - children to learn about themselves and their world; - making, doing and constructing and imposing oneself on the environment, are crucial to the whole process of growth and development in children; - develop confidence in expressing themselves; - make informed judgements about the things and events which affect the quality of their environment and lives; - enables children and young people effectively to take part in and appreciate their society (pp. 61-63).
These statements are reminiscent of the 1987 Visual Arts Syllabus Years 11-12. I contend that the recurrence of the words ‘environment’, ‘society’, ‘our own culture and other cultures’, and ‘world’ that repeatedly privilege the ‘child’ in this definition privileges that which is local, immediate, relevant and common to a K-12 discourse. Considering this, the perpetuation of a
169 child-centred approach to education is reinforced by this perception of the arts as contributing to the student’s understanding of their role in society, under the Creative Arts KLA.
The Implementation of Curriculum Initiatives was distributed to schools accompanied by a questionnaire. The Years 7-12 Visual Arts Syllabus Committee delegated responsibility for responding to the questionnaire to a Working Party. Issues raised by the syllabus committee for consideration by this sub-committee highlight the discursive struggle surrounding the Creative Arts Framework Statement including: “lack off rationale and philosophy”; “existence of Creative Arts as a KLA”; and “content spread across KLAs and, ownership of content e.g. the place of design” (1991, April 24, p. 4).
A new vocabulary of terms, in this instance ‘Outcomes’, enters the discourse with the emergence of the KLAs. Despite NSW remaining largely independent of the national curriculum project, the legacy of the Statements and Profiles is evidenced in the institution of outcomes-based syllabuses in NSW. ‘Outcome statements’ in the National Profiles are “the descriptions in progressive order in the profile of the skills and knowledge that students typically acquire as they become more proficient in an area” (CCA, 1994, p. 3). Prior to the AEC meeting in Perth, the Minister for Education, Training and Youth Affairs, Mrs Virginia Chadwick, who took office in July 1990, stated: “NSW is committed to working collaboratively with other States and Territories to produce a rational and voluntarily agreed curriculum framework which specifies both the purpose (statement) and outcomes (profiles) of each key learning area” (Eltis, 1993, p. 11). Unlike the ‘States’ rights’ thinking evident in Dr Metherell’s attitude, Forster (1995) argues that Mrs Chadwick’s response to the national agenda was more sophisticated: “a policy of non-involvement or resistance to national curriculum developments would leave NSW isolated and out-manoeuvred by the Commonwealth government” (p. 208). This is evidence of the struggles between institutions of power over the ways that the regulatory functions of educational discourse were played out according to political (and to an extent disciplinary) agendas. NSW modified and regulated itself accordingly, in ways consistent with the norms and requirements of the national curriculum reforms. Technologies of government and normalisation position those who resist as deviant and abnormal. The inclusion of measurable outcomes was a mechanism of accountability that justified the role of the arts in the curriculum.
One of the requirements of the NSW Government’s white paper, Excellence and Equity, is that “the Board will define its course requirements in terms of objectives, content and expected outcomes for students at various ages and levels of ability” (Metherell, 1989, p. 14). The BOS recognised “the need to consider the implications of the emphasis on outcomes, particularly as
170 they relate to assessment” (BOS, 1990, July 23, p. 3). The first formal impetus within NSW for an outcomes-based approach came from the Education Reform Act:
Any syllabus developed or endorsed by the Board for a particular course of study is to indicate the aims, objectives and desired outcomes in terms of knowledge and skills that should be acquired by children at various levels of achievement by the end of specified stages in the course, and any practical experience that children should acquire by the end of any such stage (NSW Government, 1990, Section 14(3)).
This was reinforced in September, 1991 when the BOS distributed to schools its Curriculum Outcomes document, which highlighted that the role of outcomes at both a systems and school level:
are not meant to be in the form of an exhaustive, behavioural list. They can be regarded as being placed on a continuum between the very general aims of core knowledge, skills and attitudes in the syllabus to the much more detailed and specific outcomes expected from classroom activity (BOS, 1991b, p. 5).
‘Subject Outcomes’ for each KLA were developed by the Board to be read in conjunction with the Curriculum Outcomes document and the course syllabus. The Years 7-12 Visual Arts Syllabus Committee had previously been advised that “the framework statements to be developed by KLACCs will be required to include a broad statement of outcomes that students may be expected to achieve in their study in the respective KLAs” (1990, October 25, p. 2). ‘Outcomes’ were conceived as an agent in the construction of what students “should be able to do and know”. This regulative discourse was required in every syllabus document. Outcomes were considered “firmer than statements of objectives” and in accordance with the regulative discourse of K-12, “place greater focus on the student” (1990, October 25, p. 2). This emphasis on outcomes, according to Riordan and Weller (2000):
underpinned the Government’s view that specific achievements were definable and as such would set unmistakably clear and realistic goals for teachers. It would overcome, it was thought, the often vague and unattainable goals associated with curricula of the 1970s, especially those with process oriented curriculum aims and objectives (p. 6).
Despite the representative syllabus committees that developed syllabuses in NSW having no part in the development of the national statements and profiles, from 1991 the syllabus committee began developing new syllabuses incorporating outcomes statements and pointers.
171 Eltis (1993) observes: “NSW has stuck to the original spirit and intent of national collaboration set in train about seven years ago, and is now doing what was always intended – using national outcomes as a source of information to be referred to as various local documents are revised” (p. 12).
In this study, I am focusing on the Visual Arts Objectives and Outcomes for the Stage 6, 2 Unit Course in the document Subject Outcomes: Creative Arts 7-12 published by the BOS in 1992. Four ‘Objectives’ are listed under each of the categories ‘Knowledge and Understanding’, ‘Skills’ and, ‘Values and Attitudes’ in this text. The four objectives under the first two categories are concerned with: ‘environment’; ‘visual ideas’; ‘ideas, media and sensuous qualities’; and, ‘images and objects of the past and present’. Under the last category, ‘Values and Attitudes’, the objectives are focused on the ‘enjoyment and personal satisfaction’; ‘ideas and feelings’; ‘aesthetic objects and experiences’; and, ‘the place of visual arts in our society’. These objectives are coupled with outcome statements that were to be of practical use for teachers in accordance with the current syllabuses in Visual Arts.
The four Focus Areas are not named, however, they discursively appear in the Visual Arts Outcomes for the 2 Unit course. The first objective listed under the first two categories is focused on the ‘environment’. The word ‘environment’ is reminiscent of the 1987 syllabus. In this syllabus, the core resembles the ‘local environment’. This is extended by reference to the ‘wider environments’ of the four Focus Areas. Focus 1: Art and Australia reappears in the outcomes as students are required to investigate ‘personal’ and ‘local environments’; ‘examine traditional and contemporary forms of artmaking that occur in their immediate environment’; ‘identify significant achievements of artists, designers, craftspeople and other image makers in Australia’; and, ‘explore the complexities of their personalities, lives and the structures which give meaning to the world around them’.
The expectation that students should be able to: ‘describe how artists from different times, periods and cultures explore their environments’; ‘examine some cultural and historical contexts’; ‘analyse, describe and account for artworks from various cultures, historical and contemporary periods such as: Australia including Aboriginal, Asia, Europe, The Americas, Oceania, and Africa’; ‘identify and examine a range of artists and designers works from the past and present’; ‘describe, discuss, explain and evaluate the contribution of a range of artists to their culture and society’; ‘acknowledge cultural differences’; and ‘value the artworks from their own and other cultures’, are all a reference to Focus Area 2: Art and Culture.
172 The third objective under the first two categories is concerned with ‘ideas, media and sensuous qualities’. The outcomes identified for this objective are achieved using Focus Area 3: Art and Media. This Focus Area reappears in these outcomes as: ‘signs and symbols in the environment’; ‘manipulating images, signs, symbols and materials’; ‘synthesis of ideas and media’; ‘actions and choices used in making artworks’; ‘the use of materials’; ‘processes and technologies’; ‘techniques and technologies’; ‘subject matter, visual and tactile qualities and relationship, media and meaning’; ‘use of media by artists in artworks’; and ‘use of mediated images’.
Focus 4: Art and Design reappears in the outcomes as: ‘investigate historical and contemporary images to understand problem solving procedures used by designers’; ‘analyse how designers identify problems and needs, propose solutions, organise ideas, design prototypes, evaluate and test designed products’; ‘identify problems related to their built and natural environments’; ‘suggest a variety of solutions to design problems’; and, ‘appreciate qualities of well designed objects in their daily lives’. It is evident from this detailed description of objectives that content of the 1987 Visual Arts Syllabus Years 11-12, notably the Focus Areas, was included in the outcomes and logically connected to the objectives to assist teaching and learning. This was a result of the authority that was imposed by the Board regarding the inclusion of curriculum outcomes.
Following the referral to the states by the AEC in 1993 of the national statements and profiles, the Minister, Mrs Chadwick, requested the BOS to incorporate the outcomes from the statements and profiles into NSW syllabuses that were new or undergoing revision (Eltis and Mowbray, 1997, p. 84). In an address by the Minister to the BOS, one of three areas covered was the National Profiles:
Work at the BOS will advance the project further by allowing syllabus development work to determine how the profiles will be implemented in NSW. The Minister did not expect Board syllabuses to follow the strands or outcomes slavishly and agreed that the extent to which each of the profiles can be used is likely to vary from syllabus to syllabus. She stressed, however, that where National Profile outcomes are incorporated in Board syllabuses, they should be visible, to assist teachers (BOS, 1993, July 27, p. 735).
The national profiles were a distinctive set of regulatory norms that constituted contexts for action by syllabus committees. While the original focus of the profiles were not to be altered, syllabus committees did retain the power to include other, additional outcomes or choose not to
173 include all the national outcomes as a means of ensuring that the integrity of NSW syllabuses was not compromised. Considering this, Foster (1995) argues:
while, in theory, syllabus committees have been able to delete and amend the national outcomes as well as adding new ones when writing the outcome statements for new syllabus, in practice, syllabus committees have felt under pressure to incorporate the national outcomes in tact (p. 212).
The more powerful and dominant interests of these government reforms profoundly influenced the shape and formation of curriculum discursive practices in NSW. One of the first new syllabuses developed that incorporated outcomes from the national Profiles was the Visual Arts Syllabus Years 7-10 (BOS, 1994) discussed in Chapter Five.
It seems evident, then, that a comprehensive review of education in NSW in the late 1980s, which included the publication of three major reports, resulted in a substantial reform of curriculum policies and practices that directly impacted the field of art education. The control and administration of the curriculum was affected by this restructuring. The power of the Minister and the BOS as a central authority increased as well as the implementation of a framework to guide the development of new curriculum initiatives. The objective of the framework for learning from K-12, initially recommended by the Carrick Committee in 1989, was the development of a more coherent curriculum that promoted continuity in learning experiences from the primary to secondary level. KLAs were also established in an effort to consolidate subject offerings, at the same time, restricting the choice for students in regard to their patterns of study. I have drawn attention to how the Visual Arts Syllabus Committee received the unification of discrete subjects, prescribed under the curriculum area Creative Arts, with uncertainty. Significantly, the specification of outcomes under these learning areas, that were to be included in the syllabus, required a substantial revision of the senior visual arts syllabus. This focus on educational objectives and outcomes that placed emphasis on normalisation and accountability was compounded by the development of the national statements and profiles. As a consequence of the more powerful influence of Commonwealth authorities and the disciplinary effects of this curriculum governance, NSW art educators audited their own behaviour and curriculum outcomes were modified in accordance with the national profiles.
174 4.4 The Arts National Statement and Profile
In this section I analyse and explore the preparation and publication of three separate documents that contributed to the development of The Arts National Statement and Profile. These are: the Formal Consultative Brief For Arts National Curriculum Statement and Profile (Emery and Hammond, 1992a); The Arts: Brief For Arts National Curriculum Statement and Profile submitted to the Arts Steering Committee of CURASS (Emery and Hammond, 1992b); and Specifications For Statement and Profile Writers (n.d.).
The aim of the briefs was to define The Arts and describe the distinctive and essential characteristics of this newly created area of learning. I begin by examining how the writers conceptualised this learning area by tracing the discourses and systems of ideas constituted in the briefs as well as drawing attention to the similarities and differences between them. This is followed by an analysis of the disciplinary effects of the set of rules established by CURASS that governed what the writers of the statement and profile were required to meet and follow.
Further to this, I examine the form and content of the published documents, A statement on the arts for Australian schools (AEC, 1994a) and The arts – a curriculum profile for Australian schools (AEC, 1994b). Analytic examples illuminate how the writers recontextualise the briefs by identifying the important continuities and discontinuities between the briefs and the official texts. Importantly, the discourses in the national curriculum frameworks that ultimately impacted the constitution of art education in NSW will be presented.
4.4.1 Development of the Briefs
In August 1991 a Steering Committee was established by CURASS to plan and monitor the development of the The Arts National Statement as one of the eight areas of learning approved by the AEC. The Steering Committee, comprising the General Manager, Curriculum, BOS; two Directors of Curriculum; a General Manager, School Program Division, Ministry of Education; and a member from the CCA, advertised a tender to produce the brief for The Arts learning area. The purpose of this brief was to establish clear and detailed guidelines for the writers responsible for the development of The Arts National Statement and Profile. The brief was a continuing response to the Common and Agreed National Goals for Schooling (AEC, 1989). This tender was won by two academics, Dr Lee Emery and Dr Geoff Hammond, from the University of Melbourne. By the end of April 1992, the ‘Formal Consultative Brief For Arts National Curriculum Statement and Profile’ (Emery and Hammond, 1992a) was produced for the CURASS meeting.
175 Preparation for the second draft of the brief for The Arts National Statement and Profile involved consultation with State Consultative Network teams in each state and territory, the National Affiliation of Arts Educators (NAAE) comprising the presidents or nominees of the National Arts subject associations, and the National Reference Group established by the Arts Steering Committee. State coordinators who were responsible for establishing the State Consultative Network teams collated state responses to the Draft Briefs and sent summative response to the writers. Extensive feedback was given to the writers from NAAE following their four meetings held during the brief writing period. Members of the National Reference Group were invited to respond to the Brief. The second ‘Brief For Arts National Curriculum Statement and Profile’ (Emery and Hammond, 1992b) was submitted to the Arts Steering Committee of CURASS on the 18th June, 1992.
The professional associations played a major role in the emergence of the arts as a key learning area. NAAE (currently known as the National Advocates for Arts Education), a national body established in 1989, comprising representatives from each of the five arts disciplines – dance, drama, media, music and visual arts education – advocated for arts education in both institutional and community settings through the development of arts education policy, joint projects such as publications, and the promotion of quality teaching and learning in the arts. In 1990, the Chairperson of NAAE was Dr Geoff Hammond, one of the chief writers of the brief for the arts Statement and Profile (Appendix D). It was due to the strong recommendation of NAAE that the national mapping project was extended to include the arts (Livermore, 1995). The initial six learning areas proposed by the AEC were restricted to Mathematics, Science, English Literacy, ESL, LOTE, and Technology. McKeon (1996) suggests, “these represented not subjects but Federal priorities of need in the system” (p. 12). Livermore (1995) credits the cooperative and collaborative mode of operation of the NAAE:
Despite the difficulty in representing the diversity of the five art forms, the organisation has been remarkably effective in developing extensive networks which have enabled national consultation between art teachers. The new focus on the arts as a learning area is bringing greater numbers of teachers together to discuss and argue arts issues, and to develop the arts in schools in a way that has not been possible before (p. 145).
In the Formal Consultative Brief (Emery & Hammond, 1992a), ‘The Arts as an Area of Learning’ is defined by five sub-headings: Social and cultural perspectives; The arts in Australia; The arts as symbol systems; Arts processes; and The arts in schools. The explanation of each sub-heading is degenerated into bulleted lists for apparent cohesiveness. These sections have a prescriptive quality that focuses on the end results for students collectively.
176 Within ‘Social and cultural perspectives’ (p. 3), The Arts National Statement and Profile “will emphasise the importance of respecting the richness and diversity of the arts in all social and cultural contexts”. The arts are defined broadly as dependent upon the “particular social systems and cultures”; “mixed cultural groups”; or “wide range of contexts” in which the student is studying. The plurality of the terms ‘systems’, ‘cultures’, ‘groups’, and ‘contexts’ implies this diversity in the arts. These complex terms are used without definition and therefore draw on assumed commonsense meanings by the writers. Acknowledging this diversity within cultures and groups, the arts are justified as helping to “construct, reinforce, challenge and transform socio-cultural, political and religious values”. The term ‘values’ is used four times under this perspective. The arts are presented as “valued in different contexts”; “constructions of reality which carry values”; and “never neutral but the embodiment of values”. Understanding of these values is positioned as a desirable quality for students to acquire in studying the arts. I contend that the recurrence of this word is used to promote adherence to the values and prescribed standards of behaviour set by the institutional power structure responsible for overseeing the development of the national statement and profile – CURASS.
The first bullet point listed under the second sub-heading, ‘The arts in Australia’ (pp. 3-4) declares that The Arts National Statement will ‘demonstrate’ and ‘acknowledge’, “The pivotal role of the arts in the shaping of an Australian identity. ‘Identity’ is in bold-type. The arts are presented as contributing to identity formation by providing a sense of belonging to a social group and enabling active participation on behalf of that group: “Today Australia is made up of many cultural groups which contribute to a pluralistic but predominantly English speaking society. For all cultural groups the arts are essential for cultural continuity and they are still the means by which the story is told”. The use of the word ‘essential’ positions the arts as vital for cultural expression. The arts are also presented as “enhancing the quality of life of all Australians”. ‘Quality of life’ is accentuated by the use of bold type. No explanation is offered alongside this point. The means by which the Statement will show how this is to be accomplished is a mystery. The Australian Arts industry is to be justified in the Statement as instrumental in its contribution to employment and improvement of the national economy. The fourth bullet point requires that the Statement be sensitive to the interdependencies between technology and the arts claiming that technology has made the arts more accessible to a wider audience. Finally, the Statement must promote engagement for students through the arts with the “creative, intellectual and imaginative life” that is the foundation to Australian culture. It is interesting to note that in the second draft of the brief, an additional sentence has been added to this last statement. The arts are now justified for their affiliation with a practical concern for the workforce: “Through arts education students develop specific arts related competencies as well as competencies valued across a wide range of employment and work contexts” (p. 4).
177 A structuralist framework, that defines art as a ‘symbol system’ that can be read, is the art historical methodology privileged under the third sub-heading. The arts are conceived as “conveying meanings and messages” that “evoke responses in others”. They carry ‘meaning’ or ‘symbol systems’ dependent upon the ‘time and context’ in which they are produced. The brief issues the use of five generic ‘strands’ as an organising principle for arts disciplines. They are: dance, drama, media, music and visual arts and design. Descriptions of the art strands are comprehensively discussed later in the brief. These strands incorporate the “key symbol systems which are currently understood as ‘the arts’ in the wider community”. Visual arts and design is listed as the fifth strand and is defined as focusing “primarily on the appearance of forms and images and generally use visual and tactile sensory systems”. This definition has disappeared in the second draft of the brief. The brief is contradictory as on the one hand, each of the symbol systems “enable experience to be expressed in unique ways”. The use of the word ‘experience’ suggests interaction is encouraged with each symbol system, which jeopardises the ‘unique’ position of visual arts and design. On the other, however, the brief is obviously recommending limited correlation between strands by the use of the phrase ‘unique ways’. This is reiterated by the acknowledgement that these “unique ways are not transferable across art forms” (p. 5).
In regard to instructional strategies, a disciplined-based approach to art education (DBAE) that integrates content from the four art disciplines of art criticism, art history, aesthetics, and art production (Clark, Day and Greer, 1989) is the preferred model. ‘Art processes’ (Emery and Hammond, 1992a, p. 5) emphasises the skills of ‘Making in the arts’ and ‘Appraising the arts’. ‘Making in the arts’ is defined as an educational process that is characterised by “trialing ideas, perceiving the results and engaging in selection, refining and decision making”. Sensory observation and experience are combined to produce learning in the arts. This orientation provides instruction through perceptual tools that develops “competencies in the areas of perceiving, transforming and expressing in the arts”. In ‘Appraising the arts’, these perceptual tools are combined with critical analysis that “is intended to incorporate knowledge of historical and cultural perspectives of the arts as well as arts criticism and aesthetic valuing”. The Statement must show how student’s knowledge of the arts is expanded from passive receiver of social and cultural values to active engagement in “describing, analysing, and interpreting and then creating in the arts”.
The ‘art processes’ are later rewritten in the first brief as ‘Components and Sub-Components’ (p. 13) of the strands. The component ‘Making’ includes the sub-components ‘Perceive’, ‘Transform’, and ‘Express’ while the sub-components of ‘Appraising’ are classified as ‘History’, ‘Culture’ and ‘Aesthetics’. In the second draft of the brief, these components and subcomponents are replaced by four key inter-connected components of the five arts strands.
178 They are: ‘Transforming’, ‘Presenting’, ‘Developing understanding of criticism and aesthetics’, and ‘Developing understanding of past and present contexts’. The writers of The Arts National Statement are required to reference a vocabulary of words listed under each of the subcomponents in the first brief and each of the four inter-connected components in the second brief when formulating their definitions for the strand ‘Visual Arts and Design’ later revised as ‘Art and Design’. The words listed under each of the four components in the second brief are not unique to ‘Art and Design’ but generic across the five strands – Art and Design, Dance, Drama, Media, Music. The activity of the writers was held accountable and regulated by these words, as they were required to negotiate and incorporate these guiding principles into the national statement. These words shaped the representation of the arts in this document by limiting the range of options available to the writers.
The sub-components in the first brief are not conceived as discrete aspects of either making or appraising but rather each sub-component informs the other (p. 14). A Profile statement was to be built on these descriptions of learning and was to show a development of competencies in each strand. In the second draft of the brief, the components “describe areas of study and experience within the strands and will form the basis for the descriptions and outcomes of learning in each strand” (Emery and Hammond, 1992b, p. 12). It is envisaged that students will draw upon all or several components simultaneously.
Lastly, ‘The arts in schools’ (Emery and Hammond, 1992a, p. 6) is divided into three sections: Development in the arts; Learning contexts; and Learning processes. ‘Development in the arts’ emphasises at the same time, and contradictorily, “the need for students to have a range of arts experiences as well as specific experiences which allow for more developed levels of competence”. The brief is undoubtedly promoting engagement with learning experiences rather than just an awareness of their existence in the arts by the repeated use of the word ‘experience’. Experience appears seven times in these three brief paragraphs. The statements of learning outcomes in the Arts Profile will “describe ways in which learning can be known by both student and teachers throughout the schooling years”. The brief advises that The Arts National Statement is to indicate the range of ‘Learning contexts’ (p. 6) “in which students can learn in, about and through the arts”. Knowledge of the arts is accomplished by the integration into the curriculum of the broader discursive field including “organising artists-in-school-programs or arranging visits by community artists, arts administrators, workers in the arts industry or parents with arts expertise”. The arts are positioned as having an instrumental use in facilitating parent, school and community interaction. The brief also requires The Arts National Statement and Profile to expand upon the five ‘Learning processes’ in the arts that are listed including: Aesthetic Learning, Cognitive Learning, Physical Learning, Sensory Learning, and Social
179 Learning. The statement is to emphasise the interrelationship of these processes.
In continuity with the Common and Agreed National Goals for Schooling (AEC, 1989), ‘Cross- Curriculum Perspectives’26 are listed in the brief and are to be incorporated in the strands. These perspectives were to be reflected in the statements and as such, inform curriculum in Australia. The arts strands were to be divided into four ‘Bands’ that describe a sequence for developing understanding and skills. Bands A and B would cover primary schooling, taking into account that the majority of curriculum at this level is taught by generalist teachers. Band C and Band D covered secondary and post-compulsory years respectively. Specialist teachers typically teach the arts in these years. The Arts Curriculum Statement was advised to consider the implication that while the Bands were linked to years of schooling, “the bands are not necessarily age related and it is understood that there is overlapping across the bands” (Emery and Hammond, 1992a, p. 10).
The five strands that were briefly introduced earlier in the document under the sub-heading ‘The arts as symbol systems’ are now defined and described under their collective heading ‘The Arts Strands’ and each strand respectively, ‘Descriptions Of The Strands’. These subject areas as strands are understood to be “discrete areas of knowledge and experience with identifiable skills and processes” (p. 11). The brief acknowledges that these five strands are not an exhaustive list of arts forms but adequately describe “verbal and non-verbal ways of communicating and expressing” (p. 11). On the one hand, the arts strands are described as five separate and different curriculum-learning areas as opposed to five parts of the one area. On the other, “the writers of the Arts National Curriculum Statement will also show how in Australian society, the above arts forms are not always presented as separate entities” (p. 13). These statements are once again represented as contradictory as whilst the brief states an integrated curriculum may be experienced, it also maintains that each arts strand represents a distinctive way of learning.
Writers of the statement are required to develop clear descriptions of the major characteristics of each strand. The brief provides a list of these characteristics to be incorporated into each strand. For Visual Arts and Design this includes:
- The study of the ways in which artists employ a large range of media in the production of 2 or 3 dimensional forms or images.
26 These thirteen cross-curricular priorities are: The arts and other areas of the curriculum; The arts and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander societies; Gender Equity; Equality of opportunities; Literacy; Environment and Development; Technology; Social and cultural Awareness; Economic Awareness and understanding; Health and safety; Self-esteem and well-being; Ethics; and Knowledge and Social Context (Emery and Hammond, 1992a, pp. 7-10).
180 - Understanding the manipulation of visual arts and design elements, such as line, shape, colour, texture and form. - The development of appropriate skills and technique to enhance visual arts and design making and appraisal. - The study of the nature of graphic, environmental and product design. - The study of social and cultural influences, criticism, history and aesthetics (p. 13).
With ‘Visual’ disappearing in the second draft of the brief and the strand rewritten as ‘Art and Design’, a notable transformation in what constitutes knowledge in this strand is the emphasis on the design process and its instrumental use in society including: “working with a design brief where there is a predetermined outcome”; “working as a process of discovery where there is not a predetermined outcome”; “developing an awareness of the role of art and design in the community”; “understanding art and design as areas of employment and professional endeavour” (Emery and Hammond, 1992b, p. 13). Marsh (1994) acknowledges that The Crafts Council of Australia, the Visual Arts/Craft Board of the Australian Council and the Australian Academy of Design raised concerns about the areas of craft and multi-crafts not being sufficiently included in the brief as a discrete strand. Two states supported this stance however it was considered insufficient to make the changes proposed (pp. 99-100). In this draft, craft practice has been broadly included in the ‘Art and Design’ strand as: “Understanding that craft may be conceived as a distinctive process within the art and design strand” (Emery and Hammond, 1992b, p. 13).
The ‘Arts Profile’ (Emery and Hammond, 1992a, pp. 15-16) constitutes a description of the progression in learning typically undertaken by students from Years 1 to 12. The Profile is to be arranged in eight levels across the four Bands of schooling. They will consist of four elements at each level including: A general description of the level; Learning outcomes at that level; Pointers; and Exemplars. The use of this atomised format allows for specification and the regulation of teaching and learning. A ‘learning outcome’ for each of the five strands is intended to “describe the key curriculum focus for a level …. In each strand learning outcomes will be described within the components of making and appraising” (p. 16). In the June brief, the end of this sentence is rewritten to include the four components of transforming, presenting, criticism and aesthetics. These components are then divided into sub-components of achievement. These levels of achievement provide teachers with a common reporting framework including a common language for reporting. ‘Pointers’ “provide indicators of attainment of the broader outcomes at particular levels and the qualities to look for in the exemplars” (p. 16). ‘Exemplars’ are annotated work examples provided for each level that demonstrates achievement of one or more outcomes at that level. Learning outcomes and exemplars are essentially “benchmarks
181 against which students’ performance can be understood and reported” (p. 16). The ‘Art Profiles’ including learning outcomes, pointers and exemplars, are all a form of normalising judgement that provide a basis for knowing, calculating, and ordering individuals. Foucault (1977) refers to power exercised through these forms of normalising judgement as a “panoptic modality of power”. These practices and procedures, implemented by educational authorities, establish “disciplines [that] characterise, classify, specialise; they distribute along a scale, around a norm, hierarchise individuals in relation to one another, and, if necessary, disqualify and invalidate” (p. 223).
The brief also outlines a set of ‘General Competencies’ (pp. 16-17), common to all five strands that should guide and be reflected in the statement for the arts learning area. Some of these include:
- speaking and writing while engaged in arts appraisal and arts history - using visual and graphic representations in art and design - applying logical processes in the making of art works - applying creative thinking processes in the making of original and new arts works - using analytical processes in interpreting arts works - applying problem-solving strategies to making tasks - developing research skills to synthesis information about artists and arts styles - working with others in group contexts - making moral or ethical judgements about artistic processes and representation - applying mathematical skills to design and plan art works - participating in arts exhibitions and performances and presenting arts works to an audience.
These broad and general competencies to be included in the statement are intended as a guide for teachers as to what students are required to accomplish in the arts. Problem solving and interchangeable process-based behaviours appear to be the basic tenet for student learning across the five strands. The uniqueness of subject content is subsidiary in this list to standardised cognitive capacities across the arts.
Both briefs propose a project timeline for the development of The Arts National Statement and Profile with a completion date of June 1993. Two key writers were responsible for the writing of the statement and profile and coordinating the project. One writer for each strand would work closely with the coordinators.
182 In this section I legitimate how the writers of the briefs defined and conceptualised The Arts as an area of learning. This advances an understanding of how the published documents came to have their particular form and content. That is, out of all the possible things that could have been written, this section highlights what certain discourses were selected and arranged in a way to constitute The Arts National Statement and Profile. The discourses that were privileged in the briefs were to become ‘knowledge’ in The Arts and as such, the briefs delimited the parameters and framed the ways in which the writers of the statement and profile were permitted to think about the development and construction of this area of learning. The briefs can be viewed as a means of communicating and circumscribing what was valued by the authorities in the field. Considering this, the briefs were a disciplinary technology formulated to regulate and inculcate the writers into the discursive practices that the briefs embodied. The opportunity for the writers to consider alternative criteria was limited as what was possible was demarcated within this system of accountability.
4.4.2 The Arts National Statement and Profile Specifications
An undated document of the BOS located in the archive titled ‘Specifications For Statement and Profile Writers’ delineates specific guidelines for the development of The Arts National Statement and Profile. The discursive practices set out in this document contribute to the operation of governmentality. This document comprises seven sub-headings with a page designated to each part. They are: Background; Procedures; Specifications; Consultation; Timelines; Criteria For The Selection Of Writers; and Consultancy Fee. The disciplining effects of these guidelines are intended to order, manage and limit the range of options available for the writers in this developmental process.
Following the endorsement of the design brief by CURASS in June 1992, The Arts National Statement in the Arts and Profile were to be developed for the Steering Committee by writers who were selected by the National Secretariat. The ‘Procedures’ delineated in this document are a function of the disciplinary power of the BOS made possible by panoptic surveillance that is used to structure, regulate and monitor the behaviour and actions of the writers. The writers of the Statement and Profile were required to enter into a contractual agreement with the CCA (on behalf of CURASS), which detailed the specifications and conditions, however the BOS was the “host system responsible for the day-to-day management of the project” (p. 2). Boughton (1995) argues “the enormous advantage of control provided to the government using this process was that the successful bidders for the contracts were obliged to accept the terms and limitations imposed by those contracts” (p. 148). This process enabled CURASS to recruit writers who would increase the potential of securing desired outcomes and narrow the options for
183 interpretation of meanings in constructing the curriculum framework.
One factor influencing the selection of the writers was their specific geographical location: “The writers may not necessarily be based in Sydney but they will need to work closely with the BOS, the Steering Committee and the National Secretariat in the development of the Statement and Profile” (p. 2). The use of the vague and indefinate phrase ‘not necessarily’ implies that whilst it was preferable for the writers to be located in Sydney, to ensure that their conduct and actions could be monitored and regulated, the writers were to remain in close proximity to the BOS. The writers were also required to work collaboratively with “gender equity and Aboriginal and Torres Straits Islander Studies Consultants as directed by the National Secretariat” (p. 2).
The sub-heading ‘Specifications’ reinforces that “the writers of the Statement and Profile will be expected to adhere to the guidelines established in the Brief unless otherwise directed by the National Secretariat” (p. 3). The set of rules established within the specifications frame the parameters for how the statement and profile were to be organised including ‘Length’, ‘Format’ and ‘Structure’. Outlining and delimiting these set of principles is a form of disciplinary technology that functions through normalising judgment. Power exercised through normalising judgment is embodied in these practices used to shape, guide and direct the conduct and outcomes of the writers in desired directions. An effective means of tracking the writers’ performance, ensuring maximum efficiency and accountability was through ‘Consultation’, which is the fourth sub-heading in this document. The writers were “expected to consult regularly with the Steering Committee and the National Secretariat and be guided by them in the development of the Statement and Profile” (p. 4). In addition to this, the writers were required to:
establish consultative processes which ensure that all Commonwealth, state and territory education systems, both government and non-government are kept informed of the progress of the project and given suitable opportunity to comment on the Statement and Profile (p. 4).
Imposing a ‘Timeline’ on the development of the National Statement and Profile is another disciplinary technology that utilises a form of surveillance to exact compliance. Each stage of the process is fixed within a series of deadlines. Foucault (1977) describes this as the ‘control of activity’ (p. 149). The ‘time-table’ is identified as having “three great methods – establish rhythms, impose particular occupations, regulate the cycles of repetition” (p. 149). Meeting the deadlines requires the writers to be vigilant and monitor their behaviour through disciplinary
184 technologies of self-regulation. According to Foucault (1977):
He who is subjected to a field of visibility, and who knows it, assumes the responsibility for the constraints of power; … he inscribes in himself the power relation in which he simultaneously plays both roles; he becomes the principle of his own subjection (pp. 202-203).
With the government maintaining control of the timeframe for the entire process, Boughton (1995) argues, “short deadlines were a wonderfully effective tool used by the bureaucracy to subvert proper consultation” (p. 148). The writers were required to regulate their own actions and adhere to the boundaries of acceptable practice prescribed in this document. They would be paid a ‘Consultancy Fee’ for the development of the Statement and Profiles that covered all expenses including “salary, travel, printing and incidentals” (p. 8). To ensure that the writers met the standards and possessed the necessary content knowledge for the development of the Statement and Profile, ‘Criteria for the Selection of Writers’ is specified in this document in the form of a checklist. The following criteria, listed as “essential”, is a dividing practice used to differentiate, qualify or exclude potential applicants:
- Sound knowledge of the Arts in School education K-12 with particular emphasis on curriculum and assessment. - Familiarity with Arts education on a national level. - Conceptual and analytical skills. - Writing and presentation skills. - Communication, consultancy and negotiation skills. - Capacity to meet deadlines. - Knowledge of international trends in education and the Arts. - Capacity to project trends in Arts education (p. 7).
These criteria for writers clearly restricted who was in a position to bid. The tender for The Arts National Statement and Profile in the Arts was advertised by the BOS. The two writers who had prepared the brief, Dr Lee Emery and Dr Geoff Hammond, were once again the successful tenders. Both tenders were from the University of Melbourne and not based in Sydney as preferred however associate writers from several States supported these two chief writers. The development and publication of The arts – A statement on the arts for Australian schools (AEC, 1994a) and The arts – A curriculum profile for Australian schools (AEC, 1994b) was an expeditious process as a result of growing urgency to complete the national curriculum projects by July 1993. The initial drafting commenced in April 1992 and following a formal consultation
185 period the final versions were submitted to the June 1993 meeting of CURASS and endorsed for submission to the AEC.
4.4.3 The Form and Content of ‘A statement on the arts for Australian schools’
The National Statement in The Arts is divided into three parts. Part 1: ‘The arts as an area of learning’; Part 2: ‘Strands’; and Part 3: ‘Bands’. The four sub-headings listed under ‘The arts as an area of learning’ are: Five key arts forms; Defining and analysing the arts; Approaches to learning in the arts; and Cross-curriculum perspectives. These subdivisions are of interest to this inquiry as they set out the curriculum structure for the arts including the conceptual orientations and approaches to teaching and learning as defined by the discursive authorities of the national curriculum project.
The arts forms identified as the five key strands of the arts in this document are: dance, drama, media, music and the visual arts (incorporating art, craft and design). The concern, discussed earlier, surrounding the place of craft within the brief is resolved in the statement with the strand ‘Art and Design’ rewritten as ‘Visual Arts’. ‘Visual Arts’ includes three complementary and interconnected fields: Art, Craft, and Design. The renaming of the strand to include the three elements art, craft and design was to appease the contentious use of craft expressed by the national craft bodies (Marsh, 1994, p. 101).
In the strand ‘Visual Arts’, ‘Art’ is concerned with concepts, feelings, ideas, images and forms and refers to media such as painting, printmaking and sculpture. ‘Craft’ is focused on the skills and techniques used in the crafting of an object that may be functional or non-functional and involve traditional or non-traditional methods. ‘Design’ is process-based, where the intention and purpose of a product is specified in advance. For example, a brief that sets guidelines and limitations for the designer to follow.
‘Defining and analysing the arts’ listed under Part 1: ‘The arts as an area of learning’, is divided into three sub-headings: The arts as symbol systems; Aesthetics and the arts; and Social and cultural perspectives. ‘The arts as symbol systems’ and ‘Social and cultural perspectives’ have been retained in their entirety from the brief however ‘Aesthetics and the arts’ surfaces in the Statement as a new discursive configuration. Study of ‘Aesthetics and the arts’ “requires students to focus on questions about the nature of aesthetic experience and the nature of the art objects which cause the response (whether their own works or those of others)” (AEC, 1994a, p. 4). The emphasis is on the students’ ‘personal aesthetic values’, which are developed through skills of reflection and evaluation of their experiences from the ‘physical, cultural and spiritual’
186 world around them.
‘Approaches to Learning in the arts’ is also divided into three sub-headings: Individual patterns of learning development; Learning contexts in and out of school; and Characteristics of learning in the arts. In the brief, ‘The arts in schools’ appears as one of five sub-headings under ‘The Arts As An Area Of Learning’. The first of three sub-headings listed under ‘The arts in schools’ in the brief, ‘Development in the arts’, is rewritten in the published statement as ‘Individual patterns of learning development’.
The second section, ‘Learning contexts’, in the brief is expanded to include ‘Learning contexts in and out of school’ and ‘Learning Processes’ are now defined as ‘Characteristics of learning in the arts’. The Statement expands upon the list in the brief of learning processes in the arts and provides a description of the following experiences in the arts: Aesthetic learning, Cognitive learning, Physical learning, Sensory learning, and Social learning. The prescriptions embodied in these normative categories circumscribe what students should be able to accomplish in the arts. They are comprised of valorising and affirming statements of the desirable and ‘normal’ student in the arts as they develop their ‘perceptual, conceptual, physical and social understandings’. By attributing value to specific performances and particular ‘ways of being’ in the arts, these orientations or, following Foucault, regulatory ‘grids of intelligibility’ 27 are to be used as a common referent for educationalists to consult.
In Part 2: ‘Strands’, three fundamental organisers, each of which is intended to be interrelated and inform one another, are used to describe key learning areas within the five strands. These interrelated organisers are: ‘Creating, making and presenting’; ‘Arts criticism and aesthetics’; and ‘Past and present contexts’. These organisers are generic for all the arts strands. ‘Transforming’ and ‘Presenting’, two of the four ‘Arts processes’ in the brief, are now combined and redistributed as ‘Creating, making and presenting’. This heading is referred to as “the full range of ways in which people experiment with ideas, generate ideas, bring a new product into existence, rework and transform existing works or ideas, rehearse, and present their work to others” (AEC, 1994a, p. 13). Students are expected to engage in art making by developing ideas in a range of artistic processes refining their skills and then presenting their work in the manner of a professional artist. The words ‘generate ideas’, ‘transform’, and ‘present’ have been taken from the bank of words listed in the brief intended to guide the
27 In one of his lectures presented at the College de France on the 10th March, 1976 titled ‘The new history’s grids of intelligibility: domination and totalisation’, Foucault defines “grids of intelligibility” as “serving to identify the way at a given time certain discursive practices coalesce around particular notions in order to yield a different kind of intelligibility that proves responsive in unforeseen ways to the ‘actualities’ of the day as ‘sense’ is attempted to be made of them” (Fillion, 2005, p. 51).
187 formulation of definitions for the strands. I contend that the values of the Visual Arts are reduced to a series of general ‘doing words’ that are not specifically representative of the arts but rather underlie all and any human activity.
The third arts process in the brief, ‘Developing an understanding of criticism and aesthetics’ is modified in the Statement as ‘Arts Criticism and aesthetics’. Dickinson (2003) argues, “introducing aesthetics and criticism transformed art into an academic knowledge-based subject, whereas previously art was a practical area in many schools, based around arts making” (p. 14). Using this organiser in the statement, students “describe, analyse, interpret, judge, value and challenge arts works and arts ideas” (AEC, 1994a, p. 13). These words reappear in their exact specificity from the vocabulary of words listed in the brief. ‘Developing an understanding of past and present contexts’ is redistributed in the Statement as ‘Past and present contexts’. This involves “students in analysis, research, comparison and interpretation” (p. 13). ‘Understanding’ and ‘questioning’ are the only two words from the brief that do not reappear in the Statement under this organiser. The reappearance of the ‘activity’ words from the brief exemplifies how Emery and Hammond and their associates valued and engaged in the writing of the statement in accordance with the pre-determined codes of conduct circumscribed in the brief. Evidence of how the writers continued to negotiate and conform to these specifications is also located in the statement in the definitions provided for each of the three organisers under the strand Visual Arts.
Part 3: ‘Bands’ is presented as a thirty-two-page guide in the Statement to sequencing content through the four band levels: Band A, Band B, Band C, and Band D. The introduction to the Bands is divided into two sub-headings: ‘Sequencing learning in the arts’ and ‘Individual differences and the arts’. Under the first sub-heading, four bullet-points outline the role that ‘learning experiences’ must play in the arts. Learning experiences suggested in the bands: “should build upon experience and extend students’ understanding”; “should always be challenging”; “must expand students’ abilities to think and respond through aesthetic, cognitive, physical, sensory and social learning processes”; and, “are presented to emphasise that … all Australian students should be given the opportunity to experience each of the five strands to some degree or depth” (AEC, 1994a, p. 26). Ironically, this first sub-heading provides a guide to the norms and standards that were to be used when determining content and learning experiences across four band levels. Contrary to this, the importance of art programs taking into consideration students’ individual strengths and abilities as “students learn at different rates, are attracted to certain activities rather than others, and display particular abilities in some art forms” (p. 26) is accentuated under the second sub-heading ‘Individual differences and the arts’.
188 In this section I have examined the form and content of the published document, A statement on the arts for Australian schools. The briefs, previously examined in this chapter, laid the foundation and formulated a set of guidelines for the writers of the statement to follow. I have traced those discourses that were selected, transformed and relocated to the official curriculum text. In confirming the key principles appropriated from the briefs, this analysis has provided evidence of the knowledge that attained the status of ‘truth’ and became the accepted definition of the arts in the national statement.
4.4.4 The Form and Content of ‘The arts – a curriculum profile for Australian schools’
The profiles provide a common framework for reporting student achievement and describe the progression of student learning outcomes across the years of schooling. Profiles are concerned with student outcomes. In the introduction to The arts – a curriculum profile for Australian schools the relationship between the Statement and Profile is described as ‘linked’: “The profiles show the typical progression in achieving learning outcomes, while statements are a framework of what might be taught to achieve these outcomes” (AEC, 1994b, p. 1).
Profiles are divided into ‘Strands for each learning area. Within each strand, eight achievement ‘Levels’ have been developed, indicating the progression of learning covering the compulsory years of schooling. For each level a broad statement of learning is provided to summarise the intent of the learning outcomes. At each level there are ‘Outcomes’ which “describe in progressive order the essential skills and knowledge that students typically acquire as they become more proficient in an area” (AEC, 1994b, p. 3). The arts profile includes outcome statements for each strand organiser except for presenting in Visual Arts. The Profile states, “these may be given different emphases in different art forms, at different levels and in different teaching contexts” (p. 3). There are thirty-two learning outcomes presented in the Profile for the strand Visual Arts, comprising four outcomes across eight levels of achievement. For each outcome there is a list of ‘Pointers’ that are indicators or signals of the achievement of an outcome. Pointers provide teachers with a means of identifying the level of student achievement. Finally, at each level annotated work examples are provided that demonstrate achievement of one or more outcomes at that level. Work samples assist teachers to identify the basis upon which judgements about student achievement can be made. Due to the complexity of making judgements about arts experience, the profile suggests:
teachers may find it useful to use a variety of approaches to record the artistic outcomes achieved by each student. The profile requires the use of general evaluation strategies
189 and the thorough documentation and observation of all phases of the artistic process (p. 5).
In the strand, Visual Arts, students use art, craft and design processes to make art works. The profile builds upon the conceptual model and understanding of the statement and describes three strand organisers within the art form strands: Creating, making and presenting; Arts criticism and aesthetics; and, Past and present contexts.
The ‘Creating, making and presenting’ strand organiser in the Profile is divided into three parts: Exploring and developing ideas; Using skills, techniques and processes; and, Presenting. ‘Exploring and developing ideas’ when creating and making art works involves students learning to: “generate and develop ideas in varied ways” and “[understand] the potential of the arts to express, challenge, stimulate and shape meaning” (p. 4). The writers of the profile have once again conformed to the discursive procedures or ‘rules’ of the brief by the use of the words ‘generate’ and ‘shape’ reappearing from two of the six characteristics listed under ‘Transforming’ in the brief. In ‘Using skills, techniques and processes’ students develop an appreciation of the varied approaches to skill development across arts forms that is dependent upon styles and genres within arts forms. ‘Presenting’ provides students with the opportunity to reflect on their own works as well as respond to the presented works of others.
Students engage in arts criticism, under the strand organiser, ‘Arts criticism and aesthetics’, when they “describe, analyse, interpret, judge, value and challenge art works and arts ideas” (p. 4). These words are in continuity with the characteristics of ‘Developing understanding of criticism and aesthetics’ outlined in the brief. The Arts Profile encourages learning in the arts that leads to “analysing, researching, understanding, interpreting and questioning the arts of both past and present contexts” (p. 4). These verbs, used to distinguish ‘Developing understanding of part and present contexts’ in the brief, reappear in their exact specificity. This in accordance with the rules imposed in the brief that governed the formation of statements.
4.4.5 Summary
The descriptions of The Arts Statement and Profile have outlined the form and content of these national documents and introduced the language used in these curriculum texts. The Statement provides a common framework for curriculum development in the arts. The Profile presents very detailed curricular outcomes articulated in terms of what students should be able to do across the years of schooling in the arts. The benchmarking of student learning listed in such a succinct and cohesive order positions the Profile as a regulatory device upon which individual
190 students are evaluated and teachers’ performance, schools or entire systems possibly measured. The published texts are clearly outcome-based curricular implementation guidelines that address the future needs of students collectively rather than their individual needs. In the next section of this chapter I highlight how art educators reacted to the structuring and sequencing of knowledge in these texts.
4.5 Art Educators’ Reaction to The Arts National Statement and Profile
The dominant discursive formations that informed and were embodied in the national reforms of education had a notable impact on discourse in art education and on the ways in which art educators felt compelled to advocate their subject. In this section I survey art educators’ reaction to the National Statement and Profile. These discursive positions demonstrate the plurality of voices in the field. They are neither uniform nor internally consistent and reflect the means by which the identity and representation of the subject has taken place against a background of social and educational change that has provided a range of arenas for art education advocates to react and utilise.
Haynes (1999) examines how the categorisation of school subjects into K-12 key learning areas occurred. In an effort to identify the grounds and conditions by which knowledge is constructed in a school subject, she introduces her position by addressing the extent to which the national curricula exposed the various tensions between traditional theories of forms of knowledge and curriculum pragmatism. Examples from Science and English are presented, however, Haynes’ focus is on the new arts learning area in particular as demonstrative of the inappropriateness of the key learning areas. Surveying a range of aesthetic theories as a way to account for art within the education system, she draws our attention to the problems that have confronted art education throughout these valued perspectives. Beginning with drawing and painting, to a focus on skills or mimesis, to a concern for the needs of the child and self-expression, to discipline-based art education, grounding her theory in Efland (1990), Haynes suggests that in the eighties, “they had somehow to combine mimetic, expressive, formalist and pragmatic theories without becoming … an undifferentiated mush of integration without identity” (p. 4). She concludes that there are more differences than similarities between the disparate arts by highlighting the forced relationship between art history and making in disciplined-based art education to the rationalisation of the arts into a key learning area with Dance, Drama, Media studies and Music in the National Curriculum, for what Haynes deems were for the misguided purposes of accountability. The political hegemonies underpinning the Arts current “collocation of leftovers” (p. 4) in the curriculum is without explicit reason according to Haynes and gives teachers a misguided sense of purpose. In prosecuting the assumptions and statements of the
191 national curriculum, Haynes’s paper is of relevance to this inquiry, as she does not attempt to gain merit in providing an alternative educational model than that of defining the arts as one curriculum area. Rather, our attention is drawn to that which has informed the current position that is art education. Haynes argues that the national curriculum is far more relevant to pragmatism than forms of knowledge and uses the ‘accidental’ formation of the arts as one form of knowledge to demonstrate what could have been and hence what is not happening.
Haynes had previously acknowledged that after fighting for a place in the national curriculum, the arts had to “sacrifice cultural understanding, creativity, and quality for a more visible and functional reality which evades beliefs and intentions” (1993, p. 7). Art as ‘revisionary’, or the means by which students create personal meaning, is invisible Haynes argues in the national profiles framework. This need of the arts to be accountable and countable resulted in a focus on art forms as symbol systems involving constructed sets of meanings embedded in historical social and cultural contexts. Creativity is consistently omitted according to Haynes as occupying any role that contributed to the reconstruction or changes to cultural values presented through art history or current art practices. Creating, making and presenting in the Statement and Profiles “concentrates on the surface qualities of making things, rather than its meaningful aspects of revising our existing culture” (p. 4). Dividing the arts curriculum into discrete, countable outcomes, the “yardstick mentality” (p. 5) of the national profiles, ignores the educational components of quality, autonomy and understanding that Haynes believes are fundamental to the Visual Arts.
Boughton (1992, 1993a, 1993b, 1995, 1997) has extensively discussed the bureaucratic compulsion of governments to standardise practices in order to gain control over outcomes as troublesome for arts education where diversity and variousness of theoretical frameworks should be valued. Boughton (1993a) accepts that broader social and cultural, economic, technological, political, and ideological forces have made an impression on art education and unlike Haynes (1999) advocates that the field must adapt accordingly to fit these dominant interests. In accordance with the neo Marxist position which holds that the form and content of school knowledge is inextricably bound with the exercise of power and the political process, Boughton argues that these government driven reforms were implemented in a “power-coercive ‘top-down’ fashion” (1995, p. 148) in order to bring schools in line with the requirements of the workforce. Considering this, it is a myth that curriculum revision has been initiated by government for the benefit of students and Boughton demonstrates how the national curriculum reform serves the interests of government and industry rather then students by “providing frameworks for control of content, and surveillance of teaching” (1995, p. 141). It is furthermore a fallacy to presume that democratic, consultative processes are employed in the
192 implementation of reform. Education is shamelessly used as an instrument by governments to achieve socio-economic objectives with little documented evidence that demonstrates a correlation between the performance of any nation’s schools and the competitiveness of its industries. In focusing resources on priority areas for development identified by economically rationalist business interests, Boughton maintains that education systems marginalise the arts. As educational institutions promote their members to pursue agendas concerned chiefly with vocationalism, Boughton believes that “students do not perceive the arts as a pathway to employment” (p. 24).
The implementation problem for art education of the national curriculum is attributed, by Boughton (1993b), to the paucity of research conducted by and about the field. Boughton sets out his agenda circumscribed by the national curriculum in terms of five problems and later, as six interrelated myths that pervade national curriculum reform processes rather than represent well-founded educational benefit for students (Boughton, 1995). These problems are, firstly, the reductionist nature of the curriculum statements that includes statements of achievement levels or ‘performance descriptors’. The reductionist and misleading linguistic representation of the arts by the use of written statements, according to Boughton, ignores the fundamental epistemological and curriculum differences between the arts: “it is absurd to expect that the qualities which characterise achievement within disciplines as complex as the arts can be authentically captured within a few sentences at any level” (1993b, p. 64). Boughton considers it a myth that the arts share generic competencies. I support his interpretation that these descriptors, with their limited utility for assessment in the arts, will atomise the arts’ unexpected and idiosyncratic outcomes that characterise this field and deny an alternative view of learning. For Boughton, “the use of tightly prescribed ‘prototypes’ as a measure of success, determined by the degree to which student products match that prototype, is an anathema to art teachers” (1995, p. 145). Watson (1999), Sullivan (1989c), and Emery (1994) also articulate the misgivings about the ‘reductionist’ nature of the Statement and Profile. Watson (1999) acknowledges that the most controversial aspect of the common arts framework was its perceived promotion of reductionist theories: “the combining of discrete art forms under one umbrella was seen to ignore the unique skills, knowledge and ways of understanding to be derived from each arts form” (p. 9). Sullivan (1989c) deems that “erecting an ‘arts umbrella’ may well be another curriculum expediency that, on the surface, may appear to proclaim a unified force, yet may result in simply diluting the educational relevance of the arts” (pp. 4-5). This will result in each discipline being divorced from its knowledge base according to Sullivan and a ‘shallow sampling’ of arts experiences offered in classroom practices. Emery (1994), one of the chief writers of the briefs, recognises the ‘reductionist’ criticism leveled at the draft versions of The Arts Statement and Profile that claims the documents tended to homogenise the
193 arts, ignoring the idiosyncratic qualities of each arts forms. In response to this criticism, Emery argues, if used appropriately, The Arts National Statement and Profile will enable teachers to adopt an expansionist, rather than reductionist outlook.
The second problem identified by Boughton (1993b) is the manner in which such statements serve to separate means and ends in education and deny multiple paths necessary for artistic production. It is a myth according to Boughton that the specification of standards will improve student learning. Boughton poses the question, “Why should a model typified by pre-specified outcomes and exemplars drive arts education, rather than reasoned insights, thoughtful deliberations and seasoned experiences exercised in the context of each student’s situation?” (p. 65). Brown (1994a) expresses similar concerns regarding the emphasis on measurable behaviour as outcome in the arts: “An artwork’s resemblance to an average pointer tells nothing about the quality of choice and treatment in a student’s performance since in the arts the same pointer could serve under different values at every level” (p. 58). The constraints of the specification of outcomes on the divergent character of the arts are a “catastrophic failure” for Boughton that has resulted in a “shopping list of banal arts activities” (1995, p. 146) that fails to represent a specification of progressive standards of performance. Eisner (2001) presents a similar perspective in the United States:
Although such an approach to reform might appear appropriate for some fields like mathematics, it can be at odds with the aims of a field like ours, one that puts a premium on surprise and individuality and that encourages students to use ambiguity and image to express ideas and feelings that cannot take the stamp of the literal or be easily assessed by standardised criteria (p. 2).
Thirdly, Boughton regards the inherent difficulty in translating standards within the arts into a written form as trivialising the arts. He contends that it is a myth that a students’ typical trajectory through the field of art education can be effectively captured in terms of language alone. My earlier discussion in this chapter highlighted some of the broad vocabulary used in the Statement and Profile that were to accommodate all possibilities in the Visual Arts. I agree with Boughton’s concern that these general statements do not adequately capture the complex and subtle characteristics of visual expressive work.
The fourth problem identified by Boughton is the means by which such statements will become part of the national bureaucratic structure that “will be locked in time” (1993b, p. 65). It is argued that the written statements will disallow recognition of, and response to, the dynamic changes and developments of the professional arts arena outside schools. Finally, Boughton is
194 concerned with the lack of an adequate database to support the development of either prescriptive or descriptive statements appropriate to the arts. Without extensive research to support development of a descriptive typology of student achievement in the arts, the Statement and Profiles will “lack adequate theoretical approbation” (1995, p. 147).
For Boughton, these misguided assumptions and conceptions of education promoted through the reform efforts are an impediment to the development of high quality art education programmes that focus on the educational benefits to students. The assumptions of the national curriculum are not challenged but rather Boughton believes that in accordance with the framework there is a heightened need for research to be conducted that can direct and inform arts education practice, pedagogy and assessment.
He argues that the position held by the arts within the parameters set by the force of external discourses that is the national curriculum initiative, provides an impetus for research into art education that is perhaps needed to enhance and expand the field. In turn, this will deliver the recognition that is required by those who make and affect policy. My research contributes further understanding of the problems associated with limited research within the field (detailed in Chapter Two). This genealogical study, while not a response to the national curriculum initiatives, validates and addresses this void in the literature. It attempts to inform current art educational research and debate by disrupting the taken-for-granted ways of understanding the construction of the subject Visual Arts by examining the multiple discourses involved in its development.
Knight-Mudie (1994) acknowledges Boughton’s (1993b) concerns as valid however argues, “they relate to any imposition of system guidelines that attempt to monitor and control human behaviour and are not new” (pp. 36-37). Firstly, while the characteristic complexity of the arts has increased with ‘periartistic’ bodies of knowledge being attached to the discipline, Knight- Mudie argues that no statement in any discipline encompasses all that there is to be learned in that area during the years of schooling. Secondly, the concept of separation of means and ends, or theory from practice, is well documented “dating back to the Renaissance period when the nature of humans was divided into cognitive and emotional functions in Academe” (p. 37). Thirdly, she considers that teachers should be capable of writing and commenting about student’s work in the arts in the same way students are required to keep ‘process diaries’ that document the development of their projects and are an integral part of the overall assessment of the work. Fourthly, all written statements are ‘locked in time’, according to Knight-Mudie, but this “does not imply an inability to add, revise and re-visit” (p. 37). Finally, if no adequate database exists for the development of profiles, she suggests that it is perhaps time to establish
195 the beginnings.
It is apparent that Knight-Mudie does not consider the introduction of subject profiles, uniform content and standards as problematic. Rather, the challenge she identifies, is the ability for art educators to retain a sense of autonomy when such norms and standards of achievement have been created and defined by external forces. Drawing upon Foucault, this process involves art educators learning to monitor their own behaviour through disciplinary technologies of self- regulation. Knight-Mudie proposes that the theory of art as behaviour should shape new directions in art education so that “the doing and the outcome are a continuum” (p. 38). In this approach, whereby process and product are inextricably linked, art educators engage in self- awareness and self-evaluation against these norms and codes of behaviour with the goal of stimulating and enriching the imagination rather than stifling creativity.
It is Collins’ (2001) contention that the national statement and profiles were the result of a sense of urgency by educators, who were trying variously to save academic and progressive purposes, to maintain some control on the shape of the curriculum under enormous pressure from the coalition of Commonwealth and State governments who held the school curriculum accountable for improving Australia’s economic performance. She describes the Statements as “the maintenance of some important progressive and academic ideas inside an overall politically devised framework which has little either epistemological or psychological integrity” (p. 47). As such, “there was a naïve belief that a political bludgeon could create a single KLA framework inside which a bundle of subjects with different disciplinary imperatives would be taught” (p. 48). Collins identifies three problems embedded in the Profiles. They are: the simplistic competency standards language of descriptors of outcomes to be expected at a hierarchy of levels; that they and all their derivatives in State syllabi are grandiose, ultra-modernist constructions aimed at controlling the way in which hugely diverse bodies of knowledge are presented in every Australian classroom; and finally, profiles became a succession of rather abstract outcomes, largely cognitive skills and capacities, described at higher and higher levels and floating free of any real children, real classrooms and particular knowledges (p. 48). In attempting to adapt and translate the unexpected variety of things children do in an art classroom into this Profile model, Collins furthermore argues that the Visual Arts, specifically, are confronted with three levels of problems. Firstly, in this modernist curriculum framework in which students are expected to create uniform products that are measured against a table of expected outcomes, the Visual Arts “confronts its nemesis in a curriculum field in which there is an anarchy of legitimate products and what one is looking for is often unclear until one sees it” (p. 49). The marriage of the various performing arts is considered a second level of problem. The Visual Arts must consolidate its unique identity according to Collins and “unyoke” itself
196 from the other disciplines. Visual literacy is advocated as the solution to the third level problem of defining Visual Arts’ role in a school system dominated by an economic agenda.
Like Boughton (1993a, 1993b) and Collins (2001), Livermore (1992), who served as Chair of NAAE for five years, argues that the framework for The Arts National Statement in the consultative draft has political/historical as well as educational foundations. The specific and detailed nature of the national curriculum project according to Livermore contradicts the holistic, subjective, creative, and intuitive nature of the arts. She postulates that it is not unreasonable to expect that a rationale for the collective title of the arts would include a notion of some commonality between the various art forms. On the contrary, no explanation is provided for how the five strands were selected for inclusion. The insistence upon the discrete nature of each arts discipline is antithetical to the intentions of the fundamental curriculum structure. Furthermore, the organising mechanism in the document of ‘components’ is the result of “countless hours of discussion. It is virtually impossible to come to agreement of suitable terms across the arts because there are so many different modes of artistic behaviour” (Livermore, 1992, pp. 5-6). The separation of the arts forms and processes is considered “a less than ideal method of defining the arts as one curriculum area” (p. 6) and Livermore contends that there is merit in investigating an alternative path to the one presented in the consultative draft. A method of proposal for the field of art education is offered that comprises a ‘two-strand’ model, taught within each of the discrete arts areas, as a more coherent and consistent mechanism for organising arts learning in one area of curriculum. Livermore (1995) later argues that if continuity and consistency; substantial timetable allocation and resources; and adequate pre-service and in-service training for teachers, were in place:
it would then become possible to use the national documents in a manner that would explore the validity of their structure, the suitability of outcomes statements for arts education, the relevance of the statement and profile for the arts to different models of arts education, and new and innovative ways of teaching the arts within the context of a key learning area (p. 149).
Considering the major obstacles that Livermore suggests must be overcome in this integrated arts approach, which fails to assist the student or teacher, I contend that successful implementation of the national documents was a complex and insurmountable task that was doomed from the outset.
Another stance taken by art educators in response to the Statement and Profiles was the promotion of the development of multi-arts in the school setting. Watson (1999) acknowledges
197 art educators who recognised the opportunity to encourage the development of multi-arts in the arts area of learning. The most popular multi-arts teaching strategy identified by Watson involves making a link or connection between the arts forms, often by way of learning processes that are common to all the arts forms. Marsh (1994) acknowledges that Crafts Council organisations in many States lobbied hard to incorporate relevant aspects of Craft and Multi- Arts in the Statement and Profiles. Haseman (1993) advocates collaborative arts experiences in schools as enhancing student learning and motivation. In response to the conceptual and practical problems raised regarding the Statement and Profiles, it is Haseman’s contention that “art educators and curriculum planners must decide whether to structure teaching and learning in the arts around the separate and traditional disciplines, or to integrate the disciplines, creating inter-arts experiences” (p. 148). He observes that whilst the Statement suggests a framework within which multi-arts experiences can be structured, this collaborative inter-arts approach is not mirrored in the levels of achievement or examples of practice in the National Profile for the Arts. “Hermetically sealed subject compartments” (p. 154), that are to be taught and assessed separately, distinguish the arts in the Profiles. According to Haseman, “the principle of separateness, which has driven arts teaching for so long, again stands to be enshrined as the major assumption around which the arts curriculum is to be organised” (p. 154). It is his intention to prosecute the impoverished assumption that the arts exist as pure, discrete disciplines and highlight the interrelationships among the arts. Positioning the arts as separate disciplines “overlooks collaborative movements which have been a feature of traditional arts practice, and ignores contemporary social imperatives which celebrate appropriation, intertextuality and adaptation” (p. 154). One implication for curriculum organisation and delivery of a multi-arts approach identified by Haseman as opposed to maintaining traditional subject boundaries is time allocation. Haseman’s solution to this fear of “tiny and inconsequential time allocation” (p. 154) divided between each of the arts forms is to “imbricate arts experiences with a density of understandings about the different art forms” (p. 154). I contend that Haseman’s framework of translating, replicating, resembling and transforming, within the one discipline or across disciplines as a way of achieving this, does not broaden the content of each arts form. Rather, this integrated and correlative approach ignores the unique qualities that can be derived from each form.
The ‘Arts Education’ Report (Senate Environment, Recreation, Communications and the Arts References Committee, October 1995), the result of an inquiry into arts and cultural education, acknowledges the many submissions that complained that the arts were the first subjects to be cut or compromised in order to accommodate other demands of the timetable. These submissions argued that the arts deserved one-eighth time according to the Report that meant, “cutting the cake into arbitrarily equal slices” (p. 96). A submission by the NAAE argues, “the
198 principle of equity implicit in the National Curriculum Framework does not always translate to equity at the school practice level” (p. 86). An NAAE National Arts Education Survey (1993) revealed, “that timetabling practices and elective groupings, as well as inadequate resourcing in terms of materials, spaces and personnel, produce inequitable outcomes for arts education” (p. 87). The Committee did not believe it should recommend a particular figure as a goal for arts time but rather a better policy would be to teach each subject according to its needs. The Committee considered it a responsibility of art educators to “make their voices heard” with regard to the arts “distinctive contribution to the total educational experience of the child” (p. 97).
Boyd (1993) also considers ‘a barrier to change’ the conglomeration of the individual arts disciplines into ‘one-eighth of the key learning areas’ within the curriculum structure of the National Statements and Profiles. Teachers of the arts, according to Boyd, perceive this reduction of their teaching importance and contribution to learning through two perspectives. The first being that secondary teachers will have to campaign against the other arts forms to attract student enrolments and secondly, that all teachers will have to demand their share of funding sources in the arts. A rivalry is subsequently created between the arts disciplines instead of unity. Livermore (1995) opposes this notion of only one-fifth of one-eighth of the curriculum being allocated for the arts in schools arguing “no such model is suggested in the document. In reality … most schools have flexible arrangements of time allocation and availability” (p. 147). This argument does not take into account ‘time’ as a controlling mechanism. Adopting a Foucauldian approach, it can here be argued that the ‘timetable’ represents a form of institutional power that has the authority to dictate how much time is allocated to subjects in the secondary school. Considering this, the principle of equity implicit in the National Curriculum framework may not always translate to school practice. Those in the position to decide on the curriculum and timetabling decisions in the school context may serve to diminish the role of the Visual Arts if they do not value and encourage arts education. The degree of integration of such a complex ‘arts’ area is also dependent on such issues as resources and staff expertise.
In this section I have reviewed some of the issues brought to the fore in the field of art education in response to The Arts National Statement and Profile. The various key areas of critique proposed in these papers include: the political nature of this top-down regime; the reductionist nature and marginalisation of the arts; the lack of clarity for the inclusion of the five ‘key’ artforms as strands; the bland generalisations made in the statement and performance descriptors; the emphasis on measurable outcomes; and the comprising of time allocated to each of the disciplines. Drawing upon the work of Foucault, these critiques can all be classified as tactics and techniques of ‘normalisation’ that attempted to define and circumscribe the
199 boundaries of legitimate thought and action for the field of art education. As disciplinary mechanisms, the statement and profile imposed authoritative categorisation on the arts that was carefully constructed to regulate the discipline as well as create conformity among individuals. Norms and benchmarks defined knowledge in the arts by way of standards and outcomes. In doing so they provided a basis for knowing, calculating and ordering of students in the discipline. Contrary to this, cautious optimism was also expressed by some over the inclusion of the arts as a learning area. A multi-arts approach was proffered that encouraged collaborative experiences in the arts. These discordant reactions to The Arts National Statement and Profile offer some insight into the dilemma of advocacy for art education as those in the field struggled to agree with what the purpose of art education was within the school curriculum.
4.5.1 New South Wales’ Response
The Arts National Statement and Profile were strongly contested texts by significant groups in the art educational community in NSW notably the Years 7-12 Visual Arts Syllabus Committee. In this section I show how NSW art educators led the dissent arguing the debilitation of subject matter in favour of profiles as an unwelcomed emphasis on objectives, competencies and outcomes. KLAs further decreased curriculum content by imposing rationalist grouping on subjects.
The meeting minutes of the Years 7-12 Visual Arts Syllabus Committee record “that this committee rejects both the brief for the National Curriculum Statement in the Arts and the draft Profiles document” (1993, March 31, p. 1). The syllabus committee’s position is detailed in three powerful and significant papers accompanying this meeting prepared by the following committee members: Mr Len Rieser, Chairman, Years 7-12 Visual Arts Syllabus Committee; Ms Kerry Thomas, Inspector, Creative Arts, who also served as Chairperson of the syllabus committee from December 1993 to April 1995 and Mr Paul Milton, Board Inspector; and university representative, Associate Professor Neil Brown. The following analysis identifies similarities across these respective papers.
Brown vigorously campaigned against the implications of the regulatory agenda of the national curriculum frameworks on art education in NSW:
The authors of this paper played a significant role in the critique and remediation of general curriculum reform nationally from 1992 – 1995, and a key role in curriculum reform in the arts in NSW from 1993 to 2001 as participant observers, consultants, agitators for reform, and commentators upon the events surrounding this period of
200 national curriculum formation (Brown and Weate, 2002, p. 4).
Lewis (1994) acknowledges, in an article printed in the SMH titled ‘National Experiment Under Attack’, the efforts of syllabus committees in resisting the change, particularly the Visual Arts Syllabus Committee who “strenuously resisted any instruction to incorporate the national work into the NSW syllabus … It is the Government telling us what to put in art” (Brown, SMH, p. 4). Brown proclaims the efforts of the syllabus committee in negotiating the national curriculum initiatives in this article: “We try to … manipulate it and subvert it … we try to hermetically seal them off as much as possible so that anyone can see that these banal ridiculous things have been tagged onto a syllabus” (p. 4). This section also draws upon Brown’s published record to illustrate his misgivings about the Statements, Profiles and Pointers.
Rieser (1993, March 31) and Brown (1993, March 31, 1994a, 1994b) set out problems with the arts statement and profile while Thomas and Milton (1993, March 31) focus their response on the National Profile. Rieser (1993, March 31) deems The Arts National Statement as conceptually flawed believing, “for NSW to incorporate such spurious and inconsequential notions into our Visual Arts Syllabuses would put us back many years” (p. 1). Similarly, Brown (1993, March 31) suggests that the “concept and detail of the National Curriculum is inappropriate for the delivery of education in the arts in Australia” (p. 1).
Rieser (1993, March 31) unambiguously declares the first three problems in bold font, suggesting their implied hierarchy, as: ‘The arts are not the same’; ‘The arts are not interchangeable’; and, ‘The four components (transforming, presenting, aesthetics and criticism, past and present contexts) falsely reduce the arts to a meaningless unity and false equivalence’. Rieser (1993, March 31) and Brown (1993, March 31) argue that the arts have limited similarities in terms of knowledge, skills, attitudes and values. The attempt to unify the arts through the application of the four components is considered incoherent to them both as it devalues the concept of diversity in and amongst the arts and “can only ever be justified at high levels of philosophical abstraction” (Brown, 1993, March 31, p. 1). Both papers recall that the anachronistic issue of ‘multi-arts’ or ‘related arts’ has been thoroughly researched and tried in a number of contexts in Australia and elsewhere and found to be unsatisfactory as in “any integration of art forms in schools at least one of the arts in the equation becomes instrumental and reactive, rather than proactive” (Rieser, 1993, March 31, p. 1). Brown (1993, March 31) asserts that practitioners in the various fields do not themselves subscribe to an umbrella notion of the arts that rationalises and deprives the depth of arts subjects offered in educational programs by diluting their separate forms of notation, knowledges and understanding. By eroding “the autonomy of serious knowledge bases in the various fields” (Brown, 1994a, p. 62)
201 by positioning Visual Arts as instrumental to other subjects and other art forms, students are denied the “necessary sequential and progressive attainment of perceptual, conceptual and aesthetic visual awareness” (Rieser, 1993, March 31, p. 1).
Rieser (1993, March 31) and Brown (1993, March 31, 1994a, 1994b) identify the inherently political and administrative agendas driving these documents that blur the distinctions between professional and industrial goals. They argue that the reduction of all the arts to “spurious commonalities” (Rieser, 1993, March 31, p. 1) sets up a “self-fulfilling prophecy and offers politicians and others an avenue which leads to seeing the various arts in educational settings as interchangeable” (Brown, 1993, March 31, p. 1). Legitimated as an instrument of short term social and economic ends, Brown (1994a) accuses the rationalisation of subjects in the arts as jeopardising student’s perceptions of the distinctive career opportunities available in the Visual Arts by retaining only that content which is useful for assuring minimum levels of competency for the preparation of a compliant employee. He contends that the “assumptions that the economic pie is limited and that the arts in education must represent a unified front to get their cut is a defensive position offering bodies an easy way out of allocating funds” (Brown, 1993, March 31, p. 2). This grievance about the ‘top-down’ nature of the national curriculum project is apparent:
The National Curriculum movement has not occurred as a spontaneous response by educationalists to some educational imperative of the field. Rather it is the dutiful response by an educational community to economic demands for control and predictability in the skills of the labor force. In the case of the visual arts education, the dutiful response has turned into a struggle for survival (Brown, 1994a, p. 63).
Brown (1994a) deplores the lack of consultation of the arts industries, academics, practicing professional artists, and teachers of the arts at the inception of the national curriculum reforms. This is exemplified, according to Brown, in five ways. Firstly, by the use of the ‘inappropriate’ tendering process rather than the national curriculum project being consulted upon. Tendering possesses a set of constraints that include: it is resistant rather then receptive to a diversity of emergent beliefs; it is secretive and competitive which is the antipathy of consultation; and, it is obligatory in that is obliges the successful tenderers to conform to the interests of their employer (p. 61). Secondly, the lack of consistency between the industry’s representation of the Visual Arts as a sector within the Australia Cultural Industry under the Cultural Ministers Council (1990) and its representation within the national curriculum frameworks is evidence, according to Brown, that there was limited deliberation concerning current thinking on cultural development and employment. The National Association for the Visual Arts (NAVA) and
202 academics in the Visual Arts share Brown’s concern, “that the National Curriculum in the Arts represents a significant attack on the breadth and depth of the Visual Arts as a field of cultural activity” (p. 60). The cultural diversity of the arts in Australia was threatened by the erosion of differences between technologies applied and valued in one art form that are profoundly different from those used in another for “expedient economic, social, administrative, or pedagogical reasons” (p. 60).
Interestingly, Brown’s third criticism, that a conception of the art world is absent from the national curriculum frameworks, registers a discursive appearance of the ‘Conceptual Framework’ in the 1999 syllabus. For Brown (1994a), a coherent notion of the functions of the artist, the audience, the work, and the world, which reappear as the ‘agencies in the artworld’ in the syllabus, and an understanding of the ways in which these functions influence the making of artworks is omitted from the national curriculum initiatives. Fourthly, the national curriculum frameworks are condemned for failing to draw upon a theory of children’s development in the Visual Arts as a foundation for the sequencing of outcomes and profiles for syllabus writers and teachers. Finally, “the curriculum fails to construct a notion of the practices, beliefs, principles, theories, understandings and values of the sub-sectors of the Visual Arts” (Brown, 1994a, p. 61) opting instead for “school-art’ based outcomes and profiles built upon interchangeable sets of relatively empty process based behaviours (discuss, express, consider, integrate, share, collaborate, analyse, interpret, understand, deconstruct)” (p. 61). He refutes the national curriculum frameworks’ depiction of cognition in the Visual Arts as a set of creative, expressive and aesthetic intuitions when students engage in process based behaviours as demonstrated in the Profiles.
Rieser, Brown, Thomas and Milton all opposed the Profiles document. This document compounds the Statement’s problems according to Rieser and “further complicates the situation by an inversion of structure which is unexplained and unjustified and has the effect of further devaluing the arts in education” (1993, March 31, p. 1). Thomas and Milton position the validity of the consultation process as highly questionable given that the Strands identified in the Brief and draft National Statement have been replaced by the components as Strands in the Profile without any justification. This change “significantly devalues the subjects as disciplines with their own knowledge, skills and values” (Thomas and Milton, 1993, March 31, p. 1).
Thomas and Milton list three problems under the sub-heading ‘Outcomes’. Firstly, as a result of the outcomes not being modeled on perceptual and conceptual development in the Visual Arts they are ‘arbitrary and useless in providing any meaningful description of levels of achievement’; ‘fail to indicate the knowledges, skills and values which are appropriate to
203 particular levels’; and ‘are not connected or sequenced across levels’. Rieser (1993, March 31) also considers it problematic that the strands, components and pointers do not relate across the levels in the Visual Arts, where integration of theory and practice is a strong feature of effective learning, especially in NSW syllabuses. Subsequently, the “simplistic and ridiculously reduced statements produced in the Statement and the Profiles is demeaning and destructive of the value of the arts in education and in society” (p. 1).
The second problem concerning Outcomes identified by Thomas and Milton is, ‘The links between the component definitions and the outcomes is not clear’. Similarly, Brown (1993, March 31) argues, “the uniqueness and subtlety of the arts is subordinated to the expediency of producing easily quantifiable and transferable outcomes which emerge in the Outcomes and Pointers of the Profile document in thinly veiled competencies” (p. 1). Furthermore, Brown (1994a) describes the learning outcomes and pointers as “prescriptive and dated, exemplifying middle of the road ‘school-art’ values insulated from the volatility and dynamism of the fields they represent” (p. 62). Like Boughton (1995), Brown (1994a) uses the phrase “anathema to the arts” to describe the conversion of subject based forms of knowing into competencies that “decontextualise, standardise and control” (p. 62). ‘The equal weighting of the components distorts the relative value of learning activities’ is the third problem listed by Thomas and Milton (1993, March 31). Brown anticipates that contrivance and distortion in outcomes will be the consequence of the ‘assiduous’ allotment of equal weight to the components in each of the arts.
Thomas and Milton repudiate the Pointers as an “arbitrary and unconnected collection of descriptors which are useless for assessing meaningful student performance in the Visual Arts” (1993, March 31, p. 1). They are “simplistic, even silly” (Rieser, 1993, March 31, p. 2). Rieser renounces them as: ‘all unrelated and have minimal sequential linkages across the components of the levels within the field’; ‘quaintly old fashioned in their strongly ‘formalist’ references’; ‘largely linguistically focused and not sufficiently concerned with visual perception of the development thereof’; and ‘They overly emphasise ‘crafty’ skills and techniques by the inclusion of some peculiar examples and this is to the detriment of promoting serious visual arts education activities’ (p. 2). Brown (1994a) concurs that “an artworks resemblance to an average Pointer tells nothing about the quality of choice and treatment in a student’s performance since, in the arts, the same Pointer could serve under different values at every level” (p. 58). Teachers are subsequently disempowered and their independent professional judgement comprised, according to Brown, as students are pigeonholed into rigid stereotypes in the arts. Pointers are “dangerously anachronistic in the way in which they label individual children” (p. 60). Thomas and Milton predict that the Pointers will facilitate a misguided perception of achievement in the
204 Visual Arts based on superficial goals.
In a letter to Mr Sam Weller, President, BOS, Kerry Thomas, Chairperson, Visual Arts Syllabus Committee and Creative Arts Inspector, declares: “The Years 7-12 Visual Arts Syllabus Committee rejects the work samples in The arts – a curriculum profile for Australian schools as unacceptable” (1994, April). The difficulties exemplified by the work samples in approaching curriculum values through profiles, rather than knowledge, are identified as:
(i) the work samples are unrepresentative of standards currently achieved in Visual Arts in NSW. (ii) the work samples become readily anachronistic. (iii) there is an incoherence and inconsistency between the language used in the text and the images selected as work samples. (iv) the work samples are inconsistent with values of originality and cultural diversity.
The syllabus committee considered that the work samples presented implications for ongoing syllabus development, outcomes, pointers and the development of support documents for Visual Arts. Visual Arts teachers and academics across NSW, according to Thomas, shared these concerns of the syllabus committee about the Profile document.
Thomas and Milton argue that the lack of a clear basis for the Level Statements and accompanying information may mislead teachers and curriculum developers. The problems with the Level Statements are expanded in three points as: ‘they suggest that learning in the Arts will have equal application to a knowledge of and performance in each arts strand’; ‘do not sufficiently describe the kinds of perceptual and conceptual engagements appropriate to the level’; and, ‘provide inappropriate statements for learning at particular levels’. Like Thomas and Milton, Rieser cautions, “The greatest danger is that the developmental paths of individual students in the arts may be confined by these arbitrary written statements” (1993, March 31, p. 2).
Rieser and Brown suggest an alternative organising structure for a national curriculum in the Arts. Rieser’s impetuous suggestion for an alternative approach in bold font is to “Scrap all and rewrite everything” (1993, March 31, p. 2). This condemnation is expanded into six points. It is recommended that each art form be justified as a distinctive and unique discipline in the educational setting. In distinguishing between each art form, Rieser advises that appropriate terminology to define the practice be used. This includes the perceptual, conceptual, performative and evaluative processes necessary for the functioning of each distinctive art form.
205 Like Rieser, Brown (1993, March 31) advocates, “The arts while retaining their conceptual, performative, and evaluative autonomy need only be represented cohesively through a statement of their individual inclusion. The statement should justify the inclusion of the arts philosophically as a broad field of value” (p. 1). A spiral model of curriculum as opposed to the ladder model is proposed as this allows themes, topics, subject matter, issues and problems to be revisited at increasing levels of complexity and depth as student progress through the discipline.
Brown (1993, March 31) admonishes, “artificial devices for the contrivance of common educational goals in the arts, particularly as represented in the National Curriculum by the four Components, should be avoided as regressive and objectionable”. In his last three points, Rieser urges the resistance of these ‘artificial devices’ including: ‘a ‘rational model’ or ‘pattern of learning applicable to all students’; ‘the notion of a ‘typical’ pattern of outcomes; and, ‘the notion of comparable or interchangeable levels of achievement in each art form at each level of education’. Brown’s (1994a) paper is of significance as it mobilises the discursive function of the ‘Frames’ as challenging the “creative and aesthetic bases which have been used to excuse the unification of the arts under the umbrella of a key learning area” (p. 63). Chapter Six examines this innovation of the ‘Frames’ in the NSW BOS Visual Arts Syllabus.
Weate (1992b, 1993), also a member of the Visual Arts Syllabus Committee and Chairperson of the committee from April 1995 to the end of 1997, maintains that the aspiration of art educators to be recognised as a necessary and worthwhile subject within the school curriculum has been inhibited by “extrinsic colonising influences of government rather than the intrinsic values of art education” (Weate, 1993, p. 10). These extrinsic values are concerned with uniformity and control whilst the intrinsic values of artistic knowing utilise specificity and diversity. The Arts National Statement and Profile serves the interests of these dominant voices in government that can be described as ‘economically rationalist’ (Weate, 1992b). Weate acknowledges the tensions that existed between the representation of the subject art in the Statement and Profile and the character, history and desires of art education in NSW. Art education was “vulnerable, at a critical moment in its formation as discrete discourse” (Weate, 1993, p. 2). Discrete subject authority, a ‘hallmark’ of art education in NSW, was denied as art educators had to accommodate these demands of the sovereign and operate in concert with “experiences of intensification through the increasing accountability of education to economic values” (Weate, 1992b, p. 1).
A similar perspective to that of Rieser, Brown, Thomas and Milton is shared by Weate in her acknowledgement that:
206 The response to a National Art Curriculum has not been one of renewing, deepening and enriching theory, nor the innovation of a new and contemporary view of curriculum and art education, coupled with an infusion of the peculiarities of local knowledge and concerns. The national curriculum statement has been identified as articulating that which can be seen as common and fundamental, national agreements (1993, p. 6).
Commonality presents a dilemma for the arts and art education according to Weate where diversity and the variousness of theoretical perspectives that articulate ways of understanding are valued. This obstruction to the value of diversity was epitomised in the curriculum mapping and consultative process where collecting of information, resources and opinions was favoured over discussions of possibilities and means of changing art education (Weate, 1992b, p. 3). Instead of innovating a new art or arts curriculum, art was reduced with other subjects in The Arts KLA. Common ways of conceiving curriculum in this model diminishes opportunities for art education, disempowers the teacher, and negates the active involvement of the student in their own learning (p. 3).
Foucault’s concept of governmentality can be applied to Weate’s appraisal of the technical and regulatory nature of the national curriculum project. The Visual Arts came to be governed through a variety of systematic tactics that included the disciplinary technology of ‘normalisation’. The national curriculum project shaped and defined the subject according to a set of normative discursive practices that included regulating the conduct of teachers by requiring them to convey knowledge in a certain way. Teachers were subsequently forced to resist their own interpretation and delivery of art education through a range of theoretical frameworks: “The reflective authority of the teacher is subsumed within a regime of technical rigour” (Weate, 1992b, p. 3).
This restrictive basis to the structuralist framework of the national curriculum statement is exemplified by a dependence on “positivist models of artistic understanding where the arts are presented as symbol systems and known only through processes” (Weate, 1992b, p. 3). These psycho-logistic processes do not recognise an epistemological base to art and as such an understanding of the value of the arts as knowledge is denied. Like Brown (1994a), Weate’s (1993) acknowledgement of a review of the 1987 Visual Arts Syllabus 7-10 in NSW addressing these concerns is of significance and expanded upon in Chapter Five.
McKeon (1996) recalls Weate’s response to the formation of the “almost clandestine top down creation” (Brown and Weate, 2002, p. 3) of NAAE at the 1989 Darwin Conference of the AIAE. NSW representatives at the conference “acerbically resisted this move” (McKeon, 1996, p. 12)
207 including Weate who was State Vice President and a longtime member of the Art Education Society (AES). McKeon (1998) describes her own response to The Arts KLA as:
irksome and dangerous in the sense that in our economically rationalist era one creative subject can readily be exchanged for another within the learning experiences of the student and the veneer of breadth and diversity still appear to be satisfied (p. 52).
A submission by AIAE to the Senate Report (October, 1995) signals the concern among art educators.28 McKeon suggests that Weate was “particulary cogent in her rejection of the move on behalf of the autonomy of Visual Arts and the position of art education in NSW” (1996, p. 12). Despite Weate’s persistence, “she was chastised, for her pains” and her dispute “treated paternally as inappropriate” (p. 12).
A letter from Nancy Whittaker, Secretary NAAE (1990, June 22) in response to a report submitted by Weate to the AIAE on the 2nd May, 1990 is evidence of this rebuke. Whittaker classifies Weate’s comments as “based on lack of information” and includes a complete set of NAAE minutes to “clarify some of your misconceptions”. These ‘misconceptions’ by Weate reappear in this letter in italics. As opposed to joining “the dreaded Arts Umbrella” at the behest of the Department “Mandarins and Rationalists”, Whittaker delineates that the NAAE represents their own Arts discipline with no allegiance to any Ministry or Department group. With an incriminating tone supposedly directed at Weate, Whittaker affirms, “Unlike some Senior Administrators, we think collectively and supportively”. It is the responsibility of organisations such as AIAE and AES NSW according to Whittaker to preserve and develop art
28 There is a growing concern among a significant number of art educators over the consequences of the AIAE’s continued participation in the NAAE. Their concerns are wide-ranging and include: x Grouping the arts has obvious economic convenience. However the assumption that national alliances such as NAAE speak with one voice for all the arts areas and their concerns that equitable outcomes are possible may not be justified. x Government has a fundamentally confused perception of the role of NAAE. It sees NAAE as the peak body representing the various arts education associations. x The NAAE began as a strategic alliance of arts educators combining for mutual support. It became a joint lobby group but at the same time it became a convenient focus for government policy and decision makers who appeared to perceive it as the peak funding distribution agency – and by implication policy, powerbrokers and single point of reference that unerringly represents the mind and opinion of its constitutent parts – this is not so! This promotes the homogenous, reductionist and rationalist view that the arts and their complex sectors, issues and unique discursive forms are a single entity; and one that can be addressed through a single point of reference. x This view does not address the issue that the chief policy group for each professional association is the main voice for each area. x A number of AIAE members are already questioning the ‘brokerage’ or ‘middle-man’ role of the NAAE especially in a time of limited resources…. There are other AIAE members and affiliate art teachers’ associations who see the usefulness of AIAE’s continued operation through the alliance with NAAE…. (Senate Environment, Recreation, Communications and the Arts References Committee, 1995, p. 102).
208 education. Whittaker considers that in the present economic situation, “they are all the small to fight for a piece of the curriculum cake” without the support and backing of all the Arts Education Organisations. NSW’ position was absent from the agenda of public forums and executive debates of the AIAE throughout the duration of the national curriculum project and this contributed to the withdrawal of the AES from the AIAE (McKeon, 1996, p. 12). These dissipated views offer some insight into the dilemma for arts advocates who struggled to articulate a united front for art education.
McKeon (1996) argues that the “arts cannot be sorted into a level playing field nationally” (p. 13) due to the enormous disparity between the diversity and depth of the arts industry in the various states and the size and economic robustness of the different state education systems. As the arts capital of Australia, NSW is identified as a “larger, more mature and more cosmopolitan subject area than is evident in other states” (p. 13) as demonstrated by the employment of more art teachers at every level and more art educators and Visual Arts graduates completing their courses. In NSW, profiling represented an “unwanted and regressive step for our subject” (p. 13). The persistence and maturity of the practitioners in the field in NSW is evidenced according to McKeon in the efforts of art teachers together with the Inspector, Creative Arts, Kerry Thomas through the BOS who “laboured mightily to make the levels and profiles as meaningful and helpful as possible by adding subject specific statements to the bland national elements” (p. 13). The Frames make an invisible discursive appearance when McKeon signals the Years 11 and 12 syllabus as “not burdened by arbitrary mandatory structures such as Profiles” (p. 13).
Like Brown and Weate, McKeon was a Senior Lecturer in Art Education at COFA, UNSW. McKeon (1996) believes that the sophisticated and integrated preparation that students receive from this institution “bears dividends for the health and maturity of the subject in schools” (p. 13). The role of COFA in lobbying against the statement and profiles must be acknowledged. The Years 7-12 Visual Arts Syllabus Committee and COFA were institutional sites in NSW that were intrinsically linked with power/knowledge. These institutions sought to normalise ideological practices within the field by providing art educators with a forum to voice their concerns surrounding the Statement and Profile. Forums were an effective mechanism for the formation, accumulation and dissemination of knowledge (as evidenced in my discussion of the Occasional Seminar Series in Chapter Two). They were an institutional exercise of power that validated the field’s discourse. A forum hosted by The School of Art Education, COFA on the 17th August, 1994 as part of their Professional Development Program, that posed the question “What is Wrong with the National Profiles?” as its title, is testament to this. This public forum highlights the different perspectives four educators held in response to the national curriculum
209 initiatives. The struggle for this contested meaning was a discourse of power. The main thrust against the statement and profile came from the tertiary sector. Three speakers are from three different tertiary institutions and represent three different faculties including education, mathematics and art education. Two represent the UNSW. One speaker is a Headmistress of an independent girls’ secondary school. Already a minority, I contend that the School of Art Education nominated speakers from diverse fields so as not to marginalise themselves any further and to bolster their argument against the national curriculum initiatives with popular opinion.
Grundy, the first of four speakers, from the School of Education, Murdoch University in Perth, regards the National Profiles as “interesting and important cultural artefacts of our time” (1994, p. 6). As educational cultural artefacts, the profiles open up sites of struggle through the enactment of pedagogy according to Grundy as opposed to being structurally flawed. She positions her argument hypothetically as what one ‘might’ find wrong with the National Profiles if they were to value three things: Standards; Having a clear curriculum to follow; and, Exercising my professional judgement as a teacher (p. 3). The emphasis on student outcomes is identified as potentially problematic in two ways. Firstly, they signal a return to behaviourism that restricts the recognition and value of learning to observable student behaviour. Secondly, the profiles could set limits on learning by being promoted or being interpreted as delineating all that students can do. Grundy is also concerned with the potential for the profiles to be used for quality improvement and quality assurance purposes by school level managers as well as system bureaucrats. The definition of curriculum is considered to be a site of struggle. It is possible to view the profiles according to Grundy as “a very radical attempt to control the curriculum of schooling” (p. 5). A continued debate surrounding what counts as legitimate knowledge in Australian schools is encouraged, which involves the interactive understanding of curriculum construction between teachers, students, subject matter and milieu. Finally, she advocates for the field to engage in a struggle to maintain teacher judgement as “the source of confirmation of attainment of the outcomes, not standardised tests” (p. 6). The notion encompassed in the Pointers, that there are multiple sources of evidence of a particular learning outcome, has the potential according to Grundy to privilege teacher judgement.
Both the second and third speaker, Jo Karaolis, Headmistress, St Catherine’s School Waverly, NSW and Garth Gaudry, School of Mathematics, UNSW, specify the inadequate consultation process that resulted in limited opportunity for leading groups in education, the universities, or the community, to express concerns regarding the ideological imperatives underlining the profiles. Gaudry argues:
210 They were written by teams of people chosen in secret, not for their expertise in the subject areas, and experience in teaching, but rather for a willingness to adopt a grossly misguided view of education, to suit the ideological predilections of powerful education bureaucrats and their hangers-on (1994, p. 9).
Gaudry blatantly vilifies the profiles as “pap, and educational drivel. They are a disgrace to our nation and our state” (p. 9). Karaolis is gentler in her approach and lists a series of ‘general’ problems with the profiles that includes the phrases: ‘removes the necessary margins for individual difference’; ‘focus on what children ‘have done’ rather than what children ‘can do’; ‘their necessary complexity’; ‘their appearance of unambiguous precision … involves considerable potential for subjectivity, accident and ambiguity’; ‘assumption that learning is hierarchical’; and, ‘replacement of holistic judgements with judgements based on analysis of the parts’. Further to these general problems, Karaolis considers there to be a series of ‘potential’ problems with the profiles. These include: the transformation of profiles from descriptions to prescriptions of student outcomes; the complexity of the outcomes will force standardisation processes in assessment; the use of assessment results based on the profiles to evaluate not only teachers’ programmes and teacher effectiveness but to compare these between teachers as professionals; and finally, the comparison between schools. Drawing upon Foucault, I consider Karaolis’s identification of this problem of parity between students, teachers and schools, to be a function of ‘normalisation’. That is, criterion-referenced assessment circumscribes the standards, norms and benchmarks that define the methods and approaches teachers adopt to their classroom practice. The results of the assessment are then used by the teacher to not only measure, evaluate and compare students, but also their individual performance against other teachers. Schools also monitor and hold teachers’ accountable on the basis of outcomes as a means of ensuring continuous progress within the educational institution.
4.5.2 Summary
In this section I have shown the array of discourses that were brought to the fore by NSW art educators, particularly the Years 7-12 Visual Arts Syllabus Committee, in response to The Arts National Statement and Profile. Senior academics condemned the national curriculum project as “the most profound politicisation of knowledge and education in the history of this State or this country” (Brown in Lewis, 1994, p. 4) and confidently predicted a crisis. The dominant and recurring response to the Statement was of concern surrounding the rationalisation of the Visual Arts under the umbrella of ‘The Arts’. This subject rationalisation is an instance in which the political rationalities of government produced a curriculum policy discourse as a means of regulating and ‘structuring the possible field of action’ (Foucault in Dreyfus and Rabinow,
211 1983, p. 221) of art education. It is apparent that such a title was not well received by the field as it was regarded as working against their own interests. ‘The Arts’ ignored the unique skills, knowledge and ways of understanding that can be derived from the Visual Arts as a discrete art form resulting in the loss of identity, diversity and autonomy. The Statement mirrors a process model and definition of art and I will show in the next chapter that this model was already being dismantled in NSW. A second macro level change that had a decisive impact was the implementation of the anachronistic and banal Profiles. It was argued that the adaptation of subject-based content into Profiles, as engineered by State and Federal governments, served the interests of these more dominant powers in society rather than advancing conceptions of the intrinsic values of artistic knowing. The outcomes were considered as having scant regard for different ways of knowing in the arts. Considering this, Brown cautioned against the danger of profiles for teachers: “You will have no time … to build your understandings or to get involved in getting kids into interesting frames or insights of knowledge … You will spend most of your time writing up whether or not they have met these preconditions” (Lewis, 1994, p. 4).
In Chapter Six, I examine how the ‘Frames' emerge as a mechanism against this submission. The development of the Frames as a basis for understanding the content and body of knowledge surrounding the Visual Arts is analysed. Here we witness the active engagement of the subject in their own discursive formation. I will argue that the Frames are designed as an alternative approach to ensure the preservation of knowledge from those within the field of art education.
212 CHAPTER FIVE THE FRAMES
5 Introduction
This chapter examines how the consolidation of the national curriculum initiatives and frameworks and the power relationships embedded within this curriculum reform had important significance for art education in NSW. While the National Statements and Profiles were not mandated nationally and received limited acceptance in NSW, in this chapter I will show the means by which the rhetoric of these policy documents was translated into practice in the visual arts curriculum. In order to conform to the discursive changes accompanying these reforms, art education had to justify its place in education. NSW art educators were influenced by the new expectations and obligations presented to the discipline, including the preoccupation with an outcomes-based curriculum (Rieser, 1993, October 11). This focus on accountability and achieving measurable learning outcomes was an incentive for visual arts syllabus revision in NSW. The child-centred approach to art education of the 1980s was replaced by an outcomes driven model, endorsed by the BOS, in the 1990s. It will be apparent in the discussion to follow that the ‘Frames’ in the Visual Arts syllabus were formulated in response to the contested discourses of these reforms of government. They were an attempt to disrupt the dominance of the “neoconservative discourses of rigour, content and assessment” (Weate, 1997, p. 97) and acknowledge and affirm alternative ways of knowing in the Visual Arts.
Prior to providing a critique of the representation of the Frames as an object of knowledge in the Visual Arts Stage 6 Syllabus, Preliminary and HSC Courses (BOS, 1999), I trace how the discursive formation of the Frames came to prominence by revealing the material conditions of their existence. The primary documents analysed in this chapter that had a direct impact on the Frames’ appearance in the 1999 syllabus include: Visual Arts Years 7-10 Syllabus (BOS, 1994) and its revised edition (BOS, 1997a); Visual Arts Years 7-10 Support Document (BOS, 1997b); and, Draft Stage 6 Visual Arts Years 11-12 Syllabus, Preliminary, 2 Unit HSC, and 3 Unit Courses (BOS, 1996b), as well as working draft documents, reports, minutes of meetings and correspondence. These documents are used to identify those practices within the field of art education that advanced the Frames discourse. The four Frames – the Subjective, Cultural, Structural and Postmodern, are acknowledged as the outcome of the discursive practices of the Visual Arts Syllabus Committee, notably by one university representative, Professor Neil Brown. The syllabus committee is the site that allowed the group of statements that belonged to the formation of the Frames to be regulated and subjected to individuals and ultimately provided
213 for the circulation of the discourse within the field. It has been the functions performed by the syllabus committee that has enabled specific data and information relevant to the object – that is the Frames – to be accessed. Utilising one of the central tenets of Foucault’s concept of governmentality, that the self becomes the subject of one’s own government, this discursive analysis of the Frames will identify how the Visual Arts came to act upon themselves as a subject of knowledge and as a knowing subject throughout the 1990s.
5.1 The Discursive Conditions of Possibility for the Frames
In this section I trace the discourses and processes underlying the development of the Frames in NSW art education. I will show how the national curriculum initiatives and frameworks impacted upon subsequent changes to the visual arts curriculum. That is, the development of the Visual Arts Stage 6 Syllabus, Preliminary and HSC Courses (BOS, 1999) emerged in response to broader trends towards standards and outcomes-based reform. The power relationships embedded within the development of this new syllabus is also evidenced in the debate about subject knowledge as various key agents struggled for the right to determine what Visual Arts knowledge was and how that knowledge should be taught, learnt and assessed.
The KLACCs constituted by the BOS for each of the eight KLAs of the secondary curriculum during 1990 were responsible for reviewing subject offerings in a particular key learning area and for providing a K-12 perspective. The development of syllabus documents was assigned to syllabus teams, operating as or through, the use of small writing groups. Input from the wider community was obtained through an expanded use of consultative networks. The meeting minutes of the Years 7-12 Visual Arts Syllabus Committee record that the Creative Arts KLACC recommended, “all secondary syllabuses be reviewed in the light of a K-12 continuum” (1991, March, 7, p. 3). One working party is delegated responsibility for reviewing the Years 7- 10 and Years 11-12 Visual Arts syllabuses. Four of the nine members of this working party include university representatives Amanda Weate and Neil Brown, as well as Kerry Thomas, Inspector, Creative Arts, and Paul Milton, Board Inspector. Another working party, responsible for developing Outcome Statements, included Kerry Thomas as one of four members.
Len Rieser, Chairperson, Visual Arts Syllabus Committee, outlines six aspects of the Years 7- 10 and 11-12 syllabuses that were to be addressed in the review (1991, May 31, p. 1). These include:
(i) Ensure that the syllabuses contain all of the elements required by the Board. (ii) Develop a Rationale more consistent with the role of the Visual Arts in
214 contemporary society and which explains in a more explicit way, the unique natures of Art, Craft and Design and their relationships. (iii) Ensure that the structure of the syllabus is in keeping with contemporary theories in Visual Arts education and teaching practice. (iv) Ensure that each syllabus is part of a K-12 continuum with clearly defined stages. (v) Provide a contemporary framework for approaches to the Visual Arts. (vi) Explain the role of technologies in the Visual Arts.
This list is evidence of the broader, external forces that influenced, dictated and were a form of dominant control over the discursive practices of the Art Syllabus Committee including: the Board; contemporary society incorporating relations between Art, Craft and Design; contemporary theories; the K-12 concept; and technologies. The Art Syllabus Committee monitored, negotiated and audited their behaviour in accordance with these regulatory modes of power/knowledge. Rose (1989) highlights the manner in which “we evaluate ourselves according to the criteria provided for us by others” (p. 11). It was the role of the Syllabus Review Committee to fulfill the requirements of the Board, including the incorporation of the dominant K-12 discourse, whilst at the same time develop a new curriculum object, ‘a contemporary framework’, that was written and arranged in a way that satisfied the complex networks of interests and agencies in the field of art education.
Rieser (1991, May 31, p. 1) acknowledges that outcomes were also being developed for Visual Arts Years 7-10 and Years 11-12 Syllabuses using the following mandatory categories: Knowledge and Understanding; Skills; and, Values and Attitudes. Outcomes for each stage were provided to indicate a representative example of what students were expected to achieve at the end of that stage. The development of subject outcomes was a consequence of the Board’s Curriculum Outcomes (1991b) document distributed to schools in early November. This document (previously discussed in Chapter Four) provided an initial statement on curriculum outcomes, defining the concept and discussing the relationship of outcomes with objectives, stages, assessment, reporting, and flexible progression. The Education Reform Act required that the Board structure its syllabuses in terms of the learning outcomes to be achieved at the end of each curriculum stage. The outcomes were to relate to the existing syllabuses for the relevant course, in this instance Visual Arts, and read in conjunction with the Board’s Curriculum Outcomes document. The sets of outcomes developed by the BOS over the period 1990-93 were broad indicators of the learning expectations arising from the syllabus.
Brown, a tertiary nominee, presented a paper to the Sub-Committee responsible for reviewing the Visual Arts Years 7-10 and Years 11-12 Syllabuses on the 10th April, 1991 (Appendix E).
215 This document has not been reproduced and would appear only to be known and valued by those who were in attendance at its delivery. This paper corresponds to Rieser’s (1991, May 31, p. 1) fifth point on the list of issues to be addressed in the review: ‘Provide a contemporary framework for approaches to the Visual Arts’. Brown developed a curriculum object that provided new and alternative approaches to the description, interpretation and explanation of art. In this minimal, single-page document, the Frames make their first discursive appearance.
Brown’s paper comprises three parts, which identify three key issues. They are: 4 Focus Areas, Process/Content Schema, and Studying and Making. In the first section, a hand written annotation along the left side notes ‘4 FOCUS AREAS’. Focus Areas designates the four content options in the 1987 Visual Arts Syllabus Years 11-12. Four categories, which characterise art, are described in this section under the heading ‘By reference to the following Perspectives’. They are: Historico/Cultural Approaches to Art; Structural Approaches to Art; Subjective Approaches to Art; and, Art as Difference, Discourse and the Post Modern. Three of the four categories include examples. Historico/Cultural Approaches to Art entails four examples. They are: ‘the periodisation/policy of art’, ‘the politicisation/class/art as labour/gender’, ‘the dialectical/conceptual issues in art & aesthetics’ and ‘the psychoanalytical, object relations’, where italics indicates hand written additions, possibly added during the meeting. Structural Approaches to Art has three examples: ‘the signification of art as a referential language system’, ‘the conception of art as universal aesthetic language of signs’, ‘the reading of art as a system of conventional references’. Subjective Approaches to Art has two examples: ‘Art as experience’ and ‘Art as personal response’. The fourth does not use ‘Approach’ but the statement ‘Art as Difference, Discourse and the Post Modern’.
The middle section is presented as a three-dimensional matrix. This section is an analysis, which takes up the current 1987 Visual Arts Syllabus Years 11-12. Two columns are labelled as one ‘Process/Content Schema’. The ‘Psycho/Processes’ show the psycho-logistic paradigm of the syllabus restated as an epistemological discourse as ‘Knowledge/Content’. Brown suggests ‘Knowledge/Content’ as Conception, The Imperative of theory: ‘Knowing that’, Technical performance and enactments: ‘Knowing how’, and Formation and uptake of values: ‘Knowing that one’.
The third section of Brown’s paper registers the first appearance of ‘Practice’. Three disciplined-based art education roles are the power/knowledge base for the expression of ‘practice’ in this section. These are: The ‘Practice’ of Making Art; Critical Practice in the Visual Arts; and, Historical Practice in the Visual Arts. Once again, a hand written annotation along the left notes ‘STUDYING AND MAKING’.
216 This paper has been reproduced in such detail above as I contend that Brown’s sophisticated appraisal of the conceptual organisation of the 1987 Visual Arts Syllabus Years 11-12 is the origin of the Frames. I will show in the discussion to follow that the Frames were made ‘thinkable’ as objects of knowledge under the conditions of possibility configured by the discursive formations in this paper.
At the first recorded meeting of the Visual Arts Syllabus Review Sub-Committee (1991, April 19, p. 1), three “philosophical assumptions” in the current syllabus are recorded as needing to “be retained”. They are: ‘the relating of making to studying’; ‘the local environment as a source of ideas for making artworks’; and, ‘emphasis on Australian Art’. The Sub-Committee was anxious to sustain a series of discourses as Australian Art that had been their constant preoccupation throughout the 1980s (detailed in Chapter Three). In this meeting, ‘Questions arising from the paper presented by Neil Brown’ are also recorded. This paper does not directly reiterate the words Historico/Cultural, Structural, Subjective and Art as Difference, Discourse and the Post Modern however I argue, that the Frames make their second, invisible and silent, discursive appearance as these five questions:
1. Application of the ‘focus areas’ to K-12. 2. Clarification of the place of the learning experiences. 3. Production of artworks within the ‘focus areas’ described. 4. The place of technologies? 5. How will Craft and Design be more clearly identified by the ‘focus areas’?
These five questions mobilise the discursive function of the Frames however the Focus Areas continue as the object of importance. These questions are attempting ‘continuity’ by looking for the presence of the identifying K-12, child-centred discourses of the 1987 Visual Arts Syllabus. The last two questions in this list highlight the continued struggle for the Art Syllabus Committee of resolving definitions of ‘technologies’ as well as art, craft and design in the syllabus despite the existence of the Focus Area, ‘Art and Design’. This dilemma reappears on the agenda of the second ‘Visual Arts Syllabus Review’ meeting (1991, May 10, p. 1) as the third of five items: “Determine the different natures of art, craft and design”. Hand-written additions by Thomas, a member of this Sub-Committee, possibly added or in response to discussions held at this meeting, expands upon this item on the agenda. The ‘Philosophical Questions’ posed in these annotated notes read: “(i) what is believed to be worthwhile”; “(ii) the structure of knowledge – implications for practice”; “(iii) overlap between the philosophical and sociological”. These questions are of significance as they show that the Art Syllabus Committee’s attempts to define subject knowledge in the Visual Arts included philosophical and
217 sociological bases for the syllabus. The ‘Sociological Questions’ delineated by Thomas take into consideration ‘present society’ including “how and why it has developed in that way” and “social change – technology, ideology, etc.”. ‘Essential components’ of the syllabus are also listed as incorporating ‘A Selection from Culture’ and ‘Psychological/Learning Conditions’.
A paper titled ‘Making and Studying Artworks’ is also attached to this Sub-Committee documentation. This document has four columns respectively titled ‘APPROACHES (FOCUS AREAS)’, ‘CONTENT SUBJECT MATTER/MEDIA’, ‘KNOWLEDGE/SKILLS/VALUES’, and ‘TEACHING STRATEGIES’. Listed under the first column ‘APPROACHES (FOCUS AREAS)’ is ‘Cultural’, ‘Structural’, ‘Subjective’ and ‘Discourse’. The four approaches to art included in Brown’s (1991, April 10) paper reappear as this new vocabulary of terms. The Frames, whilst yet to be named, are represented as being integrated with constructs in the existing syllabus. ‘Historico/Cultural’ has become ‘Cultural’ and ‘Art as Difference, Discourse and the Post Modern’ is abbreviated to ‘Discourse’. The third column heading, ‘KNOWLEDGE/SKILLS/VALUES’, is the mandatory categories for outcomes in the syllabus.
The BOS constructed the parameters upon which changes in the knowledge base of Visual Arts were made possible. In an undated paper titled ‘Board Decisions Requiring Action/Advice By Visual Arts Syllabus Committee’ the first two of eight ‘Decisions’ listed are ‘Review Visual Arts Syllabus 7-10’ and ‘Review Visual Arts Syllabus 11-12’. Both these ‘decisions’ are assigned a ‘Target Date’ of 1991 with the following ‘Intended Outcomes’:
Ensure that this syllabus: i. is an effective and connected stage in a K-12 continuum ii. promotes the use of new technologies iii. provides clearly delineated strands for Craft and Design.
These three outcomes resemble the five questions posed at the first Sub-Committee meeting (1991, April 19). The third ‘Decision’ is ‘Develop outcome statements for the current syllabuses in the Visual Arts’ with a ‘Target Date’ of June 1991. ‘Possible Initiatives’ in response to these ‘Decisions’ and their ‘Intended Outcomes’ is the organisation of ‘teacher forums’, to gain teacher input in relation to:
- The place of Craft and Design in the Visual Arts curriculum - Ways in which the K-6, 7-10 and 11-12 syllabuses can be better connected - The place of technology in the Visual Arts curriculum - Outcomes in the Visual Arts
218 The recurrence of these listed points in the meeting minutes is evidence of the Visual Arts Syllabus Committee’s priorities during this period. Teachers played an important role in providing feedback on the production of these discourses through forums held in various geographic locations. All major groups including the BOS, Government and Non-government Teachers and the AES NSW were invited to be involved in the organisation of these forums. They provided for consultation with teachers in relation to important issues affecting their work as well as valuable professional development opportunities. The BOS regulated the discursive production of KLAs with minimal contribution from agencies within the field. In contrast to this, as a result of the multiple agents who participated in these teacher forums, new coalitions were established between teachers from Visual Arts, Music, Dance and Drama. These forums revealed, “links between these areas exist” according to the Visual Arts Syllabus Committee (1991, April 24, p. 5).
The Years 7-12 Visual Arts Syllabus Committee recommended to the BOS the introduction of three new 2 Unit Courses for Years 11 and 12 that would operate across discipline courses for the Creative Arts KLA. These new courses were: 1. Design and the Arts, 2. Critical Cultural Studies, and, 3. Film Arts. The syllabus committee believed that these courses “would provide for a greater expansion of areas of study in the existing 2 Unit Music, Drama, Dance and Visual Arts courses, enabling these areas to be studied in greater depth as significant areas of learning in their own right” (1991, May 29, p. 1). The invention of these courses appear to be an attempt to satisfy the ‘Intended Outcomes’ listed above, in response to the BOS’ ‘Decision’ to review the Years 11-12 Visual Arts Syllabus. Hand-written annotations by Thomas on the proposals for these new courses once again highlight the syllabus committee’s deliberations. They read:
1. Allow for the study of areas not currently available 2. Allow for a higher degree of specialisation 3. More career orientated 4. Add meaning and purpose to the Key Learning Area 5. Specialised high schools 6. Meaning making 7. Self
Written across the top of these proposals is “no attempt to displace the traditional courses” (1991, April 24, p. 1). On the one hand, the syllabus review committee had to ensure that the review of the syllabus contained all of the elements required by the BOS. On the other, they were anxious to introduce a new knowledge base into the visual arts curriculum.
219 Proposal for the development of these 2 Unit Creative Arts courses is deferred from the meeting minutes of the syllabus committee (1991, June 26, p. 5). “No significant progress made” (1991, September 25, p. 3) is recorded in the minutes in regard to the syllabus review until a ‘Working Parties Meeting Schedule’ lists the first task for the Syllabus Review – Years 7-10 as “Write the draft syllabus” (1991, October 30, p. 5).29 From May to December 1992, the working party revised the Years 7-10 Visual Arts Syllabus.
5.2 Visual Arts Years 7-10 Syllabus
The Introduction to the Visual Arts Years 7-10 Syllabus was to describe “the relationship of the syllabus to the Creative Arts Key Learning Area and to the K-12 Framework Statement” whilst the Rationale “will explain how the syllabus contributes to the purposes of schooling in NSW as set out in Excellence and Equity, the Education Reform Act, and the Carrick Report” (1992, March 25, p. 1). Considering this, changes in government policy circumscribed and influenced art education and as a result, substantially impacted the development, structure and content of the Visual Arts syllabus. Art education was denied subject authority as the syllabus was forced to engage with discourses of the wider field. During this period, members of this working party assumed multiple roles including membership of the working party formed to respond to the National Arts Statement Brief that was included in the NSW written response. Work was yet to commence on the Visual Arts Years 11-12 Syllabus however the syllabus committee were in agreement that provision should be made in Years 11-12 for two courses: Visual Art and Visual Design.
The Draft 7-10 Visual Arts Syllabus was presented to the Visual Arts Syllabus Committee on the 2nd December, 1992. In this draft, a graphic presentation of the basic structure provides a ‘roadmap’ of the syllabus. Four components form the content of the syllabus and are presented as headings across four columns respectively. They are: Strands, Subject Matter, Forms and Frames. The syllabus contains two strands, Art and Design. The four Frames are named: Cultural, Structural, Subjective and Postmodern, and identify Visual Arts content for the first time in this text. The term ‘discourse’ has disappeared with the appearance of ‘Postmodern’. The Objectives of this draft syllabus are formulated using the same categories found in the document Subject Outcomes: Creative Arts 7-12 (BOS, 1992). They are explained using Brown’s (1991, April 10) epistemological discourse as: ‘Knowledge and Understanding’ (Know that); ‘Skills’ (Know how – Technical/Conventions); and, ‘Values and Attitudes’ (Know that one).
29 Members of this working party were: Neil Brown, Sue Baker, Len Rieser, Amanda Weate (Convenor), Julie Stevens, Paul Milton, and Ina Burt (AES – Observer).
220 Nineteen written responses to the draft syllabus tabled at this committee meeting were considered. The responses addressed the structure of the draft, the continued dilemma of resolving definitions of art and design, the mandatory and additional course requirements, the explanation and use of the Frames, and the proposed learning processes. Members also took the opportunity at this meeting to address their concerns surrounding the Frames within this document. Weate believes that the draft syllabus is not conceptually sound and should be returned to the syllabus committee for further development. The Frames provide definition of the subject Art according to Weate and should be moved to the front of the document. With only one of these definitions being followed in the text, she argues that the Frames are misunderstood and revert to being content statements. Similarly to Weate, Brown “feels the Frames are not articulated as they should be” (1992, December 2, p. 2). Brown’s submission to the Visual Arts Syllabus Committee is discussed in detail in the next section of this chapter. Interestingly, Brown was on leave from January to July 1992 during the development of this draft document.
Penny McKeon, COFA, UNSW presents a detailed critique of the inadequacies of the Draft Visual Arts Years 7-10 Syllabus. Like Weate (1992, December 2), McKeon (1992, December 2) considered the draft document to be overly complicated and conceptually flawed in several ways. She argues that aspects of the Years 7-10 and 11-12 syllabuses identified by Rieser (1991, May 31) that were to be addressed in the review are not signaled in the introduction, rationale or aims of the draft. The character and distinction between art and design is not set out according to McKeon and craft is not included at all. The employment of the Frames as organisers within the structure of the document is considered “a genuine and welcome innovation in syllabus terms” (p. 4) however McKeon is disgruntled by the ‘impoverished’ placement of this “most useful component of the syllabus” (p. 12) in the latter third of the document. She recommends that the Frames be signaled at the outset of the syllabus and included in the introduction.
It was determined at this meeting to rewrite substantial portions of the draft syllabus in accordance with the tabled responses. The syllabus committee formulated a writing timeline. Term 4, 1993 was nominated for consultation of the amended draft with an implementation date of Term 1, 1994. The areas identified by the working party that required attention include: ‘intention of the Frames’, ‘appropriate definitions of art, craft and design within the draft syllabus’, and ‘degree of difficulty with outcome statements’. Ian Brown, a tertiary institution nominee from the University of Wollongong, was delegated the task at this meeting “to incorporate Neil Brown’s model into Syllabus Structure and show how frames are used by teachers”. Brown was “to prepare a statement on the definitions for art, craft and design” (1992, December 14, p. 2). The syllabus committee was in agreement that the new syllabuses maintain the valued components of the 1987 syllabus, including the continuing priority of the making of
221 art, and at the same time, respond to contemporary art education and curriculum theory. The Frames are introduced, according to Weate, “in recognition of the various perspectives or belief systems about art” (1993, March 8. p. 1). The conception of art presented by the Frames is inclusive of a range of beliefs or perspectives, rather than the single approach of individual expression. The Frames:
acknowledge that art operates in an individual, expressive and subjective mode, as represented in the 1987 syllabus. However, art may also be conceived as concerned with social traditions or beliefs, or to explore the structural aspects of art making, or to explore art itself as represented through postmodern irony (p. 1).
Attached to an undated document titled ‘Draft Visual Arts 7-10 Syllabus Structure’, with ‘possible alternative’ hand-written across the top of the page, the four Frames – Subjective, Postmodern, Cultural, Structural – are respectively defined by a list of bullet points.30 A selection of these definitive statements resembles Brown’s (1991, April 10) perspectives of art.
30 FRAME: Making and Studying Subjective: x art as experience x experience constituted as a field of knowledge x art as personal response x intentionality of the artist x meaning making through the self x autonomy of the artist Postmodern: x blurring of boundaries between ‘criticism’ and ‘creation’ x images read as texts x appropriation, pastiche – works have no clear cut defined boundaries, they spill over into other works generating many different perspectives x codes and fragments of codes – seamless web like complexities x discourse x ‘ideas’ do not exist in a blank space Cultural: x art history periods x art styles, movements x contextual studies x dialectical and conceptual issues in art, design and aesthetics x politicisation of art, power, patronage, class, gender x psychoanalytical approaches Structural: x images fit together to form a structure-relational meanings in works x the form of a work as an autonomous unit x relations between the signifier and the signified x ‘decentering’ the individual – the individual is not regarded as the source or end of meaning x artworks as ‘constructions’ whose mechanisms can be analysed x meaning – the product of certain shared forms of signification, not a provate experience nor a divinely ordained occurrence.
222 ‘Art as experience’ and ‘art as personal response’ listed under the ‘Subjective’ are the exact two descriptions provided by Brown under ‘Subjective Approaches to Art’. Three of the six points listed under ‘Cultural’: ‘dialectical and conceptual issues in art, design and aesthetics’; ‘politicisation of art, power, patronage, class, gender’; and, ‘psychoanalytical approaches’, are replicas of Brown’s ‘Historico/Cultural Approaches to Art’. These definitions sanction Brown’s discourse and situate him as the ‘speaker’ and an effective mechanism of influence for the Frames. This issue is taken up in a later section of this chapter.
The draft Visual Arts Years 7-10 Syllabus submitted to the Curriculum Committee in June 1993 includes objectives and outcomes for Stages 4 and 5, takes into consideration recent developments in Visual Arts education, and makes more explicit the role and nature of design in Visual Arts education for students in Years 7-10. This was in accordance with the National Statement and Profile for the Arts. Despite this, the Curriculum Committee raised the following concern:
While the document has sought to relate to the National Profile, more work is needed to indicate that Assessment is to be consistent with, and directed by, the National Profile. There also needs to be a section in the early part of the document which shows the relationship between the syllabus and the National Statement and Profile (1993, July 28, p. 1).
Opposition to the National Profiles and their appearance in the draft Visual Arts Years 7-10 Syllabus from the arts community in NSW is found in the official record. In response to a letter from one art educator, Len Rieser, Chairperson, declared: “Much as we find them inadequate we have no option but to put our minds to the task of the best way to incorporate them. This is the only way we are ever going to get our revised syllabus approved by the Board and the Minister” (1993, October 11). The production, distribution and use of the National Profiles delimited the boundaries of desired and acceptable practices. This power/knowledge of the National Profiles inculcated willingness from the syllabus committee. Rieser continues:
As in most, if not all, political matters of the ‘idealists’ are outnumbered by the ‘pragmatists’ on the syllabus committee. Thus the syllabus committee is trying to find a way to include the National Profiles in such a way as not to diminish the quality or intention of our syllabus. I’m hopeful that the outcome of this effort may not be just “lip service” but will indicate to discerning readers both the strengths of NSW Visual Arts education and the limitations of the National Profiles (1993, October 11).
223 The disciplining power of the BOS resulted in the syllabus committee regulating its behaviour and internalising the discursive practices embodied in the National Profiles. It was the syllabus committee’s intention that this would result in continuous improvement and productivity for the Visual Arts.
Kerry Thomas, Chairperson, Years 7-12 Visual Arts Syllabus Committee, notified the syllabus committee members (1994, January 11) that following further revision, the Visual Arts Years 7- 10 Syllabus was approved by the BOS on the 21st December, 1993. Following approval by the Minister, the syllabus was distributed to all high schools and fifty government primary schools for consultation. Changes in art educational discourse as interdependent with shifts in systems of authority is evidenced in this syllabus by the inclusion of national curriculum initiatives and frameworks. A page is dedicated in the syllabus to Relationships between this syllabus and ‘A statement on the arts for Australian schools’ and ‘The arts – a curriculum profile for Australian schools’ (p. 4). The syllabus highlights that these two documents have been considered in the formulation of this text in the following ways:
x This syllabus is concerned with courses of study in the Visual Arts which represents one of the five art form strands identified in ‘A statement on the arts for Australian schools’ and ‘The arts – a curriculum profile for Australian schools’. x The practices of Making, Critical Study, and Historical Study identified in this syllabus relate to (within the NSW context), the components of making/creating/presenting, arts criticism and aesthetics, and past and present contexts identified in ‘A statement on the arts for Australian schools’ and ‘The arts – a curriculum profile for Australian schools’. x The Outcomes described in levels in this syllabus, build on and expand the more generic outcome levels statements identified in ‘The arts – a curriculum profile for Australian schools’ in terms of the practices, content, and teaching and learning process explained in this syllabus. x The field of the visual arts described in this syllabus includes the areas broadly known as art, craft, and design (p. 4).
The Introduction to the Visual Arts Years 7-10 Syllabus (1994) states: “This syllabus introduces a number of new concepts and maintains successful innovations from the previous syllabus” (BOS, 1994, p. 2). The bulleted concepts and innovations listed in the syllabus appear to satisfy the six aspects outlined by Rieser (1991, May 31, p. 1) that were to be addressed in the review of the Years 7-10 and 11-12 syllabuses. These include:
224 x The Frames recognise that Making and Studying in the Visual Arts is conditioned by different theoretical orientations which affect the way images and objects are identified, valued, interpreted, created and used. x Making, Critical Study, and Historical Study are more clearly identified as the essential Making and Studying practices. x Craft and Design are more explicitly acknowledged as part of the field of the Visual Arts. x Objectives are extended by Outcomes which are set out in stages and relate to the Practices, Content, and Teaching and Learning Process explained in this syllabus as well as ‘The arts – a curriculum profile for Australian schools’. x Exploring, Developing and Resolving are introduced as strategies for planning, sequencing and relating learning activities. These take into account the processes or perceiving, conceiving and evaluating that students use in learning. x The Australian and contemporary focus is maintained (p. 2).
This is the first formal appearance of the Frames in their ‘rarity’ (Foucault, 1972, p. 120) in this syllabus text. The unique and valued statement of the Frames takes two forms. These are ‘the Frames’ in the singular and the Frames autonomously identified as the Subjective, Cultural, Structural and Postmodern. The Focus Areas have disappeared and the Frames are now written.
Visual Arts Practices, Content, and Teaching and Learning are the three main components of the syllabus. The ‘Visual Arts Practices’ are spoken of as Making, Critical Study, and Historical Study. The organising of art educational content as these three practices uses the foundational roles of DBAE, the North American discourse of art education that utilises art production, art history, art criticism, and aesthetics as the parent disciplines for visual arts practice. In this syllabus, three of these four disciplines have been adopted. These concepts are used in Brown’s (1991, April 10) document in conjunction with the word ‘Practice’. Practice appears for the first time in Brown’s paper.
The Visual Arts Years 7-10 Syllabus (1994) is a series of contested discourses as the Frames struggle to find their place within the syllabus among the competing discourses of process and DBAE roles and models. ‘Content’ within the syllabus is identified as Subject Matter, Forms and Frames. The Frames are spoken of as ‘Subject Matter, Forms and Frames’ seventeen times in the text. The particularities of the four Frames are subsidiary to the dominance of ‘the Frames’ as a concept in its singularity and its relationship to subject matter and forms. The syllabus states, “Each Frame sets the content of the visual arts, in terms of Subject Matter and
225 Forms, into a context of relations” (BOS, 1994, p. 29). Assistance is offered to art educators in the form of a three-column diagram with the headings ‘Subject Matter’, ‘Forms’, and ‘Frames’, which “sets out some of the content options available for planning learning activities” (p. 18). The reappearance of this ‘roadmap’ as a “technique of rewriting” (Foucault, 1972, p. 59) is influential in the reading of the document. This diagram assigns an injunction to the reading and use of these three components of content. It implies that a conversation can be had between Subject Matter, Forms, and Frames. As such, Subject Matter, Forms and Frames are represented as a homogenous entity, which is antagonistic to the meaning of the Frames.
The structure of the syllabus indicates that the repetition of the statement ‘the Frames’ strengthens this discourse. However, the four discrete Frames: Subjective, Cultural, Structural, and Postmodern, are hidden as ‘the Frames’ is placed alongside other areas of content. The discourses of the Frames are the discourses of art.31 Statements such as, “the Frames model different systems of belief which are relevant to the theory and practice of the visual arts in the twentieth century” (BOS, 1994, p. 29), are evidence of the value of diversity and possibilities for choice within the syllabus. The word ‘different’ however, already has currency within child- centred discourse. Statements in the content areas of ‘Subject Matter’ such as: “Students might explore themselves … ”; “The objects which surround students …”; “The events which students experience … ”; and “challenge their understanding of themselves and their world” (pp. 20-23), renders each individual student as ‘different’ and their experiences unique. The meaning of difference is placed within the field of sociology, an area identified earlier in this section by Thomas (1991, May 10) as requiring attention. The Frames are therefore presented in ‘mutual functioning’ (Foucault, 1972, p. 29) with child-centred discourse. This co-existence implies that
31 Frames (BOS, 1994, pp. 30-32): Subjective: x the individual’s immediate sensory, expressive and imaginative powers; x the unconscious, the intuitive and the imagination as a source of ideas and meaning; x the re-creation of shared human experiences. Cultural: x ideological views and deeply embedded notions of cultural identity, including the effect on artistic practices of such things as class, race and gender; x art movements and styles, including the sorts of principles, interests and manifestos which may have bound individuals to art or design movements; x the relationship of scientific and technological innovation and artistic practice; x the influence of politics and economics on practices used in the visual arts. Structural: x the conventions of the codes, symbols and signs that are used in the making of works; x the image or object as a system of signs that can be read; x the formal organisation and relationships in works. Postmodern: x the irony and parody of quotation and appropriation in the visual arts; x the inconsistencies which may exist in the assumptions upon which works are made and valued.
226 the diverse Frames are seen as a possibility rather than a basis for understanding content within the Visual Arts. The Frames are furthermore described as “alternative grounds” and providing for “alternative ways” (BOS, 1994, p. 29). This use of ‘alternative’ advances the Frames in a tentative manner and situates them as subordinate to ‘dominant’ discourses. The syllabus offers, “a work with a particular value and meaning, from the orientation of one frame, may not be as well understood from another frame” (p. 29). There is no implied appropriateness inferred for selecting one of the four Frames.
The inclusion of Outcomes for Levels 4-8 in Visual Arts in this syllabus is consistent with ‘The arts – a curriculum profile for Australian schools’. The outcomes from the profile are included at each level, indicated with the use of asterisks. In the 1997 reprint of the Visual Arts Years 7- 10 Syllabus, the objectives and outcomes are replaced in response to Focusing on Learning: Report of the Review of Outcomes and Profiles in New South Wales Schooling (Eltis, 1995). Following the Eltis Review of Profiles and Outcomes, established in April 1995, which rejected the national curriculum initiatives as formal policy in NSW, the BOS undertook an extensive review of the content and outcomes of the syllabus to inform the development of the replacement syllabus. In the 1997 syllabus, the four frames named in series are modified within the ‘Objectives and Outcomes’ of the syllabus. The Frames are rewritten as “frames of value” and “frameworks of value” (BOS, 1997a, p. 10). The repetition of ‘frame’ or ‘frames’ in this instance does not restate the discourse of the Frames but rather affects the maintenance of the discursive form of the Frames as the Subjective, Cultural, Structural and Postmodern. The third component of the syllabus is ‘Teaching and Learning’. Exploring, developing and resolving provide an “action cycle” (p. 34) for teachers and students. A ‘process’ discourse continues to occupy a field of presence. This memory of the 1987 syllabus contradicts the possibilities and values of the Frames.
A Report on the survey responses received on the Formal consultation Draft of the 7-10 Visual Arts Syllabus was prepared for the Years 7-12 Visual Arts Syllabus Committee. From approximately two hundred and sixty survey responses received from individuals and groups, the issues raised in response to the Frames included: “Uncertainty about the Postmodern as a Frame. A significant number of teachers thought that the Postmodern could be explained in terms of the Cultural Frame. Some believed that the Frame should be called contemporary”; “Concern expressed about the density of language used in the statement about the Postmodern”; and, “General perception that more information is required on the Frames” (1994, April 13, p. 2).
227 A response to the Draft Visual Arts Years 7-10 Syllabus is received from The Department of School Education (1994, June 8). It was the Department’s position that, “The sub-category titles – cultural, structural, subjective and postmodern – are confusing for many teachers” (p. 4). The Department acknowledges, “This suggests a philosophical debate which is more complex than this response allows” and offers a set of titles which “may more clearly determine the sub- categories”:
x cultural, theoretical and stylistic x cultural, formal, expressive and critical (p. 4).
Another undated response to the Draft Visual Arts Years 7-10 Syllabus is received from the AES prepared by Ms. Ina Burt, President. AES affirms the Frames as a “welcome invitation, which authentically distinguish contemporary beliefs and practices in the field of the Visual Arts”. The AES anticipates a support document for the classroom educator that would be able to adequately interpret and support this “most novel aspect of the syllabus”. The seventh and final issue raised by the AES in this document addresses the term postmodernism. According to the AES, postmodernism “applied to one of the four frames entails an ambiguity of meaning as postmodernism is variously a method, and a designated historical period”. The methodological intention of the Postmodern Frame is considered to be unclear and as such, the AES predicts that teachers will misinterpret the postmodern as a synonym for the contemporary. The AES propose alternate or additional descriptors for this Frame such as “deconstruction, transgression or disjunction might be considered as interpretive extensions which clarify the role and character of this frame”.
In accordance with the responses received during this consultative process, it was the Years 7- 12 Visual Arts Syllabus Committee’s recommendation that more information and explanation on the Frames, particularly the Postmodern Frame, was needed in the Visual Arts Years 7-10 Support Document. This included some of the possibilities when engaged with the practices: “A support document would be developed to assist teachers to understand more about the practical implications of the Years 7-10 Syllabus for teaching” (1994, March 2, p. 1). Further explanation of the Frames including references for additional reading on the Frames was to be addressed in the Support Document: “Book Lists on Frames, particularly Post Modernism” (1993, May 17, p. 2). Weate acknowledges:
The nominated Frame shows how the selected objectives and outcomes are engaged with the practices. Showing how the frames can focus and direct the program will be
228 perhaps the most important feature of the programs in the Years 7-10 Visual Arts Syllabus Support Document (1994, March 29, p. 1).
Each program in the support document was to include a Frame or Frames that actively informed the subsequent program rather than being nominated and then forgotten. Work continued on a Visual Arts Years 7-10 Support Document until its completion in July 1996.
A chapter in the Visual Arts Years 7-10 Support Document (1997b) titled Framing the Framed: An Exploration of Meaning and Interpretation in the Syllabus is dedicated to providing further explanation about the Frames as different orientations to the Visual Arts. The Frames are acknowledged in this support document as representing “the biggest departure from traditional structures in visual arts education in NSW” (BOS, 1997b, p. 25). The Frames – Subjective, Structural, Cultural and Postmodern, listed in that order, indicate: “we have moved on from an optimistic assumption that intellectuals can construct a unified and exhaustive unambiguous explanation or theory of everything” (p. 25). The four different orientations are “devices for the asking and answering of different kinds of questions about artworks” (p. 27). In the process of understanding, expressing and explaining, the Frames are ‘methods’ or ‘the means’ by which the practices, subject matter and forms can be investigated. The last point made under the fifth subheading in the support document clarifies: “The move from one frame to another suggests that there is no need to deal in right or wrong when looking at the relative appropriateness of a given frame. Rather, each frame offers different kinds of information and understandings” (p. 29). A page in the support document titled The Frames and Critical and Historical Questions provides a list of questions under each of the four Frames to show how the Frames can be used to focus different types of critical and historical inquiries in Visual Arts.
Thomas informed the syllabus committee members in a letter (1994, July 20) of the Board’s endorsement of the Visual Arts Years 7-10 Syllabus. It was the BOS’ decision that “subject to the comments by the Board being addressed, the Years 7-10 Visual Arts syllabus be endorsed and forwarded to the Minister for implementation in 1995” (1994, July 4, p. 1007). One of these comments by the Board reads: “In the Visual Arts syllabus, there are four frames: Cultural, Structural, Subjective and Postmodern. Postmodern does not seem to be of a kind with the other three and the syllabus committee should be requested to provide clarification” (p. 1007). Despite the approval of the syllabus, the Frames continued to be received with uncertainty by some agencies in the field, including the BOS, with recurring problems surrounding the definition of the Postmodern frame.
229 5.3 Visual Arts Years 11-12 Syllabus Review
Following the endorsement of the Visual Arts Years 7-10 Syllabus, work commenced on the Visual Arts Years 11-12 Syllabus review. Revision of this syllabus began in May 1993 however little progress was made on the document during the remainder of the year as the draft Years 7- 10 syllabus took precedence. Len Rieser, Chairperson, Years 7-12 Visual Arts Syllabus Committee, deemed this review “a much bigger task” (1993, May 17, p. 3). For the first time, guidelines for the development of the senior syllabus were to be “evolved from the ‘middle-up’ or Years 7-10 to Years 11 and 12” (1993, May 31, p. 6). The anticipated timeline for the HSC Syllabus implementation was Year 11, 1995 and for Year 12, 1996.
A ‘Report on the 11-12 Visual Arts Syllabus Review Meeting’ outlines six proposals for the direction of the review (1994, February 24, p. 1). Three of these proposals are:
x That the general directions of the 7-10 syllabus form the basis for the 11-12 syllabus review; x That descriptions of the practices include a greater emphasis on how the frames and functions effect practices; x That in descriptions of content the various functions of the ‘artworld’ – the artist/designer, work, world and audience be identified as significant areas of content. Through this approach, content of Subject Matter and Forms would not be lost in the 11-12 syllabus but ‘repositioned’. The Frames would remain in place.
Though not yet named, this third proposal registers the discursive appearance of the ‘Conceptual Framework’ in the 1999 syllabus. The agencies of the Conceptual Framework appear in Brown’s (1994a) rebuke of the National Curriculum Statement and Profiles (previously discussed in Chapter Four). In an undated working paper of the Years 11 and 12 Syllabus Review, the Frames and Practices are positioned in relation to the functions that are the categories or entities that represent the artworld – artist, beholder, work, world. The Frames “provide a perspective or way of looking at that artworld and do this relative to each practice” while each of the Practices (Making Art and Design, Critical, and Historical) “can be described by the various combinations of all the functions”. The practices are amplified in this paper relative to each of the functions.
During the period of transition from the Years 7-12 Visual Arts Syllabus Committee to the new Visual Arts Syllabus Advisory Committee, from the middle of 1994 to early 1995, work
230 continued on the developing the draft Visual Arts Years 11-12 Syllabus. A document titled ‘Proposal For Years 11-12 Visual Arts Syllabus’, prepared by the previous syllabus committee, indicates a possible structure and content for the Preliminary Course. A cover letter by Thomas (1994, November 30) accompanying this paper anticipated this syllabus to be implemented in Year 11 in 1996 and examined in Year 12, 1997, following approval by the Minister earlier in the year. This proposal was an extension of the Visual Arts Years 7-10 Syllabus in terms of the Practices of Making, Critical Study and Historical Study, the Content of Subject Matter, Forms and Frames. The Practices and Content of the revised junior syllabus provided the foundation components of the Visual Arts course, which were further developed for senior students.
The introduction to the Visual Arts Preliminary Course identifies that this course “builds on the knowledge and understanding, skills, values and attitudes students gained as a result of studying Visual Arts in Years 7-10” (1994, November 30, p. 2). The HSC course expanded upon the “knowledge and understanding, skills, values and attitudes of the Preliminary Course” (p. 8). ‘Knowledge and understanding’, ‘skills’, and ‘values and attitudes’ are the regulative organisational mechanisms for outcomes in the syllabus (discussed earlier in this chapter). Following further development of the syllabus, the proposal for the draft Visual Arts 11-12 syllabus, approved by the BOS in February 1995 was sent to Visual Arts Syllabus Advisory Committee members for consideration.
The minutes record that Thomas informed the syllabus committee that “if the syllabus is to be implemented in Year 11 in 1996 it would need to be submitted to the Curriculum and Assessment Committee meeting of 28th April, 1995” (1995, April 5, p. 3). She stressed that “if the syllabus is not submitted at this time into the round of Board meetings for their approval it would not be able to be implemented next year”. This was due to the “need for proper consultation on the document and the previous Ministers commitment that new syllabuses are in schools by either the last week of Term 3 or the first week of Term”. The disciplinary practice of the timeline represents a form of institutional authority of the BOS and the Minister. This form of dominant control influences and dictates the behaviour and actions of the syllabus committee. Foucault (1977) notes, “disciplinary time was gradually imposed on pedagogical practice” (p. 159). In this instance, the subjugated syllabus committee in turn functioned as obedient, docile and willing. The tabled timeline was also a significant form of power and authority exerted by Thomas over the syllabus committee to motivate members to provide any further suggestions for the draft syllabus.
The Draft Stage 6 Visual Arts Years 11-12 Syllabus, Preliminary, 2 Unit HSC, and 3 Unit Courses, dated the 30th April, 1996, is structured around three main components: Visual Arts
231 Practices, Content, and Teaching and Learning. The Visual Arts Practices – Art Making, Art Criticism and Art History “are modelled on the practices used in the contemporary field of the visual arts” (BOS, 1996b, p. 3). Content is identified and related to each of these practices. In this draft syllabus, the frames, written without capitalisation, acknowledge that learning in the Visual Arts “is conditioned by different theoretical orientations which affect the way the artworks art identified, valued, interpreted, created and used” (BOS, 1996b, p. 4). The frames and the particularities of the four frames as they respectively appear in this draft syllabus are examined in detail in later sections of this chapter. The frames, subject matter and expressive forms provide the content in Art Making. The frames, Areas of Study and critical and historical explanations provide the content in Art Criticism and Art History. Within each Area of Study (Australian, Western Traditions, Asia and the Pacific, Tribal Traditions), three themes are identified to further investigation within the Area of Study. The Teaching and Learning process – Exploring, Developing, Resolving, was proposed to assist teachers to plan, relate and sequence learning activities.
The detail that appears in the Draft Stage 6 Visual Arts Years 11-12 Syllabus was an attempt by the Visual Arts Syllabus Advisory Committee to address problems associated with the lack of content in the 1987 Visual Arts Syllabus Years 11-12 and subsequent issues of the selection of content for the HSC Written Examination. These issues were exacerbated when the 40 plates used in the 2 Unit HSC Examination were found to be in breach of copyright. The RAS (discussed in Chapter Four) introduced in place of the 40 Plates, sought to address content for some questions in the examination more directly. The unstable nature of the RAS was of concern to teachers in terms of their frequency of change (every one to two years) and resource implications. The content in the draft syllabus emerged to alleviate the examination which was heavily structured by way of question types but very limited in what could be anticipated in terms of content. Curricula of this period reflect the influence of the University representatives on the Visual Arts Syllabus Advisory Committee who asserted and exercised enunciative authority for the Frames. Background information accompanying this draft syllabus acknowledges key writers of this document including: Kerry Thomas, Amanda Weate, Penny McKeon, and Neil Brown. McKeon (1998) argues:
the provision of practices, the interpretive modeling function of the frames and the use of case studies and other learning devices in the 1994 junior syllabus and in approved 1996 Draft went a long way to addressing the very qualities which the Board cites as characteristic of softness in the subject (p. 55).
232 Consultation of the draft syllabus occurred throughout Term 3, 1995. Written responses were received as well as information and responses gathered from numerous conferences and in- services held around NSW. The Department of School Education’s response to the Draft Stage 6 Visual Arts Years 11-12 Syllabus outlined the major concerns of teachers:
The document does not provide a clear and explicit overview of the syllabus. The obscure relationships of the parts to the whole and the core of essential learning to the optional components, make interpretation into learning programs complicated (1995, October 1, p. 1).
There are four issues outlined by the Department inherent in the above concern: document layout; complexity of the conceptual structure; inconsistencies in the use of terminology; and, density of the text. The deconstruction of Content as the conceptual structure of the syllabus into a multilayered series of interacting elements including: Practices, Content elements, Areas of Study, Themes for each Area of Study, Critical Issues for each Theme, Historical Topics for each Theme, Forms, Expressive Forms, Evaluative Forms, Explanatory Forms, and Frames, was considered to be unnecessarily complex. The Department recommended a succinct model that demonstrated how teachers might address the structure of the syllabus for their programs.
Thirteen Visual Arts Syllabus Advisory Committee members comprised the senior syllabus Project Team established to collate evaluations from the consultation process and prepare the Visual Arts Years 11-12 Syllabus for the Curriculum Assessment Committee meeting. The development of the syllabus was participatory. Members of the Project Team liaised with the President of the Board and the Manager of Curriculum branch as well as the Assessment branch of the Board, the Aboriginal Educational Consultative Group, and the Aboriginal Education Unit at the BOS. This consultation process informed changes to the new draft syllabus that centred on refining the syllabus document. The sections of the syllabus that were dramatically altered included clarification of the Areas of Study and how these areas relate to the themes. Teaching, Learning and Assessment sections were also enhanced and more clearly represented. The Visual Arts Years 11-12 Syllabus and excerpts from the Support Document were tabled at the Visual Arts Syllabus Advisory Committee meeting (1996, March 27). At this meeting “Ms Thomas thanked Professor Brown for his chapter on the Frames” (p. 2). Brown’s chapter on the Frames is discussed in the next section of this chapter.
The Visual Arts Syllabus Advisory Committee were the specialists in the position to make authoritative statements about objects of knowledge within Visual Arts, however, the Minister of Education was the individual that held institutional power in the distribution of this new
233 knowledge. The syllabus committee was informed that following the BOS’ endorsement of the syllabus, the Minister declined to approve the syllabus for implementation for Year 11 in 1997 due to the McGaw Review of the HSC (1996, July 17). A ‘Memorandum to Principals’ from the President of the BOS was sent to schools informing them of this decision (1996, August 26).
Barry McGaw, Director of the ACER, was appointed to develop a framework for public discussion on the HSC. This extensive investigation into the HSC curriculum and examination comprised three policy documents: Their Future. Options for reform of the Higher School Certificate (McGaw, 1996); Shaping Their Future. Recommendations for reform of the Higher School Certificate (McGaw, 1997); and, Securing Their Future. The New South Wales Government’s reforms for the Higher School Certificate (Aquilina, 1997). The second report included twenty-six recommendations for reform of the NSW HSC based on submissions received from the first report. The main themes of McGaw’s recommendations relate to curriculum, assessment and reporting, and the selection of students for post-school destinations. Curriculum options focus on the extent of curriculum diversity and common learning, curriculum standards, and curriculum structure. A criterion or standards-based framework is proposed for assessment and reporting. The frameworks, according to McGaw:
serve to articulate and make explicit the ‘standards’ which currently inhere the marking process as well as the curriculum. It will enable comparison of standards over time, and will provide a clear expression of the nature of performance at different levels of achievement (1997, March 25, p. 608).
The authorising discursive practices of government once again permeate and alter the constitution of the subject, Visual Arts. McGaw brought “unimpeachable institutional authority and impeccable pedigree” (McKeon, 1998, p. 49) to the process of change in education. McKeon continues, “the fact that McGaw had overseen the reform of several other state education systems was trumpeted by him and the government as further proof of authority, reasonableness, and if you will, the inevitability of the process of change to come” (p. 50). ‘Visual Arts Response to McGaw Green Paper’ (1996, July 15), by Weate and Thomas, outlined the Visual Arts Syllabus Advisory Committees’ opposition to a standards framework. It is argued that the specification of a standards framework, where judgements about student achievement are measured in terms of competencies and other forms of pre-determined outcomes, is not compatible to the field of Visual Arts. In such a framework, “value, which should be embedded in the artwork is shifted or deflected to the external criteria rather than the work” (p. 1). The inclusion of the Frames in the syllabus is acknowledged as valuing “alternative and interpretive critical and historical accounts of visual arts” (p. 1). It is the
234 committee’s stance that a “fixed set of specifications against which achievement would be measured” will ‘inhibit’ and ‘distort’ “the unique and particular qualities of the visual arts” (p. 1). Despite this opposition, the force of these external discourses resulted in the Visual Arts Syllabus Advisory Committee regulating its behaviour and reinterpreting these changes to the educational system by establishing a Sub-Committee, comprising Brown, Thomas and Weate, to examine aspects of the McGaw recommendations concerning a Standards Framework. This Sub-Committee presented some suggestions for how the practices of Visual Arts could be represented on an ‘Achievement Scale’ within a Standards Framework in accordance with the McGaw review (1997, April 30).
The ‘Syllabus Advisory Committee Report to The BOS’ (1997, September 1) outlined eight major issues for the Board’s consideration in 1998. The first of these issues identified the unnecessary delay in the implementation of the Visual Arts Years 11-12 Syllabus due to the McGaw Review and White Paper. The Syllabus Advisory Committee recommended that the BOS alert the Minister that this delay caused significant concern for Visual Arts teachers. Following the release of the White paper, the syllabus advisory committee “seriously questions the use of a psychometric model of testing which assumes a student’s ability in a single domain equivalent to a subject” (1997, September 1, p. 2). This model was considered potentially limited in its ability to adequately deal with a subject like the Visual Arts where different components of ‘Making’ and ‘Studying’ are examined. It is recommended that “careful attention be given to whether psychometric testing provides the best model for testing student achievement in Visual Arts” and that “steps are taken to ensure that any model does not distort the nature of the subject” (p. 3). The Visual Arts Syllabus Advisory Committee believed, “a core of approximately 30% over a Standard and Advanced Courses will reduce choice in the selection of content and narrow the visual arts curriculum” (p. 2). This rationalisation was considered to be examination driven. It was the committee’s preference to retain the 2/3 Unit structure of courses in Years 11 and 12. The “Bands of Achievement”, proposed as a way of representing student achievement, would do little to raise “standards” according to the committee. Further attention was deemed necessary on this model of reporting student achievement.
The advantages of implementing the Visual Arts Years 11-12 Syllabus in Year 11, 1998 with initial examination in 1999 are outlined in an undated paper titled ‘Implementation of the Visual Arts Years 11-12 Syllabus’. The first of these advantages highlighted that the syllabus and all the supporting documentation had been approved by the Board and Minister and were ready to be implemented in schools. Another benefit was the anticipated release of the syllabus by teachers that was due for implementation in 1997. This paper identified that many teachers were
235 using the draft syllabus to develop their teaching programs because of its clear representation of content that was lacking in the current syllabus. The Preliminary and HSC courses in the draft document build on the Visual Arts Years 7-10 Syllabus, which was implemented in schools in 1995. A “tension for teachers” is acknowledged in this paper due to the lack of articulation between courses in Years 7-12. One disadvantage of implementing the syllabus at this time was delineated: “There may be further changes impacting on curriculum, assessment and HSC examinations as a result of the White Paper”. The paper recommended that implementation of the syllabus proceeded.
Following recommendations by the BOS in response to the Government’s acceptance of the McGaw review of the HSC, and their approval by the Minister, the 2 and 3 Unit Courses in Visual Arts were to be streamlined and offered as a single course. Visual Arts was endorsed by the BOS for inclusion as a Board Developed Course (1998, June 30) and work proceeded on the syllabus according to subject specific decisions. The Draft Stage 6 Visual Arts Years 11-12 Syllabus, approved by the Board in 1996, forms much of the discussion in the Visual Arts Stage 6 Draft Writing Brief. This process of revision began in August 1998 and was completed in June 1999.
At the COFA, Eighth Occasional Seminar in Art Education, Thomas (1998) acknowledged that the ‘Visual Arts Stage 6 Syllabus Draft Writing Brief’ was prepared in response to the Government’s White Paper, Securing Their Future, released in August 1997 following the McGaw Review of the HSC. The writing brief “reflects both the Government’s and Board’s intentions, in providing explanations of how the subject contributes to the purpose of the HSC program and meets the criteria in the White paper documents” (Thomas, 1998, p. 35). The representation of Visual Arts within the draft writing brief was a consequence of an extensive literature review that resulted in an enhanced understanding of the subject by those involved in the writing of this document. Thomas identified that the review focused on “frameworks for representing knowledge, the development of artistic practice and skills, practical and propositional modes of knowing, the significance of intentions, the role of the audience, and assessing metacogitive abilities” (p. 35). This draft writing brief was one change to the new syllabus development process that focused on increased consultation. Other changes included, the use of templates for writing briefs and draft syllabuses and the advanced publishing of timelines.
In the Visual Arts Stage 6 Syllabus Writing Brief (1998, December), the frames, practices, conceptual framework and interests are the proposed content. The entities of artist, work, world and audience are named as the ‘conceptual framework’ for this first time in this brief. Each
236 component of content can be considered in their own right however “no aspect of content dominates” (p. 23). Rather, the approach allows for content to be considered in relation to one another, “investigated in different ways and to be accessed through a variety of avenues” (p. 23). In the Brief, the theoretical and interpretive frameworks known as the frames are subjective, cultural, structural and postmodern. The frames “affect the layering of meaning, value and belief in and about the visual arts through the practices of artmaking, art criticism and art history” (p. 25). The brief identifies that consideration in the syllabus will be given to how art may represent:
x personal experience x culture, ideology, class, politics, and the celebration of events, interests, and objects x communication and civic transaction and act as a clearing house for ideas in the community x marginal ideas which challenge mainstream values of histories and ideas (p. 25).
These four bulleted points are the Frames discourse. Thomas (1998) acknowledges the support the Frames received during the consultation process. The Frames provide ways to interpret, explain, and develop a point of view and were therefore recognised for their theoretical and interpretive, rather than determining, role.
Following this briefing, key groups were involved in consultation of the syllabus working drafts including: the Minister’s office, Board members, BCC – Visual Arts, Professional Teachers Associations, Academics, School Authorities, and Industry and Employer’s organisations as relevant. Following approval by the Minister, the revised Visual Arts Stage 6 Syllabus, Preliminary and HSC Courses, was reproduced and distributed to schools in June 1999. The existence of the Frames in this syllabus forms the discussion in later sections of this chapter.
5.4 The Enunciative Authority for the Frames
In this section, the Frames, like the Focus Areas, will be shown to be an exercise in enunciative authority and governmentality by key players on the Visual Arts Syllabus Committee. The historical record supports the view that Neil Brown was the agent and voice of authority for the formation and dissemination of the Frames discourse. Brown was appointed as a University representative of the inaugural BOS Years 7-12 Visual Arts Syllabus Committee in 1990. I contend that his positions as an executive member of the syllabus committee and Head of School of Art Education, COFA, UNSW from 1992-1998 provided the institutional power that
237 validated his discourse. Using the imprimatur of COFA and his position held at the university, Brown also took advantage of the Occasional Seminar Series in Art Education (detailed in Chapter Two) as the site that allowed the group of statements that belonged to the Frames to be presented to individuals and ultimately provided for the circulation of this discourse within the field. I am interested in Brown’s inclusion in the “high participation rates at postgraduate level by art educators interested in describing, explaining and enriching the theoretical frameworks of their subject” (Weate, 1993, p. 6).
In the first section of this chapter, I argue that the minimal, single-page document written by Brown (1991, April 10) is the foundation to the Frames. Foucault advises that knowing an author’s identity will not disclose the source or discursive meaning of what they write or say. Foucault’s concept of the ‘author-function’ is not a subjective presence but a signature in which “the author’s name serves to characterise a certain mode of being of discourse” (Foucault, 1979 in Rabinow, 1984, p. 107). This document is written by Brown, yet the author is not where we look to find ‘meaning’. The author exists only as a function of the written work itself, a part of its structure that “characterises the mode of existence, circulation, and functioning of certain discourses within society” (p. 108) but not necessarily as part of the interpretive process. For Foucault, the author-function produces discourse, without guarantee of the authority to control it. The document itself constitutes meaning as the material and rare statements of words and things. Reading a document archaeologically produces the power/knowledge. In this section I present a chronological overview of the sourced published track of Brown to reveal the emergence and circulation of discourses antecedent to the Frames. I am interested in the set of beliefs or assumptions governing the production, circulation, classification and consumption of the Frames discourse.
Brown first advocates the inclusion of alternative ways of knowing in the Visual Arts in the late 1980s: “one of the more pressing duties of art education is to help sort out the politics of the various but important realms of knowing in the visual arts” (1988, p. 28). The emphasis on the novel and the subjective of creative performance in art education is misdirected according to Brown (1988) “at the expense of the epistemological and cultural momentum of the art object” (p. 27). In the two papers presented by Brown (1989a, 1989b) at the First Occasional Seminar in Art Education, the exploration of alternative and different perspectives in the Visual Arts is considered advantageous “in the way we as art teachers conceive of the existence of art works, of their value, and of how, and what we come to know about them” (Brown, 1989b, p. 5). It is argued that the “particulars and uniques” (p. 5) of meaning in an artwork are ignored by implicit assumptions that dominate one’s understanding or general systems of thought that only provide analytical frameworks. Brown is cautious of predetermined ontological positions adopted by art
238 teachers towards artworks, believing “if assumptions are confused then correspondingly our understanding of the work is likely to be confused” (1989b, p. 4). While the four Focus Areas suggest that knowledge of the very nature of art objects is tied to particular frameworks of belief in the 1987 Visual Arts Syllabus Years 11-12, Brown (1989b) encourages the refinement of guiding models for the Focus Areas within the curriculum that can “expand on practical ways for teachers and pupils to engage the visual arts” (p. 7). The perspectives within these models, positioned as “emerging from the history of ideas” (p. 7) anticipate the Frames.
Missing from the philosophy of evaluation in the 1987 Visual Arts Syllabus Years 11-12, according to Brown (1989a), is an “epistemic analysis which indicates the different kinds of knowing entailed for each ability” (p. 49). He is disgruntled by the pragmatic theory of knowing with its focus on experience that underlies this syllabus. Objectives need to be assessed as a function of their significance within the values of the Visual Arts. Value frameworks in the Visual Arts are positioned as one, if not the most important of the elements in a syllabus. “A praxis which shows how the differing kinds of knowing are united in judgement” (p. 49) is proffered as a solution in the development of assessment methods. I contend that Brown’s (1991, April 10) document, analysed in the first section of this chapter, is this praxis. Brown is emphatic in his belief that learning in the Visual Arts requires recognition of the value frames that “provide the basis for the determination of aesthetic and artistic understanding” (1989a, p. 50). The “psychological, the socio/political, and the cognitive” (p. 50) are nominated as three value frames.
These value sources of the Visual Arts reappear in Brown and Haynes’ (1990) response to a paper by Boughton and Aland (1989) however the ‘socio/political’ is rewritten as the ‘socio/cultural’. It is Brown and Haynes’ (1990) position that an analysis of critical structures relative to the field of art education will provide understanding of the subject’s value. These critical structures are identified through answers to questions posed by Brown and Haynes such as:
What are the kinds and expectancies of enactive roles in the visual arts? Their protocols, their conventions, their innovations, and their creativity? What are the kinds and criteria governing theoretical knowledge in the visual arts? What are the values framing comprehension, significance and judgement in the visual arts? What relationship do the visual arts share with wider ends in view; the cognitive, the socio/cultural, and the psychological? And what is the range of alternative perspectives from which all of the preceding questions can be viewed (1990, p. 35).
239 The answer to these questions, though not yet articulated, is the Frames. Brown and Haynes (1990) argue, “the critical structure of the visual arts is dependent upon the philosophical perspective from which it is perceived and upon the ends which are brought into view” (p. 35). The Frames provide this philosophical perspective.
Three value frameworks are written as the structural, the sociocultural, and the psychological and appear as representing “governing bases for interpreting and judging the ends of artistic activity” (p. 6) in Brown’s (1990) paper titled Distinguishing Artistic from Vernacular Performances in the Visual Arts: A Classroom Perspective.32 ‘Cognitive’ is now replaced by the ‘structural’ source of value. The structural is typified by the work of Nelson Goodman (1976). Structuralist (sometimes referred to as semiological) sources of artistic value are systems of communication. Structuralist artworks possess a linguistic configuration composed of a grammar (or syntax), a meaning (or semantics), and an application (or pragmatics). Structurally, objects including artworks, have little inherent meaning. They are recognised for their power to represent meanings symbolically by their capacity to act as signs within a sign system. Brown (1990) acknowledges Goodman’s (1976) theory that objects have a tendency to be artistic when they conform to the following:
When they have multiple and ambiguous form (syntax), and meaning (semantics); when they are configured into symbol systems which tend to be idiosyncratic and unique; when the very way they are configured seems crucially relevant, even down to the last detail; and when what is symbolised tends not only to be represented but presented, as if it were given in an example (p. 6).
The second source of artistic value identified by Brown (1990) is the sociocultural, explained by Arthur Danto (1981). Sociocultural values are “community based, culturally pluralistic, and often incommensurable with each other” (Brown, 1990, p. 7). The origins and priorities of cultural values, “the ideologies of a society, are always relative to the forces which dominate its institutions” (p. 7). These forces that direct institutions include class, race, gender, religion, generation, corporate and nationalist economics, and are traceable to political power. Danto’s (1981) institutional definition of art considers the artworld as the most powerful source of cultural values: “within our western context the artworld’s prevailing theoretical, practical, and critical agenda represents our major legitimating source of artistic value” (Brown, 1990, p. 7). Brown acknowledges that the sociocultural politics of art also relates to the individuals within the community: “Individuals and community groups can have the meaning of their activities
32 This paper was presented at the COFA, Second Occasional Seminar in Art Education (1990).
240 subverted by the ideological hegemony of the artworld” (p. 8). Art teachers and students are appealing to sociocultural sources within a framework of artworld values when their art activities are made relevant within their personal and community context (p. 8).
‘Psychological’ reappears as one of three major sources of value in the Visual Arts isolated by Brown (1990). This third source of artistic value stems from Monroe Beardsley (1981) and is located within the personal experience of the subject. Experiences, according to Brown (1990), “are the foundations of the aesthetic because they provide the subjective origins of awareness” (p. 9). They “are not ‘read’ structurally or ‘understood’ culturally, they are felt … and accompanied by vividly sensed imagery” (p. 9). The value of artworks is subsequently “their power in mediating felt experience” (p. 9). The word ‘Frames’ is not used by Brown (1990) however it will be shown in the discussion to follow that these sources of artistic value reappear as three of the four Frames, although structural is the only exact match. ‘Sociocultural’ is rewritten as the Cultural Frame and the ‘Psychological’ becomes the Subjective Frame.
In his discussion of structural theories of cognition in art, Brown (1991) maintains that one significant change to the belief and justifying grounds for Visual Arts as a discipline over the last forty years has been the shift in emphasis from children’s art studied as a phenomenon, to the study of children’s understanding of art. This paper was reproduced and presented at the Third Occasional Seminar in Art Education (1992b) titled Theoretical perspectives: research into children’s cognition and knowledge in the visual arts. As a consequence of this shift, there has been a “rekindling of interest in art as a kind of knowing, as a discipline, and a cultural object” (Brown, 1991, p. 13). The question of knowledge in art education is no longer “what is it to know in art?” but what does it mean to ask “what is it to know in art?” (p. 13). In response to the dominance of structural accounts of art in art education, he further questions, “How can the way be opened for the arts and the cognitive sciences to provide a non-regressive explanation of the mental bases on which knowing in the arts supervenes” (p. 16). The work of Nelson Goodman (1976, 1983) and his systematic structuralism is once again discussed amongst others. Within the conventional limits of the structural systems Goodman is trying to explain, Brown considers that Goodman “fails to give an adequate pragmatic account of the mutability of knowledge” (p. 16). The sign-signified denotations and their syntactical rules that govern the articulation of representations are deemed arbitrary and pragmatic. For Brown (1991):
The power of his structuralism lies in its investment of all meaning into arbitrary denotative associations. Even deeply felt sensations, if ever they surface into meaning, do so for Goodman not as causality of nature but as a possibility of the language.
241 Feeling and value are thus assimilated into the cognition of a symbolic system. Art and morality suddenly become a way of knowing! (p. 17).
Brown’s interpretation of the systematic structuralism of Goodman as limited is insightful as the Frames resist this theoretical reductionism. Any structuring of knowledge, such as the writing of curriculum, must take into account two things according to Brown: “(i) consideration of the assumptions which presuppose meaning within it; and (ii) careful consideration of the leading or overdetermining effects such assumptions might have upon its practices” (p. 18). It is Brown’s contention that artistic cognition represents the ability to know how to do art but artistic knowledge requires reflective engagement with practices in the art world. Considering this, it seems evident that that the discursive function of the Frames and the Conceptual Framework are silently anticipated in this paper.
At the Fourth Occasional Seminar in Art Education, Brown (1992a) maps a model of collaboration in art education in his paper Art Education Curriculum Praxis: A Time for Collaboration. This paper was one of the nineteen written responses, identified in the previous section of this chapter, tabled at the Years 7-12 Visual Arts Syllabus Committee meeting (1992, December 2) in response to the Draft Visual Arts Years 7-10 Syllabus. Brown (1992a) “foreshadow[s] an innovation in the syllabus” which he puts forward as “representing three types of collaboration” (p. 61). This collaborative innovation in the Visual Arts syllabus is the ‘frames’, written without capitalisation. The four frames are named in order as Culture, Structure, Subject and Postmodern. It is interesting to note here the naming of the frames in this set or series as they cease to appear in this order in the syllabus documents.
The first type of collaboration represented by the frames is the “dialectic” that was had as a result of the dissatisfaction with the content of the 1987 Visual Arts Syllabus. Despite the development of the four Focus Areas, the frames are an attempt to resolve the opposition toward the “the precept of solipsism (self reference)” that had “triumphed over the precept of understanding” (Brown, 1992a, p. 61) in the senior syllabus. The art syllabus is criticised for its lack of interpretative and explanatory content resulting in students electing art as a subject of study as an “alternative to knowing” (p. 61). The frames are subsequently written as an alternative to the concealed conceptions of artistic belief within the art syllabus.
The frames represent a second type of collaboration in their recruitment from the general history of contemporary ideas. They provide an “interpretive context which is inseparable from an understanding of developments in contemporary culture” (Brown, 1992a, p. 61). The body of understanding represented by the frames is acknowledged as emerging from twentieth century
242 western discourse about art. As an explanatory set of beliefs, the frames are argued to be an “antidote to meaningless pluralism” (p. 61) in the 1987 Visual Arts Syllabus. The analysis of each of the four Frames in later sections of this chapter will show that, unlike the Focus Areas, the Frames provide a methodological form of content for students in the interpretation and explanation of artworks from any historical period. Visual arts content reappears in coexistence with parallel work in literary criticism and culture theory. Brown (1992a) attributes the reason for choosing ‘Culture, Structure, Subject and Postmodern’ as the four frames in the Visual Arts syllabus to “their historical significance to the artworld during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries” (p. 63).
The consultation that was held between the executive members of the Visual Arts Syllabus Committee and the School of Art Education, COFA, is classified as the third type of collaboration in the development of the frames. This is the first and only appearance and admission located in the data that this new knowledge is the result of the discursive practices of these two institutional sites. Brown declares that consultation between these two sites was “fitful”, which he considers “expected in a goal ambitious, agenda ridden, critically motivated project” (1992, December 2, p. 2). The Visual Arts Syllabus Committee and the School of Art Education were motivated to work within this “regime of truth” (Foucault, 1980, p. 131) with and intent and determination, to produce this new object of knowledge.
Brown (1992a) defines the role of the frames in the Visual Arts syllabus as threefold. Firstly, “they provide a basis for understanding which articulates the content of the visual arts” (p. 63). This ‘basis’ includes: ‘different sets of basic assumptions about art’; ‘a basis for practical choice’; ‘the basis for the mediation of beliefs about art’; and finally, ‘the frames foreshadow the possibility of aesthetic explanation’. Within the basic assumptions of each frame, questions related to the artistic value and meaning in the Visual Arts can be addressed. Brown believes that there are advantages in adopting one frame over another in the description and explanation of the Visual Arts: “Some artworks made sense within one framework of beliefs, may not be so easily understood within another” (p. 63). In terms of ‘practical’ choice, the frames provide an alternative, “heuristic base” (p. 64) for creative ideas in art. They are discursive frameworks that enable the “transaction of meanings, values, feelings, attitudes, and truths in the visual arts” (p. 64) between students and teachers. In the context of relations, each frame provides students and teachers with ways of reasoning that extends beyond pure description.
Brown (1992a) describes the character and interprets the role of each of the four frames. The ‘sociocultural’ framework of value (Brown, 1990) is rewritten as the ‘Culture’ frame. The Culture frame is “valued aesthetically as a way of defining and building social identity” (p. 64).
243 This frame is described as a social perspective and continues to deal with issues of cultural identity including class, race, and gender amongst others. The ‘Structural’ source of artistic value (Brown, 1990) appears in abbreviated form as the ‘Structure’ frame. Art is conceived as a system of communication or visual language that is understood “in relation to the system by which the symbols of art refer to the world” (Brown, 1992a, p. 64). The ‘psychological’ framework of value is transformed into the ‘Subject’ frame. Like the psychological, ‘experience’ is the foundation to the Subject frame: “The meaning of art is understood in relation to the kind of experience that it affords the introspective subject or self” (p. 65). Art is valued for its immediacy and for the way it is able to expressively recreate human experience. Brown’s (1990) three sources of artistic value are extended to include the ‘Postmodern’ frame. The use of ‘Post’ and ‘Modern’ in Brown’s (1991, April 10) document has been revised in a singular representation as the ‘Postmodern’ frame. Using this frame, art is valued as postmodern irony in the way it recontextualises other art. The meaning of art is attained through critique, “by revealing the incoherencies or ironies in its “text” and by exposing the pattern of authority by which it is sustained” (Brown, 1992a, p. 65).
The second way Brown (1992a) defines the role of the frames in the Visual Arts is as useful indicators for the sequencing of knowing in the Visual Arts curriculum from K-12. Interestingly, the frames attempt continuity with the K-12 continuum, a privileged and underlying discursive formation of the 1987 Visual Arts Syllabus. The K-12 discursive formation continues to regulate the structure of the syllabus, in this instance, the frames.
Finally, the frames are represented as constituting a body of knowledge in themselves. Brown (1992a) presents a schema under the heading ‘The Collaboration of the Frames in Art Curriculum Content’ (p. 66). In this schema, ‘Art History’, ‘Art Practice’, and ‘Art Criticism’ are identified as the different ‘artworlds’ that discipline the content of the Visual Arts. The categories ‘The Artist’, ‘The Beholder’, ‘The Work’, and ‘The World’ are presented as the entities of art that populate the three artworlds: “Each artworld represents a different set of conventional ways for interacting with the four entities of art” (p. 67). Below the four entities reads: “PERCEPTUAL-CONCEPTUAL ENGAGEMENT WITH RELATIONSHIPS AMONGST THE 4 ENTITIES ABOVE” (p. 66). These discursive entities are later rewritten as the ‘Conceptual Framework’ in the Visual Arts Stage 6 Syllabus (1999). The frames, listed vertically alongside the artworlds and the four entities in this schema, are positioned as identifying the different ways of understanding content of the Visual Arts.
The frames, ‘foreshadowed’ as an innovation in the syllabus by Brown (1992a, 1992b) and located as principal elements in formulating the structure of the syllabus, appear as official
244 discourse in the Draft Stage 6 Visual Arts Years 11-12, Preliminary, 2 Unit HSC, and 3 Unit Course (BOS, 1996b). The Draft Visual Arts Years 11-12 Support Document, tabled at the Visual Arts Syllabus Advisory Committee meeting (1996, March 27), includes a section written by Brown titled The Frames and the Visual Arts. In this syllabus and support document the frames are written with varied capitalisation as ‘the frames’ or ‘the Frames’. In his essay, Brown (1996) discusses the evolution of the concept of the Frames in NSW Visual Arts syllabuses, their role in teaching and understanding art, and their position within the history of western ideas.
The introduction of the ‘Frames’ in the Visual Arts Years 7-10 Syllabus (BOS, 1994) is considered a ‘controversial innovation’ as the Frames “mount a challenge to the once indisputable assumption that access to the meaning of artworks and to the invention of content in art making is intuitive within aesthetic experience” (Brown, 1996, p. 6). Despite the uncertainty surrounding the obscure nature of the Frames, discussed in an earlier section of this chapter, Brown affirms his ‘right’ and privilege as the speaker for the Frames as well as positioning this new discourse ideology as ‘innovative’ and receiving the consent of the governed, that is, the syllabus writers. The concern of the Visual Arts Syllabus Committee surrounded the focus of the previous Visual Arts syllabus on the intuitively creative and subjective process spelt out as the acronym PROME (perceiving, resolving, organising, manipulating, and evaluating). Two of the four Focus Areas, ‘Art and Media’ and ‘Art and Culture’, in the 1987 syllabus are however distinguished as “foreshadowing changes to the conceptual organisation of the new senior syllabus in visual arts that were to eventuate in the content area of the Frames” (p. 7). During the revision of the Visual Arts Syllabus Years 11-12 in 1995/6 it was recognised that the theoretical assumptions of the existential process model represented a powerful but limited point of view about art. Alternatively:
Frameworks of theoretical reference provide the rules for knowing which events, properties and actions are relevant to artistic explanation. Frames show how to locate the values by which works are judged, and the bases on which to ground the information they possess. Different frameworks reposition understanding, enable new connections and mount a challenge to entrenched points of view (Brown, 1996, p. 9).
The four frames – ‘Subject’, ‘Culture’ and ‘Structure’ and ‘Postmodern’, “a representation of four fundamental approaches to the explanation of belief, knowledge and values in western thought over the last two hundred years” (Brown, 1996, p. 9) are rewritten and expanded by Brown in this support document in a revised order as The Subjective Frame, The Cultural Frame, The Structural Frame and The Postmodern Frame. The addition of ‘The’ and ‘Frame’ in
245 their respective titles endows each Frame with its own authoritarian status and identity. Words that characterise each Frame are written alongside the four headings as ‘The Subjective Frame – experience, imagination’, ‘The Cultural Frame – society, politics’, ‘The Structural Frame –signs and symbol systems’, and ‘The Postmodern Frame – text, power, irony’. Lee (1997) argues that “rather than giving students and teachers freedom in framing their own interpretations, they are being instructed to adopt four nominated frames” (p. 24).
Brown (1996) outlines the origins and philosophical character of each of the four Frames. Interestingly, the assumptions underlying the Frames do not originate in the artworld, but rather, have been taken from their broader setting within the history of ideas. The credibility gleaned by relating some of the major theoretical preoccupations of literary criticism and theory and their explanatory power to an understanding of meaning in art, I contend, was a deliberate attempt by Brown to signal the critical valiancy of the discipline. Brown (1996) credits the Visual Arts as being “among the first in adapting to the challenges of philosophical innovation” (p. 9). The Frames reflect four broad philosophical systems of knowing according to Brown (2006) that “have proven to be historically influential upon artefacts and art” (p. 37).
Interestingly, the work of Goodman, Danto, and Beardsley, previously identified by Brown (1990) as typifying three major sources of value in the Visual Arts, does not reappear. Rather, other major intellectuals in western philosophy are referenced as a means of establishing a ‘conceptual heritage’. The philosophical tradition behind the Subjective Frame is attributed as originating with Cartesian intuition - “that human action and understanding is motivated by an inner voice of consciousness, the most profoundly private intuition of human awareness” (Brown, 1996, p. 10). Brown argues that Emanual Kant developed Cartesian intuition of consciousness, whereby humans perceive the world using the instrumentality of innate abstract mental abilities. The subject’s mind organises and structures the sensory world, which streams into consciousness through experience, using these innate mental categories. Kant conceived the relation between these mental operations and the outside world, including the world of human behaviour and its objects such as artworks as “a private mental innovation, an imaginative reconstruction” (Brown, 1996, p. 10). Brown (1996) credits Kant with revolutionising the role and focus of art and establishing the “inextricable link between the psychology of the subject and the concept of art” (p. 10).
The Cultural Frame recognises that knowledge is a social as well as a psychological formation. Karl Marx and his “theory of the economic and political conditions under which the intellectual capital of knowledge in the arts was exchanged within society” (Brown, 1996, p. 10) are discussed under this frame. Within each society, different social patterns govern the ownership
246 and distribution of artistic knowledge and help explain its form. Concepts such as class, race, gender, and ideology are fundamental to an understanding of the ways economic, political and social agencies shape artistic practice.
Brown (1996, 2000) acknowledges Franz Brentano and his reconstruction of the relationship between private consciousness and language in the 1870s under the Structural Frame. Brentano identifies consciousness with intentionality where experiences and attitudes are indivisibly united with the structure of the content being thought about. This is expressed as an object of language. For example, “to draw is an objectification of some psychological attitude of mind” (Brown, 1996, p. 11). Ferdinand de Saussure extended Brentano’s explanation at the turn of the twentieth century with his notion that language may be analysed as a formal system of signs, possessing a syntax, a semantics, and a pragmatics of conventional use. Language as a system of signs was considered “an externalisation of the very nature of thought” (p. 11). Learning and making in art is considered analogous to learning a language. According to Brown, “in a structural frame of reference visual artworks are written and read like books” (p. 11).
The Postmodern Frame is represented as drawing upon the work of Derrida and Foucault who challenge theories of mind such as Kant amongst others. Derrida argues, according to Brown (1996), “human understanding and its form of representation, including artworks, are little more than reconfigurations of previous texts and of current narratives all woven together” (p. 11). Derrida developed deconstruction as a technique for uncovering the multiple interpretations of texts. In this deconstructive frame, “the historical agency which is responsible for the representation of knowledge in artworks is exercised by the authority of the text itself” (pp. 11- 12). The presence of texts in other texts is only able to be uncovered, according to Foucault, using careful historical analysis to trace “a quotation, or perhaps evidence of a characteristically logical move in the archive of the text” (Brown, 1996, p. 12).
Brown (1996) proposed that the Frames provided Visual Arts teachers and students “with an explanatory bridge to deeper levels of artistic understanding” (p. 13). In the visual arts curriculum the Frames are:
a context for describing variations in cognitive development in art in the secondary years, and a means of explaining the shift in student’s autonomy in the adoption of an artistic point of view. This shift is observable in both the making and historical/critical domains of the visual arts (p. 12).
247 The evolution of the Frames, a decade after their introduction in the Visual Arts Years 7-10 Syllabus (BOS, 1994), is reconsidered by Brown (2006) in his paper titled The Frames and Relational Aesthetics.33 Brown continues to articulate an identity for the Frames within dominant power/knowledge discourses. In this instance, the Frames appear as resonant with new theories of aesthetics. Drawing upon the work of Bourriaud (2002) and his concept of relational aesthetics, Brown argues that the rapid development of new technology in art has increased the significance of the Frames as the relations between objects have been transformed into interactive systems. The cognitive architecture of the Frames is reflected in “the practical reasoning that underlies an inherently event based, Net based, interactively constitutive, scalable, editorially based, new media art” (Brown, 2006, p. 39). Brown affirms the relational nature of the Frames with the Conceptual Framework in the visual arts curriculum. The Frames provide a basis on which the value of the art, artist, world and artwork can be tested and explained. Ultimately, he argues that the Frames provide a mandate for knowledge in art.
Brown (2006) identifies that the conflict that arose over the Frames’ ability to “deliver a sufficient body of examinable content to the HSC examination” (p. 33) delayed their inclusion in the Visual Arts Stage 6 Syllabus (BOS, 1999). The eventual integration however of this controversial innovation in Visual Arts syllabuses in NSW initiated “significant changes in the way the visual arts is understood in art education” (p. 33).
Embracing a ‘field of memory’ (Foucault, 1972, p. 58), the Frames are discursive statements informed by past discourse. Each Frame imparts a different referential basis and imposes a constraint on the meaning of particular artworks: “The frames justify claims about what can be seen in artworks, validate explanations of how works are constructed, enable a critic to take up different interpretative points of view, and re-set the benchmarks of artistic value” (Brown, 2006, p. 37). They provide a basis for understanding the ways in which the relations between properties and agencies in art influence each other. Brown maintains that one must be prudent when choosing the most appropriate Frame to examine an artwork. It is their explanatory power that provides the ‘knower’ with critical autonomy in their encounters with art.
Brown acknowledges the misconception of some NSW teachers who view the Frames as “categorical slots into which art works have to be sorted” (2006, p. 38). By contrast, it is argued that the different Frames provide multiple perspectives “to test and amplify the range of possible relations among artifacts” (p. 38). Two new Frames are proffered as warranting adoption. They are the ‘Body’ and ‘Materiality’. The Body “challenges the concept of disinterest in aesthetic
33 This paper was presented at the COFA, Eleventh Occasional Seminar in Art Education (2005).
248 subjectivity and extends the structure of the current Subjective Frame”. Materiality “reconciles practical skill in the making of art and design with critical reasoning” (p. 38). Brown believes that conceptual changes in art and design do not justify formal revision of the syllabus. Rather, art teachers are encouraged to monitor their own behaviour through the disciplinary technology of self-regulation by assuming responsibility for the maintenance, discussion and extension of the Frames from curriculum authorities.
It is evident from this published record that Brown conceived of the Frames long before their first official appearance in the Visual Arts Years 7-10 Syllabus (BOS, 1994). Brown’s curriculum innovation challenged the dominance of intuitively creative and subjective accounts of meaning in art. An epistemological process of critical knowledge was advocated as the solution. Learning in the Visual Arts could then be approached conceptually (technical knowing that), performatively (practical knowing how), and critically (in terms of value and appreciation knowing that one). The four Frames – Subjective, Cultural, Structural and Postmodern – provided alternative and different ways of knowing that signaled a shift in thinking in the Visual Arts. They enabled a philosophical cohesion and relevance that had not been addressed previously in art education. The discourses embedded within the Frames transformed the conceptualisation of art curriculum content and practice as child-centred and process oriented as represented in the 1987 Visual Arts Syllabus, providing a more authentic discursive framework for the transaction of meaning and value of art. Brown’s new set of interpretations became the ‘truth’ for art education in NSW that ensured the development, reproduction and distribution of this new knowledge.
5.5 Visual Arts Stage 6 Syllabus, Preliminary and HSC Courses
In the Visual Arts Stage 6 Syllabus, Preliminary and HSC Courses the Frames are described as providing “different philosophical/theoretical and interpretive frameworks for understanding the layering of meaning, significance, value and belief in and about the visual arts” (BOS, 1999, p. 25). The Frames are written and spoken of in three discursive forms in this syllabus: 1. For ‘Frames’, ‘the Frames’, ‘frames’, or ‘the frames’, I will refer to ‘the Frames’ and so avoid the varied capitalisation (despite the intrigue); 2. the four Frames are named as a set or series comprising subjective, cultural, structural and postmodern, and as they usually appear in that order, in an implied hierarchy; and 3. the third form is to name all four Frames discretely where again capitalisation is varied as: the Subjective F/frame, the Cultural F/frame, the Structural F/frame and the Postmodern F/frame. The Frames are spoken of in the singular sixty-seven times. The four Frames are named in series as subjective, cultural, structural and postmodern four times and discretely named eight times respectively. The repetition of ‘The Frames’ as a
249 collective term is suggestive of the strength of this discourse and indicates its use as a strategy of conceptual organisation for the syllabus.
‘Content’ within the syllabus is identified as ‘practice, conceptual framework, and frames’. Practice is spoken of as ‘Artmaking’ and ‘Art Criticism and Art History’. The organising of art educational content as artmaking and art criticism and art history once again uses the foundational roles of disciplined-based art education – art production, art history, art criticism and aesthetics, as the parent disciplines for visual arts practice. In the 1999 syllabus three of these four disciplines have been adopted. The Conceptual Framework “provides a model for understanding the agencies in the artworld” (BOS, 1999, p. 23) as the artist, artwork, world and audience. Assistance is offered to art educators in the form of a diagram. This “technique of rewriting” (Foucault, 1972, p. 52) illustrates that a conversation can be had between these four concepts.
The particularities of the four Frames are subsidiary to the dominance of ‘the Frames’ as a concept in its singularity and its relationship to practice and the conceptual framework. The Frames are spoken in series as ‘practice, the conceptual framework, and frames’ twenty times. The reciprocal functioning between these three areas of content is evident in the syllabus:
Students learnt to adopt points of view through using the frames when approaching their own practice in artmaking, art criticism, and art history. Students learn how each frame sets up different relations between artists, artworks, the worlds and the audience (BOS, 1999, p. 25).
In the sections to follow, I conduct an analysis of the role of the four individual Frames as a basis for understanding in the Visual Arts as presented in the Visual Arts Stage 6 Syllabus, Preliminary and HSC Courses (BOS, 1999).
5.5.1 The Subjective Frame
Chapter Three of this study reveals the tenacity of a child-centred discourse in the 1987 Visual Arts Syllabus Years 11-12 that privileges the experience of the individual. The Visual Arts Stage 6 Syllabus (BOS, 1999) moves beyond the exclusive promotion of the child/student approach as the dominant philosophy of the previous syllabus. Instead, the individual orientation to art is rewritten as the Subjective Frame.
250 The Frames were invented to challenge the model of the Visual Arts as a distinctly subjective frame of reference. Statements used in the Rationale for Visual Arts in Stage 6 Curriculum such as: “Visual Arts is of great relevance to student’s lives and enables them to gain increasing intellectual autonomy, evident in interpretations of their own work and the work of others”; “The subject rewards individual thinking in the representation of students’ ideas both aesthetically and persuasively”; “Visual arts values how students engage in intelligent and adaptive performance, building on their own skills and abilities in the production of artworks”; and, “Visual Arts provides a school context to foster students’ physical and spiritual development” (BOS, 1999, pp. 6-7), is suggestive however that revisions to the senior syllabus build on some of the positive foundations of the subjectively-oriented 1987 syllabus.
The Subjective Frame in the 1999 syllabus is classified as ‘personal and psychological experience’: “Through this frame, art may be thought to be about and represent deeply felt and sensory experience, human consciousness, intuition, imagination, originality creative expression, and the aesthetic response” (p. 25). Utilising this Frame, the individual’s experience, in relation to the world, as the focus by which the meaning and value of artworks and artmaking is understood, is reminiscent of the student-centred approach of the previous syllabus that relies on the student’s ‘world’ and ‘environment’.
In the 1987 syllabus, Visual Arts is justified as ‘necessary’ for its “learning processes and content which enable students to communicate and express their ideas and feelings in a visual way and respond to the world around them with understanding, imagination and sensitivity” (BSE, 1987, p. 6). This concept reappears under the Subjective Frame in the 1999 syllabus using the discipline of artmaking as: “students can explore their own deeply felt experiences, investigating their own and other’s feelings and responses to the world around them” (BOS, 1999, p. 25).
The subject matter of Visual Arts in the 1987 syllabus in its entirety includes “ideas, feelings, events, situations, people and the physical world” (BSE, 1987, p. 17). In an attempt to overcome the lack of content in this syllabus, ‘Content in Art Making’ in the Draft Stage 6 Visual Arts Years 11-12 Syllabus, Preliminary, 2 Unit HSC, and 3 Unit Courses (BOS, 1996b) consists of the Frames, Subject Matter and Expressive Forms. The selection of subject matter may be explored and developed from the six nominated headings. These are: People, Other Living Things, Objects, Places and Spaces, Events, and Issues and Theories. Subjectively oriented suggestions under each of these headings include: “the expression of feelings, attitudes and beliefs” under People; “attention can be given to the diversity of types of living in the world” under Other Living Things; “comparing the qualities of objects in terms of their … personal
251 significance and meaning” under Objects; “significant places in family … histories” under Places and Spaces; “happenings, incidents, celebrations, ceremonies, coincidences, accidents or disasters which … have a significant impact in peoples’ lives often causing some re-evaluation of a sense of self”; and, “the nature of the subjective experience in Art Making including the role of the imagination and intuitive response” under Issues and Theories (BOS, 1996b, pp. 18- 20). In the 1999 syllabus, these abundant suggestions in relation to subject matter have disappeared. In artmaking, “friends, family, self-image or things of personal significance from their own environment” (p. 25) constitutes subject matter for students using the Subjective Frame.
Weate (1994) explores the practice of artmaking in art education, while still referencing critical and historical study, by focusing on content, notably the Frames, in her paper, Art Making Practice: A Move from Subjectivity, presented at the Sixth Occasional Seminar in Art Education. This paper is a response to the Visual Arts Years 7-10 Syllabus (BOS, 1994) however its discussion of the Frames can be extended to the 1999 syllabus. The Years 7-10 Syllabus is acknowledged as building upon the individualistic, subjective orientation to art that dominated the 1987 syllabus with the introduction of the cultural, structural and postmodern frames. The frames provide for a wider range of understanding about art making according to Weate when connected with the three practices of Making, Critical Study and Historical Study. Art education is aligned with the contemporary artworld in a way that Weate argues students can access, engage and understand in their own, personal and distinctive way.
The previous way of describing practice as “what students do, the points of reference for art making and the aspirations of the subject, where student autonomy and self-direction, mediated by understanding, are valued” (Weate, 1994, p. 92) has been revised in the 1994 syllabus to include “all the possible ways both conventional and innovative, that knowledge can be engaged with and understood in art” (p. 92). For Weate, art making does not evolve from a single perspective. The Frames show that “art can be thought about, or believed, as including objects and artifacts which are valued for reasons other than the trace, the mark, the legacy, the hand, of the expressive individual” (1994, p. 93) by providing alternative rules for different types of practice. Art making can therefore evolve from “the values of the individual, the community, the communicative possibilities of the object of the theoretical skepticism of the postmodern” (p. 93). Students come to understand differing ways of valuing and producing art other then their personal or preferred definition.
Pivotal to the prefiguring stage in art making in the syllabus is the ‘Visual Arts Process Diary’. This welcomed innovation (Weate, 1994, Brown, 1996) in the 1987 syllabus, used to trace
252 students’ involvement in and understanding of the practice of artmaking, continues in the draft 1996 syllabus and into the 1999 syllabus document. In the draft syllabus the diary “can act as trace of the students’ felt experience and developing values” and is considered “personally relevant to students” (BOS, 1996b, p. 14). In the 1999 syllabus the words ‘felt experience’, ‘values’, and ‘personally relevant’ have disappeared and the significance of the diary as a pedagogical tool in teaching and learning in Visual Arts is emphasised rather than the diary acting as the student’s individual, creative, self-expressive surrogate artwork. In the 1999 syllabus, discourse surrounding the felt experience of making artworks is exclusively assigned to the Subjective Frame.
Using the Subjective Frame in the 1999 syllabus in art criticism and art history “students can explore artworks as expressive and unique objects, develop notions of individual styles, and interpret the work and the influence of those artists who are of great personal interest to them” (BOS, 1999, p. 25). This is in continuity with the 1987 syllabus where students are required to integrate their study of images and objects with their making of artworks. To achieve this “they will have to select those images, objects, artforms, artists and groups which are most relevant to their own exploration of visual images and their own artworks” (BSE, 1987, p. 35).
Like Weate (1994), King (1994) and Maras (1994) contribute to our understanding of the Subjective Frame of value in the visual arts curriculum in their papers presented at the Sixth Occasional Seminar in Art Education. King (1994) supports the integration of subjectivity as a frame and method of inquiry in the Visual Arts Years 7-10 Syllabus (BOS, 1994). The condemnation surrounding the student-centred approach is acknowledged however King rationalises the value in students connecting their investigation of artworks with their personal experience and interest in the 1994 syllabus. King presents her argument as a subjective art historical study, focusing on the events of the 1994 NSW bushfires.
The 1994 syllabus attempts to broaden the narrow conception of art history as a chronological retrospective and instead represents contemporary art historical practice. This includes changes in the professional disciplines of art making, art criticism and art history. In contemporary practice, the meaning and value of artworks and artmaking is disclosed according to the frame within which the question of meaning has been formulated. It is the individual’s experience, King explains, in relation to the work, that is the focus when working in the Subjective frame.
King provides three interpretations of subjectively framed study in traditional art history. The first of these is the practice of ‘connoisseurship’ (p. 38) whereby the meaning and value of the work is bound up with authenticity and quality as judged by the connoisseur. Interestingly, this
253 concept of ‘connoisseur’ using the Subjective Frame appears in a single-page document located in the data titled The Frames as Orientations for Investigating Art Historical Questions, written by McKeon (1994) as: “The SUBJECTIVE FRAME supports questions concerning: TASTE, QUALITY, AUTHENTICITY. These are collectively questions of: CONNOISSEURSHIP”. In the Draft Visual Arts Years 11-12 Support Document, one of two references listed under ‘Subjective’ to assist with providing insight into the nature of framing and related interpretive strategies is The Role of Perceptual Learning in Connoisseurship: Morelli, Berenson, and Beyond by Hayden Maginnis (1990).
The other two interpretations outlined by King include: an ‘idiographic stance’ (Baxandall, 1985) in which the art historian “seeks to understand the object through an explanation and reconstruction of the subject’s purposes through our imaginative and expressive powers in a historical narrative” (King, 1994, p. 38) and, the hermeneutic philosophy of Gadamer (1975) for whom “the interpretation of a work is a dialogue between past and present in which the subjective experiences of the inquirer, the language that surrounds and gives meaning to the object and the historical tradition of which it is a part are all part of a mutually supportive circle of understanding” (King, 1994, p. 39). King argues that students should be equipped with the vocabulary of the field that allows them to see and understand an artwork through more than one frame and more than one practice of making, criticism and history, in a “dialectic conversation” (p. 42), that uncovers other histories and meanings. This use of the term ‘dialectic’ is in continuity with Brown’s (1992a) representation of the Frames (detailed earlier in this chapter).
Similarly, Maras (1994) examines the Subjective Frame as a model for studying and practicing art criticism. Using this frame, the meaning and value of art is understood through the sensory experience of the individual and is therefore considered to be transparent to the viewer. Maras explores a selection of theorists and their subjective explanations of the sensory experience including John Dewey (1934), Hans-Georg Gadamer (1975, 1976), and Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1964).
Following Dewey (1934), a meaningful experience in the making and appreciation of works of art using the subjective frame is considered to be aesthetic experience. Dewey characterises aesthetic experience by: “conditions of resistance and conflict, aspects and elements of the self and world that are implicated in this interaction qualify experience with emotions and ideas so that conscious intent emerges (Maras, 1994, p. 47). The aesthetic type of experience is attained in the making and appreciating of artworks when the beholder intuitively engages with the world and their direct experience of an artwork merges with prior experiences.
254 Like King (1994), Maras (1994) refers to Gadamer’s hermeneutic theory of interpretation to inform her analysis of the subjective frame. Understanding for Gadamer is reached through the process of interpretation. Gadamer relates the process of understanding a work of art to the process of interpreting our experience and being in the world. This fusion is a process that is never fully completed, as it demands a plurality of interpretations of an issue, text or work, as “the acquisition of knowledge never ceases and our beliefs about the world shift as we move relative to our shifting horizons” (Maras, 1994, p. 48).
The final subjective position presented by Maras (1994) is that held by phenomenological theorist Merleau-Ponty. Ponty uses the term ‘radical reflection’ to designate the attempt to return to, and reflect on, the pre-reflective consciousness or pre-empirical subject. That is, subjectivity is always response, never origin, and as Maras (1994) clarifies, “it is the experience that gives expression to the original, generic experience of the work and the process by which this experience is covered over by the very act of coming to understand it” (p. 49).
Be it the naïve subjective critic or older, more sophisticated viewer, the aesthetic value of a work of art, using the subjective frame, is defined by the viewer’s direct experience of the work which in turn gives rise to its meaning. Maras (1994) encourages teachers to foster “the independent extension of horizons of understanding through the development of programs that invite students to develop an awareness of the ways in which other critics reveal their evaluative statements” (p. 51). Both King and Maras identify that it is the individual’s interpretation and reflection of their personal, aesthetic and sensory ‘experience’ that is privileged when applying the Subjective Frame to art making, critical and historical practices.
5.5.2 The Cultural Frame
In the Visual Arts Stage 6 Syllabus (BOS, 1999) a culture discourse continues to be privileged as the second of four categories, however, in this text the Focus Area, ‘Art and Culture’ has been rewritten as the ‘Cultural Frame’. Brown (1996) acknowledges Art and Culture as one of two focus areas that “foreshadowed changes to the conceptual organisation of the new senior syllabus in visual arts that were to eventuate in the content area of the Frames” (p. 7). Unlike the elusive definition of culture in the 1987 syllabus (discussed in Chapter Three), in the 1999 syllabus, the Cultural Frame is reminiscent of Brown’s (1992a, 1992b) representation as:
the collective interests of cultural groups, ideology, class, politics, gender, and the celebration of spiritual and secular beliefs, events and objects. From this view, meaning
255 is understood in relation to the social perspective of the community from which it grows (BOS, 1999, p. 26).
Chapter Three of this study traces the discursive struggle of the Years 11-12 Visual Arts Syllabus Committee surrounding how to identify and define culture. This struggle continued beyond publication of the 1987 syllabus and is evidenced in the Years 7-12 Visual Arts Syllabus Committee’s response to one of the Government’s recommendations in their 1989 White Paper, Excellence and Equity. This recommendation requires the BOS to provide a range of examinable 1 Unit courses for the HSC. These new Board-developed courses were not to overlap the content of the current 2/3 Unit Board courses but rather ‘fill the gaps’ in the curriculum identified by the KLACCs. Following the BOS’ acceptance of the recommendations in this White Paper, a working party of the Visual Arts Syllabus Committee was established to recommend one unit course requirements in the Visual Arts. Seven broad areas are tabled by this working party at a syllabus committee meeting (1991, April 24) as ‘Proposed 1 Unit Visual Arts Courses’ with options within each of these areas. Two of these proposed courses are ‘Art and Society’ and ‘Cultural Studies’. Study Options for ‘Art and Society’ include: Historical and Cultural Studies, Visual Signs and Symbols, Postmodernism, Aesthetics, and Individual Artists and Works. Study Options for ‘Cultural Studies’ include: Popular Culture, Cultural Industries, Visual Culture, Australian Identities, Postmodernism, and Political and Critical Perspectives. These 1 Unit examinable courses are revised to include six proposed courses (1991, May 29). ‘Art and Society’ is maintained however ‘Cultural Studies’ has disappeared from the list of courses. The syllabus committee decides at this meeting to also recommend to the BOS the introduction of three new 2 Unit Courses for Years 11-12 that were to be across discipline courses for the Creative Arts KLA. These courses were not to displace existing courses but rather provide greater expansion of areas of study in the Creative Arts, “enabling these areas to be studied in greater depth as significant areas or learning in their own right” (1991, May 29, p. 1). Through these courses “a higher degree of specialisation is possible” (p. 1). They are characterised as “more career oriented, more technologically skill specific and emphasise contemporary practices” (p. 1). ‘Critical Cultural Studies’ now appears as one of these three courses.
The purpose of the syllabus ‘Critical Cultural Studies’ is to “provide an interdisciplinary focus for studying issues of ‘culture’ by exploring recent developments in the Visual and Performing Arts and examining contemporary critical debates in the Arts and Philosophy” (1991, May 29, p. 3). Five of the study options from the two proposed 1 Unit Visual Arts courses reappear in the list of thirteen issues listed for examination in this 2 Unit course. They are: Aesthetics, Popular Culture, Post Modernism, Visual Culture, and Cultural Industries. The remaining eight
256 issues are: Computer Technologies, Community Arts Practices, Consumerism, Design Culture, Telecommunication Technologies, Policy and Political Issues, Cultural Production, and Textual Issues. This audacious display of listing issues that relate to contemporary culture is an attempt by the Visual Arts Syllabus Committee to reconcile a definition of culture within the Visual Arts. This appears to have an adverse effect, as the syllabus committee is overwhelmed in their struggle to display a wider view of the Visual Arts. This proposed syllabus disappears from the record following its deference from the meeting minutes (1991, June 26, p. 5). Budget constraints also impede the development of the proposed I Unit courses.
In the Draft Stage 6 Visual Arts Years 11-12 Syllabus (BOS, 1996b), the prominence of the Cultural Frame is threatened by the saturation of the word ‘culture’. The various distributions and roles that ‘culture’ assumes in this document suggests that tension continued for the Visual Arts Syllabus Advisory Committee surrounding how to define and embody what is valued in a ‘culture’ discourse in the Visual Arts. In the 1999 syllabus, the Cultural Frame embraces the same characteristics as in the 1996 syllabus however, in this text, the rarity of the statement specifies an effective field of appearance. The Cultural Frame takes precedence over the mere repetition and abundance of the word as evidenced in the draft syllabus document.
Of its twenty-three appearances in the Visual Arts Stage 6 Syllabus (1999), culture functions in correlation with the Frames fifteen times. It appears in a set or series comprising Subjective, Cultural, Structural and Postmodern on five occasions, as an object of knowledge under the heading ‘the Cultural Frame’ eight times, and written and arranged in a way that constitutes the values of the Cultural Frame on two occasions respectively.
The word ‘Culture’ first appears in the syllabus document under ‘The HSC Program of Study’ as “foster the intellectual, social and moral development of students, in particular developing their: respect for cultural diversity of Australian society” (BOS, 1999, p. 5). This sentiment reappears under the ‘Rationale for Visual Arts in Stage 6 Curriculum’:
the subject seeks to build informed citizens and discerning audiences for art and to raise the standard of cultural awareness in Australia. Visual Arts acknowledges the need to respect cultural diversity within Australia and in other regions and cultures (p. 6).
A note at the front of the syllabus acknowledges that material on page five of this text was taken from the 1997 White Paper, Securing Their Future: The NSW Government’s reforms for the Higher School Certificate. The White Paper included a statement of purpose for the HSC. Following the Government’s acceptance of the recommendations of the McGaw review of the
257 HSC, this statement of purpose was to be included in all revised syllabus texts. In this instance of governmentality, the Government is asserting their authority on this page of text by dictating the terms of the HSC as a program of study for all secondary school subjects, in this instance, Visual Arts.
Utilising the Cultural Frame in artmaking, students “can explore cultural values and social meanings. This may influence how they represent subject matter of a broad social significance and lead them to explore the cultural meanings of the expressive forms they work in” (BOS, 1999, p. 26). The disappearance of the Focus Areas in the 1996 draft syllabus introduced a new knowledge base in the Visual Arts. The various discursive strategies in this draft syllabus opened up the possibility for formulating new statements. The Cultural Frame in the 1999 syllabus is in continuity with the draft syllabus however the word ‘culture’ is recurrently redistributed and integrated into various fields of use in this draft document including ‘Subject Matter’ under content in Art Making and ‘Areas of Study’ under content in Art Criticism and Art History.
‘Culture’ appears eight times under the Subject Matter of Art Making in this draft syllabus as: “cultural significance of plants and animals in creating images of identity” under Other Living Things; “objects and artifacts as reflections and constructions of cultural interests” and “the historical, social, cultural and magical significance of certain objects and artifacts” under Objects; “significant places in family and cultural histories” under Places and Spaces; “a sense of self and/or cultural identity” under Events; “the role of the visual arts in creating and reflecting cultural interests” and “appropriation of images from different sources and cultures” under Issues and Theories; and lastly, “Subject matter from both visual and textual sources such as … cultural practices … inform many contemporary artworks” under Other Aspects about Subject Matter (BOS, 1996b, pp. 18-19).
‘Culture’ is used in abundance in the draft syllabus throughout the four Areas of Study. Using the Area of Study: Australian, ‘culture’ and ‘cultural’ is used in proximity to reference traditions and influences of Australian art; autonomy and artistic identity; issues of intellectual property and theft; multicultural exchanges; as well as the acknowledgment that “much of Australian culture, in historical and contemporary settings, is introduced, adapted and subject to influence from outside Australia while Indigenous cultures continue to survive, develop and react to European dominance” (BOS, 1996, p. 31).
In the Area of Study: Western Traditions, ‘culture’ is concerned with the diverse range embraced by traditions in Western art in Europe and the United States of America. Within the
258 Area of Study: Asia and the Pacific, historical and contemporary traditions in regions and cultures close to Australia including China, Japan, Indonesia, and Middle Eastern and South East Asian cultures as well as Islamic cultures are to be studied. Both these areas focus on: the diverse range of styles, cultures and periods found within these respective regions; regional, national and cultural identities; the sacred and secular nature of subject matter, culture and artistic expression represented in a range of art forms; as well as practices in modernist and contemporary contexts.
The fourth and final Area of Study: Tribal Traditions, “is concerned with the art of Tribal Traditions in regionally defined cultures” which are “geographically separate but culturally comparable” (p. 34). Themes to be studied include: tribal versus primitive art and culture; tribal traditions, history and culture from contact, invasion and colonisation by Europeans and groups from other regions and cultures; and lastly, conflict and protest in contemporary art and cultural influences and exchanges.
The Draft Stage 6 Visual Arts Years 11-12 Support Document (BOS, 1996c) includes six Program Overviews for the Preliminary and HSC Courses that provide samples of overviews developed by Visual Arts teachers as planned courses of study. In the 2 Unit HSC Course, the themes of program samples that use the Cultural Frame include titles such as ‘Post European Contact – Building an Identity’ and ‘Modernist and Contemporary Practices – Angry images of society’ amongst others.
In the 1999 syllabus, through the Cultural Frame in art criticism and art history, “students can consider how notions of cultural identity can inform the production of artworks” (BOS, 1999, p. 26). Students are no longer restricted to study the ‘issues, themes and problems’ of cultures from five regions: Africa, Oceania, Asia, Europe and the Americas, as required in the 1987 syllabus. The four ‘Areas of Study’ in the draft syllabus have also disappeared. Rather, students are encouraged to consider the “differing cultural attitudes towards the visual arts and the effects of scientific and technological innovation, politics and economics”. Examples of “concepts of social and cultural identity on artistic practices in particular places at a certain times and over time” are provided including, “gender, Indigenous, regional, national, modern, contemporary etc” (p. 26).
Maras (1994) examines the Cultural Frame as a model for studying and practicing art criticism in the Visual Arts syllabus. Using this frame, the meaning and value of art is understood through its cultural context. That is, art is a social practice and a reflection of the ideologies, beliefs and values of a society. Like Brown (1996), Maras acknowledges the Marxist
259 interpretation of society as informing the character of the Cultural Frame: “Meaning, value and truth are construed by the overdetermined nature of such a system whereby the product, or artwork, simultaneously determines the nature of the society and in turn is determined by the social structure of that society” (1994, p. 52). Louis Althusser’s explanation of culture derived from Marx’s theory of ‘materialistic capitalism’ is also recognised. In this system the base sustains the forces and relations of production, which in turn, conditions the superstructure. These relations of production determine a society’s relationships and ideologies, which are described as the superstructure. The superstructure of a society includes its culture, institutions, political power structures, roles, rituals, and state. Institutions such as the arts “are subtle expressions of power representing the dominant ideological position that keep in check the forces of productions within the structure and serve to endow the system with a form of identity” (Maras, 1994, p. 52). The base and the superstructure are interdependent as the base sustains the existence of the state while the state sustains the operations of the forces of production. Maras identifies that “change in this type of structure can only occur should the ideologies inherent to the state adjust in conjunction with the same degree of practical shift within the base” (p. 52).
Maras identifies that Gramsci also stresses the significance of cultural ideology in powerstructures that pervade all layers of the social stratum. For Gramsci ‘intellectuals’ were the directors and organisers who helped build society and produce hegemony by generating and advocating the ideological capital. Maras distinguishes the key practitioners within the field of the Visual Arts, including the art makers, the art critics and the art historians as an elite group of ‘intellectuals’.
The beliefs and values of a society are perpetuated through the social practice and functions of art: “art styles are categories constructed by the dominant ideology and serve to assist in the transmission of the cultural identity of the society” (Maras, 1994, p. 53). Maras identifies the role of the art historian, artist, and art critic under the Cultural Frame. The art historian “preserves and transmits the established tradition of art within society” (p. 53). Cultural identity is defined and reproduced by the art historian who organises the intellectual capital relative to the history of art. The artist produces artworks that reflect the values and beliefs of the dominant structure as promoted by the historian, the critic and the public. Artworks are considered aesthetically successful if they adhere to the accepted doctrines of art. The role of the art critic is to make “judgements about the value and meaning of artworks in accordance with the values and beliefs inherent to the cultural context of the society and reveal art to be integral to the overdetermined system within which it is created” (p. 54).
260 Maras (1994) maintains that students’ understanding of an artwork through the Cultural Frame will progress from that of naïve statements to sophisticated, reasoned explanations depending upon the viewers levels of understanding of the cultural context of the society within which the work of art was created. The naïve viewer’s perception and understanding of cultural context begins with their own immediate culture. As the individual becomes further determined by the education system and into the world of work for example, “the growing awareness of structures within the society and the ever-expanding notions of culture that shape and control activities and growth of participants within the system develops” (p. 55). In terms of valuing art:
a sophisticated critical response to a work would incorporate evaluative judgements based on the understanding of … the ways in which the artist’s works reflect, represent and interpret the ideological foundations responsible for the identity and context of the culture (Maras, 1994, p. 56).
This obedience to the dominant ideological position under this Frame, as outlined by Maras, is what Foucault defines as a sovereign notion of power, which he later rejects (detailed throughout this investigation). Drawing upon Foucault, power is conceived and exercised in terms of sovereignty in Visual Arts practices whenever dominant ideologies are deployed to restrain the forces of production within the structure and/or serve to define and reproduce a form of identity. That is, the Cultural Frame. This form of power is exercised over its subjects in accordance with the will of the sovereign through practices and rationalities of rule. The principles that underlie the Cultural Frame guide the structuring of knowledge in the Visual Arts on the basis of a particular cultural tradition and identity of a given society. Considering this, certain beliefs and ideologies purported to be of value through the generation of an identity are emphasised, sustained and reproduced in the Visual Arts as the student begins to cooperate and function according to the governing ideological position under this Frame. Practices that do not perpetuate and consolidate this ideological capital are neglected and excluded.
5.5.3 The Structural Frame
In the Visual Arts Stage 6 Syllabus (BOS, 1999) ‘media’ ceases to be privileged as the third of four categories and is replaced by the ‘Structural Frame’. There are important continuities however in the 1999 document with the previous syllabus. Statements associated with a media discourse in the 1987 syllabus have been retained under this Frame. ‘Art and Media’ is the second Focus Area acknowledged by Brown (1996) that “foreshadowed changes to the conceptual organisation of the new senior syllabus in visual arts that were to eventuate in the content area of the Frames” (p. 7). In the 1999 syllabus the saturation of the word ‘media’ as
261 evident in the 1987 syllabus disappears however ‘signs’ and ‘symbols’ continue to characterise the enunciative function of the Structural Frame:
Through this frame, art may be thought to be about and represent a visual language as a symbolic system: a system of relationships between signs and symbols that are read and understood by artists and audiences who are able to decode texts. From this view, meaning is understood in terms of the relationships of symbols that are used to refer to the world. Through this system ideas are circulated and exchanged (BOS, 1999, p. 26).
Reference to ‘symbols’ has existed in the writing of syllabus texts since the Draft HSC Art Syllabus developed by a Sub-Committee of the Art Syllabus Committee in October 1978. Using ‘Communication’, students were required to “identify symbols and interpret meanings” (p. 7). The key concept, ‘Visual Mass Media’, in the Draft Visual Mass Media Syllabus Year 11 and Year 12, 2 Unit Course (1981, April 27), includes ‘symbol’ as one “subsidiary concept” (p. 2) amongst others. ‘Symbols’ is defined in this draft syllabus, under the heading ‘Summary of Major Concepts and their Inter-Relationships’ as: “The intentional (or unintentional) meanings conveyed to the audience via pictures, signs, sounds, words and their inter-relationships” (p. 4). In the Draft Visual Arts Education Syllabus, Years 11-12 (1984, July 13), ‘Media’ is defined as: “whether visual or verbal, should be understood by students as consisting of signs, symbols and images which convey feeling or meaning” (p. 4). In the 1987 syllabus, ‘media’, ‘signs’, and ‘symbols’ continue to appear in discursive correlation under the Focus Area ‘Art and Media’. In ‘Making Artworks’ (BSE, 1987, p. 22), students, experiment with materials as a means of developing personal signs, symbols and images which they can use in an expressive way. Students also respond to signs, symbols and images created by others that can be manipulated, through the use of materials and their imagination, into images or objects that have personal meaning. In ‘Studying Images and Objects’ (p. 23), students perceive and identify ways in which their immediate environment and different societies have been affected by the use of signs, symbols, images and materials. The ways artists have collected, combined and developed signs, symbols, images and materials is also of relevance to this Focus Area.
The word ‘media’ continues to be distributed throughout the Draft Stage 6 Visual Arts Years 11-12 Syllabus (BOS, 1996b) without any authoritarian character. Interestingly, authority is now conferred on a technology discourse in this syllabus. ‘The Use of Information Technology’ appears as one of six sub-headings under the ‘Introduction’ to this draft syllabus. This syllabus “provides opportunities for students to access information for Art Making and art critical and historical studies through the use of information technologies” (BOS, 1996b, p. 4). I contend that the impetus for this new discourse was the NSW Government’s White Paper on curriculum
262 reform, Excellence and Equity. This document contains seventy-nine recommendations designed to bring about reforms that will:
guarantee that every student through to Year 12 receives a balanced education with opportunities to develop technological and vocational skills within the context of a broad education for the whole life. This new framework aims to provide students with the knowledge and skills that they will need to be active and creative participants in the 21st century. Australia’s new century will be driven by high technology, rapid communication, high levels of interaction in a dynamic international society and an intensely competitive global economy (Metherell, 1989, Preface).
At it was the BOS’ responsibility to translate and implement the initiatives set out in this Government policy for education reform, it is apparent that the Board regulated its actions in order to meet the goals and requirements of this White Paper. The meeting minutes of the Years 7-12 Visual Arts Syllabus Committee record that a report delivered by Paul Milton on behalf of the Creative Arts KLACC noted, “in regard to the place of technology in the arts, the Board has stated that all subjects involve ‘technology’ (1991, March 7, p. 2). In response to this government mandate, the Creative Arts KLACC presents a paper to the syllabus committee (1991, April 24) titled Pilot Curriculum Projects in New Technologies in the Creative Arts. This paper is a consequence of two recommendations made by the Creative Arts KLACC to the BOS:
(i) That the reviews of courses of study in the Creative Arts KLACC address students’ needs in understanding and using the relevant technologies (ii) That the Board initiate a range of pilot curriculum projects in schools which explore the use of new technologies in the Arts and the documentation of these curriculum projects be used to develop curriculum support materials for use by other teachers and schools.
Both recommendations were supported by the BOS however the KLACC was requested to provide the additional advice on the second recommendation. The paper was prepared to provide the additional information required by the BOS. Syllabus Committees were requested by the KLACC to nominate teachers and schools currently involved in the development of teaching programs using new technologies. The understandings and materials developed through the project were to contribute to the review of the syllabuses taking place in the Creative Arts including the Visual Arts. The paper sets out the reasons for the project, issues to
263 be considered, the proposed method of investigation, anticipated outcomes and evaluation. The ‘Reasons for the Project’ include:
In the Visual Arts, imagery including technology in the form of TV, film, video, animation and image generation and reproduction using computers, is revolutionising the way we perceive and understand the world.
Board syllabuses and resources materials need to provide teachers with an understanding of the place and possible use of technologies in Creative Arts education.
Teachers involved in this collaborative project developed and reflected on their practices and advised the Visual Arts Syllabus Committee, in a comprehensive way, of possible directions for syllabus development in the use of technologies.
At the same meeting as this tabled paper (1991, April 24) the working party of the Years 7-12 Visual Arts Syllabus Committee, formed to develop One Unit Course requirements in the Visual Arts in response to the 1989 White Paper, presents seven broad areas as possible courses. Two of these proposed courses are: ‘Visual Communication’ and ‘Film Arts’. Study Options for ‘Visual Communication’ include: Theatre Design, Graphic Design, Illustration, Cartooning, and Lettering. This appears to be an attempt by the syllabus committee to maintain ‘visual communication’ in visual arts discourse however meaning for this object of knowledge is now derived from the discipline of design. The syllabus committee also suggests adding ‘computer technology’, not initially included, to the study options in Visual Communication. Study Options for ‘Film Arts’ include: Photography, Film, and Video. These 1 Unit examinable courses are revised to include six proposed courses (1991, May 29). ‘Visual Communication’ is maintained as the first of these six courses however the Study Options have been rewritten as: Word and Image, Signs and Symbols, Typeface, Layout, Illustration, Cartooning, and Packaging. ‘Signs and symbols’ appears as one of the characteristics of this discursive formation.
One of the three 2 Unit Courses for Years 11 and 12 also recommended to the BOS as across discipline courses for the Creative Arts KLA is ‘Film Arts’. ‘Media’ appears as one of three suggested alternative titles for this draft course in hand-written annotations, made by syllabus committee member Kerry Thomas, alongside ‘Radio’ and ‘Media and the Arts’. This draft document outlines the ‘Purpose of the Syllabus’:
264 Communicating and expressing ideas and feelings through visual images is fundamental to all societies. Increasingly this communication is taking place through such media as photography, film and video. Each of these media is an artform as well as a recorder and transmitter of other art forms.
‘Media’ and ‘communication’ repeatedly appear in discursive correlation. The course was to cater for a range of student interests, classified as five headings: vocational, visual literacy, technological, artform, and recreational. The title for this proposed additional 2 Unit Creative Arts Course is soon rewritten as ‘Media Arts’ (1991, May 29). The characterisation of these proposed courses as “more career oriented, more technologically skill specific and emphasise contemporary practices” and that “they will be particularly relevant to students in technology high schools” (1991, May 29, p. 1) is in accordance with the Government’s recommendation for the inclusion of technology discourse in all areas of learning. Possible study options related to each of the Creative Arts subjects for ‘Media Arts’ include: Animation for Film and Video (Visual Arts); Recording Technologies (Music); Acting for Radio and Television (Drama); and Choreography for Television and Video (Dance). ‘Film Arts’ continues as a proposed 1 Unit Course.
Suggestions for 2 Unit Creative Arts Courses disappear from the record following their deference (1991, June 26, p. 2) while the meeting minutes record “Recent budget constraints have resulted in a delay in the development of 1 Unit courses of this type” (1991, June 26, p. 4). Despite this, Paul Milton, Board Inspector, informs the syllabus committee, “It would be advisable to develop the outlines for these courses even though it would probably be some time before they were implemented”. It is decided: “That the priority of 1 Unit courses for Visual Arts be 1. Film Arts, 2. Visual Communications, and 3. Ceramics” (p. 4). At the next meeting of the syllabus committee, it is reported that the KLACC announced that these 1 Unit Courses “are to be put on “back burner” for 1-2 years due to financial stringencies forced on the Board” (1991, July 31, p. 3). The BOS “structured the possible field of action” (Foucault, 1982, p. 221) of the Visual Arts Syllabus Committee to produce additional courses in regulation with the policy discourse on curriculum reform in NSW. The syllabus committee conformed to these imposed directions under the guidance of the BOS who then had the power to deny their approval.
In the Draft Stage 6 Visual Arts Years 11-12 Syllabus (BOS, 1996b), ‘Film/Video’ is rewritten as one of four Expressive Forms listed under 4 Dimensional (Time Based) (p. 21). Film/Video continues as one of fifteen Expressive Forms into the 1999 syllabus however five other forms are also technology based including: Photography, Digital Media, Digital Animation,
265 Documented Forms, and, Interactives. Using Technology appears as one of seven Key Competencies listed in the 1999 syllabus:
In Visual Arts Stage 6 students develop skills in the use of both contemporary and traditional technology in the practice of artmaking, art criticism and art history. The range of technologies used may include film/video, computer hardware and software, printmaking equipment and a variety of materials used in the expressive forms (BOS, 1999, p. 16).
‘Visual Communication’ disappears from the 1996 draft syllabus however ‘communication’ continues to be privileged as “the communicative value of artworks made possible by the use of symbols and how these are read” (BOS, 1996b, p. 5) under the Structural Frame. Through the Structural Frame in Art Making in both the 1996 draft and 1999 syllabus, students are encouraged “to consider the communicative value of their work in their use of conventions and selection of symbols” (BOS, 1996b, p. 17; 1999, p. 26). In Art Criticism and Art History, students investigate “the communicative value of artworks including the selection and use by artists of symbols and signs, conventions, and formal characteristics and organisations” (BOS, 1996b, p. 29). This first sentence has disappeared from the description of the Structural Frame in art criticism and art history in the 1999 syllabus however the remainder of the paragraph is in continuity with the 1996 syllabus as: “Students may study how visual information is transmitted in artworks, how the formal and organisational relationships in a work mean certain things and how the visual arts can operate as a visual language at a certain time and over time” (p. 26). In the 1999 syllabus, the word ‘communicate’ is maintained by its integration as the Key Competency Communicating Ideas and Information:
In Visual Arts Stage 6 students develop skills in representing ideas and interests in artworks, written and oral forms. Students learn to consider the different ways their ideas and interests may be understood by audiences and how they communicate meaning (BOS, 1999, p. 15).
‘Signs’ and ‘symbols’ as the objects of knowledge under the Structural Frame in both the 1996 draft and 1999 syllabus resonate with Brown’s (1990, 1996, 2000) definition of this Frame. Vaughan (1994) examines the Structural Frame as a model for studying and practicing art criticism in her paper presented at the Sixth Occasional Seminar in Art Education. The Structural Frame is investigated as a theory of signs, focusing on the formal properties of signs, symbols and codes as the objects of study under this Frame.
266 Structuralism, often referred to as semiotics, is concerned with how meaning is constructed and understood in various languages within different cultures and subcultures (Eagleton, 2008). Vaughan identifies that “communication within or between cultural groupings in structuralist terms depends on engaging with protocols and codes. Through the Structural Frame, “the art object can be viewed as a symbolic or coded object” (p. 81). Like Brown (1996), Vaughan acknowledges that this theory was represented by the Focus Area ‘Art and Media’ in the 1987 Visual Arts Syllabus Years 11-12.
Vaughan (1994) explores a selection of theorists and their explanations of semiotics including Ferdinand de Saussure, Claude Levi-Strauss, and Charles Sanders Peirce. Five years earlier, in her discussion of the Focus Area, ‘Art and Media’, Willis (1989) recognises the saturation of media and signs in the modern world believing “everything that stands for something else is open to a semiological reading” (p. 18). An account of semiology is presented, based largely on the writings of Roland Barthes who defined semiology “as the study of how humanity gives meaning to things” (Barthes, 1961, p. 16). Willis points out however that the Swiss Linguist Ferdinand de Saussure who coined the word ‘semiology’ in 1916 as the ‘science of signs’, challenges the traditional model of meaning of semiology “in which there is assumed to be a ‘reality out there’ which signs seek to describe” (p. 17). Saussure argued that “systems of signs are structured like language – individual signs makes sense because they are part of a systematic structure, something internally coherent” (p. 17). That is, the activity of reading cultural objects using semiotics as systems of signs, is an attempt to “uncover ‘preferred’ or dominant meanings and of examining the processes by which these meanings are constructed and thus gaining insights into the social production of meaning” (p. 17). Willis believes that to become “perceptive readers of the rich text of our culture is to become estranged from that culture” (p. 18). In other words, in learning to confirm, extend or expose/challenge dominant meanings of visual imagery, we can “learn to decode what appears as obvious and natural” (p. 18). Like Willis (1989), Vaughan (1994) refers to the writings of Saussure and his dualistic notion of signs as the ‘signifier’ (the word, sound-image or graphic form) and the ‘signified’ (the concept or meaning). According to Saussure, there is no natural connection between the sign and its meaning, it is arbitrary and conventional. Due to the arbitrariness of the sign, Vaughan explains, “the meaning of the sign is dependent on the other signs and the system that structures their organisation” (1994, p. 82).
Vaughan proceeds to a discussion of the French structural anthropologist Levi-Strauss who identifies myths as structures through which language could be discovered. Myths were reduced into a series of sentences, rules and sets of relations, which underpin the narrative, and likened to the study of “universal mental operations” (p. 82). Levi-Strauss discovered that the structures
267 of myths consist of binary oppositions. A characteristic of the human mind is a desire to find a midpoint between such oppositions, a means of classification: “meaning is not a private internal experience, or a mysterious enlightenment, but the product of shared systems of signification” (Vaughan 1994, p. 82). Vaughan (1994) further explains:
How you make meaning of the world is determined by the language available to you, it is not a function of looking or seeing, nor is it eternally fixed. Meaning is historically and socially determined and it is dependent on the speech you possess. Reality is produced by language which does not simply reflect reality. This is possible because we are controlled by and dependent on sign-systems. Communication is achieved by the reading of the structural codes (p. 82).
Carter’s ‘Framing Art’ (1993) is referenced by Vaughan (1994) including his example of semiotic/structural analysis using the semiotic philosophy of Charles Sanders Peirce. Peirce devised a typology of three signs including: The icon, The index, and The symbol. A key feature of the ‘icon’ is that it bears a resemblance to its object, “an iconic relationship with what they present” (Vaughan, 1994, p. 83); an ‘index’ has a direct existential connection with its object such as the ringing of a bell; and the representative character of the ‘symbol’ consists of it being a rule that is determined by its interpreter: “it is only understood by the decoder if they have knowledge of the code or the system of signs” (p. 83).
The Structural Frame evidently arose as the result of an intellectual climate that favoured a method of inquiry predominantly concerned with the perceptions and descriptions of structures. There is a distinct shift in Visual Arts ‘thinking’ using this Frame from the psychological paradigm of the 1987 syllabus (rewritten in the 1999 syllabus as the Subjective Frame), whereupon the arts are understood by feelings and a sensory, private experience. The individual is no longer the unitary source of meaning. Rather, by decoding the systems of signs represented in a work of art, value and meaning is derived as a consequence of the viewers understanding of what these signs, symbols and codes represent. ‘Communication’, a discourse that I have shown consumed the Art Syllabus Committee since the 1978 draft HSC art syllabus (detailed in Chapter Three), is achieved under this Frame by reading the structural codes inherent in the plethora of sign-systems that exist in the students’ ever-changing, technological and visual world.
268 5.5.4 The Postmodern Frame
The Postmodern Frame first appears in Brown’s (1991, April 10) single-page appraisal of the conceptual organisation of the 1987 Visual Arts Syllabus Years 11-12 as one of four categories that characterise art as ‘Art as Difference, Discourse and the Post Modern’. The next recorded appearance of the word ‘Post Modern’ is in two-pages of hand-written notes titled ‘Post Modern/Perspectivist’. I understand this undated paper to be written by BOS Officer and Visual Arts Syllabus Committee member, Kerry Thomas. Sixteen issues and their definitions are listed under the statement: “Activities in this Frame could include consideration of the following issues”. These issues are: Death of the Author; Reading a Work of Art as a Text; Blurring the Boundaries between Criticism and Creation; Intertextuality; Increased Importance of the Reader/Viewer; Specific Histories/Other Histories; Psycho Analytic; Difference; Deconstruction; Post Modernism; Discourse; Value/Truth as Relative; Questioning Notions of Modernism; Question of ‘Traditional’ Terms for Defining Forms; Questioning the: ‘Natural’ and ‘Universal’; and, Questioning features of late Capitalism. I contend that these annotated notes are written in response to the Visual Arts Syllabus Committee’s recommendation that more information and explanation of the Frames, particularly the Postmodern Frame is required following the consultation of the Draft Visual Arts Years 7-10 Syllabus (1994, March 2).
In the 1980s and 1990s, there was a growing interest in ‘postmodernism’ as a way of understanding contemporary, social and critical trends. The writers working within this ‘moment’ whose work has made a significant contribution to postmodern perspectives include Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Jacques Lacan, and Jean-Francois Lyotard, amongst others.34 Their ideas challenge existing concepts, structures, and hierarchies of knowledge and have contributed to a re-examination of educational theory and practice. The annotated notes by Thomas list the theoretical approaches most commonly viewed as postmodernist as well as direct references to post-structuralist texts such as ‘The Death of the Author’ by Roland Barthes (1977). These dominant power/knowledge discourses were infusing the academic field at this
34 Derrida, J. (1978). Writing and difference (A. Bass, Trans. and Ed.). Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press. (Original work published in 1967). Foucault, M. (1970). The order of things: An archaeology of the human sciences. New York, NY: Vintage Books. Foucault, M. (1972). The archaeology of knowledge. London, England: Routledge. Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison (A. Sheridan, Trans.) New York, NY: Vintage Books. (Original work published in 1975). Foucault, M. (1978). The will to knowledge: The history of sexuality volume 1. (R. Hurley, Trans.). USA: Penguin Books. Lacan, J. (1968). The language of the self: The function of language in psychoanalysis. Baltimore, Maryland: The John Hopkins University Press. Lyotard, J. (1984). The postmodern condition: A report on knowledge (G. Bennington and B. Massumi, Trans.). Manchester, England: Manchester University Press. (Original work published in 1979).
269 time, including art education, however this extensive list of issues highlights the syllabus committee’s unresolved dilemma as to how to succinctly define and represent the Postmodern Frame.
The three terms used in Brown’s statement ‘Art as Difference, Discourse and the Post Modern’ appear under each other in the two-pages of notes by Thomas. These three issues are defined as: ‘Difference’ - “Text conveys meanings or fragments of meanings … Also viewing what has been left out”; ‘Discourse’ - “Ideas do not occur in a blank space”; and finally, ‘Postmodernism’ - “after modernism”.
An undated typed-document located in the data, titled ‘FRAME: Making and Studying’ lists bullet-point definitions alongside each of the four Frames: Cultural, Structural, Subjective and Postmodern. Postmodern is defined as:
x blurring of boundaries between ‘criticism’ and ‘creation’ x appropriation, pastiche – works have no clear cut defined boundaries, they spill over into other works generating many different perspectives x codes and fragments of codes- seamless web like complexities x discourse x images read as texts x ‘ideas’ do not exist in a blank space.
Five of these six statements directly reiterate the issues and/or their definitions from the annotated notes. They are: ‘Blurring of Boundaries between Criticism and Creation’; ‘Intertextuality’ defined by Thomas as “texts (works) have no clear cut boundaries” with ‘Appropriations’ and ‘Pastiche’ written alongside this statement; ‘Reading a Work of Art as a Text’ explained as “meanings made as fragments of codes”; Specific Histories/Other Histories’ identified as “web like complexities”; and ‘Discourse’ specified as “ideas do not exist in a blank space”. This definition is rewritten as a separate bulleted point to ‘Discourse’ in the undated document.
In McKeon’s (1994) single-page document located in the data titled The Frames as Orientations for Investigating Art Historical Questions, the Postmodern Frame is characterised as supporting questions concerning: Power, Dispute, Revision, Controversy, Appropriation, and, Transgression. These are considered collectively as questions of ‘Disclosure and
270 Deconstruction’. ‘Deconstruction’ is the technique associated with Derrida, also identified by Brown (1996) as a dominant philosophical basis for the Postmodern Frame.
Vaughan (1994) attempts to outline the theory that underpins the Postmodern Frame in relation to the practice of Critical Study in the Visual Arts in her paper presented at the Sixth Occasional Seminar in Art Education. According to Vaughan (1994):
postmodernism enables us to interrogate how we make meaning, by exposing the structures and systems that constitute meaning and authority in a modernist, capitalist society. A postmodern perspective entails suspicion about the control and circulation of systems and beliefs in society (p. 84).
Using this Frame, the meaning and value of art is understood in the reconstruction of works or the recontextualisation of one work relative to others: “the artist relies on a viewer knowing the earlier reference in order to generate an ironic “double-coded” reading” (Vaughan, 1994, p. 84).
Like Brown (1996) Vaughan acknowledges the association of postmodernism with the theoretical writings of Derrida and Foucault. Postmodernists, according to Vaughan, question the accepted meaning of texts revealing the motives behind the meaning. From this orientation there is no fixed categories, stable sets of values, or common sense meanings for a given text, but rather, every text can have a multitude of meanings. In Derrida’s methodology, described as ‘deconstruction’, “knowledge is always subject to continuous interpretation as it is caught up in the intertextuality of discourse” (Vaughan, 1994, p. 85). In opposition to the scientific pretensions that structuralism is founded upon that presupposes a centre of meaning, “Derrida’s knowing continually fights against the authority of the centre” (p. 85) that constitutes knowledge.
Vaughan attributes Pierre Bourdieu’s critical cultural theory as foreshadowing postmodern speculations. Bourdieu examines how a system of power is maintained by the transmission of a dominant culture through the structure of society. The structures that control our social existence formulate our habitus. Social structures are produced and reproduced through the habitus. Vaughan explains, “it is only by revealing the system that an individual can play the game and move within the system, with the potential of achieving a degree of emancipation and consciousness” (p. 85). Using Bourdieu’s theory, “the interpretation of an artwork is an act of decoding and deciphering and an agent must possess the code and the knowledge to decipher it” (p. 85).
271 Vaughan moves her discussion onto Henry Giroux and his postmodern theory of education in the ‘democratic public sphere’. Giroux defines education as a “political, social and cultural enterprise that should strive for ‘critical pedgogy’ (Vaughan, 1994, p. 86). In this enterprise, “students should be encouraged to read different cultural codes, understand their limits and be able to construct their lives using various codes” (p. 86). Postmodernism therefore provides a theoretical base from which it will become possible to create citizens who are able to exercise power over their own lives. To identify the cultural code of the text, texts are analysed within a ‘network of relations’ with other texts and institutional practices. A student’s work is viewed as part of this intertextuality.
Postmodernism is concerned with revealing the ‘disjunctions’ and ‘discontinuities’ in the supposed “seamless, continuous and uncontested series” (Vaughan, 1994, p. 86). Vaughan acknowledges Michel Foucault and his suspicion of the motivation that constructs a Modernist version of history. Postmodern methods, “access meanings in events which are not obvious or analytically available. Thus we are startled by the double-coding and the ironies which reveal to us hitherto unreflected aspects of our condition in the present” (p. 86). Artworks, disrupted by the postmodern method, “mock the authority of the centre by questioning the established meaning and by revealing the power relations that constitute it” (p. 87). When the context of an artwork is altered, the meaning of the work also changes.
Vaughan describes the Postmodern Frames as “revealing the structures that produce meaning by being suspicious about the control of the communication of beliefs in society; beliefs that are part of the knowledge base of society” (1994, p. 87). Fixed meanings for texts do not exist from this orientation. There are many different and continually changing interpretations. Postmodern critical study therefore involves “evaluating the effectiveness of an artist to reveal the motivations, inconsistencies and assumptions that underpin the value or meaning of the appropriated text” (p. 87).
The representation of the Postmodern Frame in the Draft Stage 6 Visual Arts Years 11-12 Syllabus (BOS, 1996b) is in continuity with Brown’s (1992a, 1992b) characterisation of this Frame. The use of the words ‘recontextualise’ and ‘irony’ in the statement “may lead students to recontextualise artworks or redefine what art is in the present, using wit, irony or parody. This may influence how students ‘raid’ images from a variety of sources in the artworks they make” (BOS, 1996b, p. 17) in Art Making, is reminiscent of Brown’s description as: “Art is valued for the extent of the role that it plays in recontext ualising other art. Understanding in art is portrayed as a comprehension of the ironic return of or quotation by one artwork, of earlier works” (1992a, p. 65).
272 In Art Criticism and Art History, the Postmodern Frame “may lead to investigations of patterns of authority which have sustained the meanings of artworks and influenced assumptions about their meaning and value” (BOS, 1996b, p. 30). This is derived from Brown’s (1992a) interpretation as: “the meaning of art is attained … by revealing the incoherencies or ironies in its “text” and by exposing the pattern of authority by which it is sustained” (p. 65). Furthermore, “students can re-evaluate notions of the artistic genius, the masterpiece, influences and chronologies, revealing disjunctions and differences in meaning and examine the significance of irony, parody, quotation and appropriation in visual arts practices” (BOS, 1996b, p. 30). Considering this, a postmodern interpretation marks a significant shift in accepted assumptions about the nature of art, children’s artistic development, and teaching practices in the Visual Arts. Using this Frame, students are not required to uncover a pre-existing reality or blindly accept expert pronouncements. Rather, they are encouraged to become involved in the discursive process of discerning meaning in the Visual Arts by questioning the notion of expertise and accepted ‘realities’. In this way, the curriculum is based on a sense of inquiry that encompasses a pluralistic approach and awareness of different cultures and ways in which values about art are constructed, reinforced, and changeable. Students are considered active participants in society and play a role in shaping and constructing their own meaning in relation to a work of art.
A ‘Glossary’ located at the back of the draft syllabus defines ‘Postmodernism’, as a term used in this syllabus, in two senses” Firstly:
as an artistic style is characterised by a witty or ironic approach which uses appropriation of images from earlier periods, it may parody other forms and is tolerant of pluralism while being suspicious of traditional Western ideas of humanism (BOS, 1996b, p. 50).
Secondly, other associated terms include:
discourse analysis, deconstruction, post-structuralism. The common attitude is interdisciplinary approaches, suspicion and a sense of pessimism, even cynicism regarding the values of humanism and the individual which is engaged with awareness of the absences, silences and disjunctions in the meaning and sense of the image or the text (p. 50).
Interestingly, the Postmodern Frame does not appear in Brown’s (1991, April 10) single-page document however the words used in his fourth perspective, ‘Art as Difference, Discourse and
273 the Post Modern’ are integrated into the Postmodern Frame in this draft syllabus. The terms ‘difference’, ‘discourse’ and ‘postmodern’ now appear in series with the phrases ‘deconstruction’, ‘irony’, ‘parody’, ‘quotation’ and ‘appropriation’. This succession of terms continues into the definition of the Postmodern Frame in the 1999 syllabus. In this syllabus, the existence of the Postmodern Frame is minimal. The Postmodern Frame appears only six times in this text and is placed in series as the Subjective, Cultural, Structural and Postmodern on five of those occasions.
Using this Frame, ‘irony’, ‘parody’, and ‘quotation’ continue to exist in mutual functioning to “question previous texts and current narratives” (BOS, 1999, pp. 26-27). From this view “meaning is attained through critique that exposes the patterns of authority and the assumptions of mainstream values in the visual arts to reveal inconsistencies, uncertainties and ironies” (pp. 26-27). In artmaking, the use of the statements: “students can recontextualise artworks and critique definitions of what art is”, and, “investigating the potential of newer technologies”, are reminiscent of artmaking using this Frame in the draft syllabus. Art criticism and art history through this Frame is nearly an exact replica of their appearance in the draft syllabus text.
In response to the ‘intellectual fashion’ of postmodernism as an area of academic study in the mid-1980s, considerable energy was invested by university members of the Visual Arts Syllabus Committee in applying postmodern writings and critical procedures to art education. As a consequence of Brown’s trenchant contribution to the elevation of postmodernism to ‘agenda status’ within the field of art education, this study has identified Brown as the speaker of this discourse ideology. The power/knowledge of postmodern trends ultimately resulted in the emergence of the Postmodern Frame in the Visual Arts syllabus that represented one of four dominant positions in intellectual thought.
5.6 Summary
In this chapter a genealogy of the Frames in NSW art curricula has been traced. Utilising Foucauldian methodology provided for an interpretation of the Frames as emergent and prominent art education discourse in the 1990s. One of the crucial concerns that impacted the field of art education’s motivation to include alternative forms of knowing in the Visual Arts syllabus was the increasing intervention of Federal powers in educational decision-making. The force of external policies and educational practices incited the Visual Arts Syllabus Committee to revise the syllabus and incorporate diverse perspectives into the curriculum. The syllabus committee was also disgruntled by the conceptualisation of art curriculum content and practice as child-centred and process oriented as represented in the 1987 syllabus.
274 Discourse analysis has been used to examine the circumstances in which the Frames discourse came to prominence at the expense of other discourses, the specific conditions of their development, how it was that the particularities of the Frames – the Subjective, Cultural, Structural and Postmodern – were chosen and not others, and the relations between each of the four Frames. In addition to providing a critique of the representation of the Frames in the 1999 syllabus text, this analysis exposed how certain discourses were privileged and others marginalised within working draft documents, reports, correspondence, and the minutes of meetings, illustrating shifts and continuities in the distribution and advancement of the Frames discourse.
Importantly, my analysis has highlighted the relations of power that imbued and inscribed a Frames discourse and its discursive formations into art education. The Frames discourse was dialectically and mutually constituted within two institutional sites – the Visual Arts Syllabus Committee and the School of Art Education, COFA, UNSW. This chapter has revealed the interest invested by tertiary nominees of the Visual Arts Syllabus Committee in the development of the Frames. I specifically attribute the impetus for the emergence of the Frames to Neil Brown. I traced the Frames discourse used in the 1999 syllabus to Brown’s writings. In tracing the published record of Brown between 1988 and 2005, I identified similar expressions related to the Frames in documents written by Brown as well as uncovering direct references in his texts. This enabled me to examine what particular kinds of knowledges informed the four Frames, how particular perspectives were included, and how the field of art education benefited from the inclusion of the Frames in art education discourse.
The profound influence of the university representatives and their contribution to art curricula ideas impacted the constitution of the Visual Arts Syllabus Committee as a subject of self- regulation. I have demonstrated the ways in which the syllabus committee took an active role in their own governance in the 1990s by the formation of the Frames. The Frames assisted the subject in defining, developing and maintaining their identity with the aim of self-awareness and self-control.
275 CHAPTER SIX CONCLUSION
This thesis has conducted an investigation of the varied discursive mechanisms, effected through the operations of government, that have formed the underpinning structure of Visual Arts education in NSW in the 1980s and 1990s. The analysis focused on archival records and policy documents of curriculum instrumentalities, in particular, the 1987 and the 1999 senior Visual Arts matriculation syllabuses. These two syllabus documents were selected as each claims to innovate a new curriculum object: the Focus Areas and the Frames. Foucault’s concepts of power, discourse analysis and theories of governmentality, assisted the investigation into what constituted knowledge in art education in these two syllabus documents and by what processes they came into being. That is, out of all the possible statements that could have been written, this study explains why the Focus Areas and the Frames were selected and arranged in a particular way in these curriculum texts and ultimately, how they altered the knowledge base and conception of the subject, Visual Arts. This study has fundamentally been concerned with investigating how the discourses of art education were sustained and normalised.
The review of literature presented in Chapter Two revealed how orthodox versions of subject histories identify the production of knowledge within the school curriculum as the outcome of contestation and struggle between a range of competing groups attempt to define content and practice. Examining what is known in the field of school subject and curriculum change contributed to an understanding of the forces that impacted the construction of knowledge in the Visual Arts and the effects these differing interests and ideologies may have had on the subjects’ identity. These curriculum studies exposed the political processes and patterns of power that influence syllabus development, determine inclusions and exclusions, and the effects of this on schools, teachers and students.
The application of a genealogical method in the respective chapters highlighted the different technologies of government, notably the normalised practices and techniques, that were implemented in the development of the two syllabus documents under investigation. Curriculum is viewed in this research as a form of biopower that functions as a site of normalisation. Techniques of normalisation involve the simultaneous exercise of power at both the level of the population and the individual. A Foucauldian approach to this study provided a way of understanding how power manifested itself in not only the macro expectations required by curriculum authorities such as the Department of Education and the Board, but also at the micro-level of the Art Syllabus Committee, as the individual local site.
276 The institutional sites and multiple, competing interests active in the production of subject knowledge in the Visual Arts across the selected period was determined in Chapter Two. This is an outcome of my first research question. Research question two concerning the power relationships that existed within curriculum change was addressed by exposing the institutional practices that framed and regulated the flow of information and facilitated the selection and organisation of particular forms of knowledge in the visual arts curriculum. The relationship between the three respective Boards and Minister of Education is viewed as part of Foucault’s technology of governmentality. That is, the activities of the Board were accountable to the educational goals set by government. The Minister developed mechanisms of control over the activity of the Board and through various forms of disciplinary practice actions of the Board were sanctioned or dismissed. Each Board, however, took an active role in their own governance and ‘disciplined’ itself by appointing subject syllabus committees to assist with the syllabus development process. The syllabus committee was the site, used by governments, most concerned with advising, representing and constituting the subject, and setting policy. This study identified how curriculum authorities sought to produce subjects, in this instance the Art Syllabus Committee, that valued and engaged in practices in accordance with pre-determined discourses. These discourses were governmental objectives that valorised specific types of knowledge, in particular those that constituted normalised, disciplined and docile subjects. The privileging of such discourses meant that other knowledges were often marginalised or ignored.
The control of the Art Syllabus Committee, with the intent to reform and regulate the curriculum, and thereby, secure the aims of Government, has been traced to the development and implementation of a syllabus text. That is, the syllabus was the formal means by which the educational authorities sought to regulate what was taught under the subject, Visual Arts. The Board created a system of syllabus development that was controlled, managed and organised. Setting the timelines, supervising the progress of work and approving the release of the syllabus text were all a mechanism of control over the activity of the syllabus committee. These accountability practices were intentionally imposed by the Board and specifically moulded to produce normative outcomes that would maximise the goals set by government. They were largely self-regulating techniques aimed at conformity and normalisation that required self- surveillance on behalf of the syllabus committee to define and interpret what was admissible in their particular setting and how they would translate these parameters for the writing and development of the official curriculum texts.
The study has found that whilst the practices of the four respective Art Syllabus Committees were restricted and regulated by these parameters set by the principles of governmentality, the syllabus committee was not always a passive respondent to external forces. The Art Syllabus
277 Committee and its individual members retained substantial independence to set their own directions and the capacity to exert their own power in ways other than in abidance with governmental intent. In doing so, they assumed an active and crucial role in the curriculum- making process.
The analysis of the circulation of power within the field of art education (the focus of research question two) revealed that one of the ways in which the Art Syllabus Committee exercised their own productive capacity was through the use of various working parties and subcommittees. These agents negotiated the meanings of the pre-established rules set by the syllabus committee. By defining and circumscribing the boundaries of legitimate thought and action, the writing teams were the ‘docile and useful bodies’ that conformed and were obedient to the authority of the syllabus committee. In doing so, the writing teams necessitated the efficient functioning of the syllabus committee.
Research question three was the tool used to examine the assemblage discourses that constituted the discipline, Visual Arts, in the NSW curriculum in the 1980s and 1990s. It has been argued herein that the formation of the Visual Arts in the 1980s was produced out of a network of discourses and power relations. The genealogical inquiry presented in Chapter Three illustrated the ways in which the field of art education adopted various, existing subjectivities of belonging and identity that official policy discourse constructed and allowed. This study has traced how the K-12 discourse acted as one regulative technique in that it had normative effects. The government positioned K-12 as the solution to problems in the education system that needed to be remedied. In doing so, the K-12 concept became a means for the Director of Studies to regulate behavioural patterns of the Board according to codes of conduct considered to be ‘normal’ and ‘desirable’. The actions of the Art Syllabus Committee were subsequently informed and shaped by the promulgation of this authoritative discourse.
The Art Syllabus Committee did not contest governmental intent by creating alternative policies or their own ways of operating during this time of curriculum reform. The study contends that the aspiration of art educators to be recognised as a necessary and worthwhile subject within the school curriculum was inhibited or persuaded by this extrinsic, colonising influence of government. As a consequence of this technology of control, the Art Syllabus Committee took an active role in their own conduct and regulated its behaviour in accordance with this particular, pre-scribed identity.
Research question four focused on the way in which the field of art education adopted discourses imposed from or interdependent with authoritative discourses external to the field.
278 This study has shown how the Art Syllabus Committee was, at times, subservient to the co- existence and relations of social networks that provided opportunities for discursive formations, and in this instance, for the K-12 Visual Arts Curriculum Project, to flourish and be sustained. By conforming to the rules and ‘norms’ of dominant educational discourse, directed by external power, the syllabus committee sought to have represented their knowledge and values into official discourse. The ‘Statement of Principles For Years K-12’ (1983) became the central authoritative and mandated requirement in the visual arts curriculum. This statement, which privileged a child-centred discourse, legitimated the ‘truth’ by which the syllabus committee began to govern themselves. The Art Syllabus Committee began the process of revising the Years 11-12 syllabus on the grounds that this K-12 curriculum policy had implications for the present syllabus.
The K-12 discourse that was in circulation during this period is viewed herein as productive rather than repressive. That is, this authoritative discourse made possible alternative dispositions and new ways of constituting the Visual Arts in education. The introduction of the K-12 policy and subsequent approval by the Board for a syllabus revision, enabled the Art Syllabus Committee to devise a syllabus structure that did not require the whole history of art to be taught but was oriented more towards the present experience of students. The content of art history and its examination has been identified as a contentious and persistent issue that imbued the art education community for many years. The 1978 course limited Visual Arts content in art history to a Eurocentric chronological method. The Art Syllabus Committee, it has been argued, was anxious to confer status and privilege on objects of knowledge of an ‘Australian’ discourse that were described as child centred, local, and immediate. These objects of knowledge largely reflected normalised subjectivities in that they were common to a K-12 discourse. They became the ‘truths’ that constituted ‘Australia’, or as it was variously spoken ‘Australian’, ‘Australian art’, and ‘Australian culture’.
Of particular significance to this study is the manner in which the 1987 syllabus embraced Australian art, following the perceived anomalies and other shortcomings of the previous syllabus, in particular the delimitation of Australia as a period in a modernist chronology. This thesis has argued that the Focus Areas were invented to accommodate the sensitivity that Australian art must not only be incorporated in, but be, the centerpiece of the curriculum. The Focus Areas: Art in Australia, Art and Culture, Art and Media, and Art and Design, were mechanisms of normalisation that reconciled discourses of Australia and K-12. The identification and tracing of ‘Australia’ and ‘K-12’, that were built around a subjective and process based philosophy and oriented toward the present experience of students, has demonstrated how knowledge and skills in the Visual Arts became embedded in regulative
279 discourses. That is, the authoritative ‘Statement of Principles’, that imported the ‘child’ into the discursive site of the HSC, was woven into these two discourses and ultimately, throughout the Focus Areas.
This thesis has also considered the way changes in power relations resulted in changes to the knowledge base of the subject, Visual Arts. The emergence of an Australian discourse, it is argued, coincided with Terry Smith being appointed to the Chair of the Art Syllabus Committee. The regulation of the syllabus committee was achieved, in part, through the considerable influence of the syllabus chair. The 1978 syllabus was an impediment to Smith’s desire for the centrality of Australian art in the curriculum. The privileging of certain knowledges by Smith entailed the exercise of power that sought to produce subjects – the syllabus committee – that valued and engaged in specific discursive practices in accordance with his legitimised ideals. The institutional sites from which Smith spoke were also directly constitutive of the form of his discourse. Teaching, research, and publication emanating from tertiary institutions in the 1980s is represented in this study as contributing to the shift in perception of Australian art and visual cultures as a rich field of study. Using the imprimatur of the Power Institute, Smith took the opportunity as Chairman to assert and exercise enunciative authority for Australian art. Furthermore, this study revealed that the examination also subtended the authority of a discourse of Australian nationalism. As a dominant and disciplinary discourse, the emphasis on the individual student and the relationships between broader cultural currents and the student’s own environment in the examination, promoted Australian and contemporary aspects of the arts.
The emergence and development of the discursive conjuncture, ‘Art’ and ‘Culture’ as the second of the four Focus Areas revealed another attempt by the Art Syllabus Committee to promote understanding of Australian culture. In an effort to move away from the entrenched popularity of culture as the traditional art-through-the-ages or elitist, off-shore way of doing things, the syllabus committee attempted to marry ‘Australian art’ and ‘culture’. The urgency and appeal for some committee members in privileging the regulative discourse of Australia rested uneasily with the traditional way of talking about culture that was sitting with such authority and gravitas. Despite their determination to further the development of an Australian culture discourse in Visual Arts, this study has highlighted the struggle the syllabus committee encountered in trying to define and conceptualise ‘culture’ in the curriculum.
This thesis contends that in the 1987 syllabus, the Focus Area, Art and Culture, was an attempt by the Art Syllabus Committee to produce specific normative criteria with the intent to maximise the study of Australian culture in the Visual Arts. As a result of the conflict surrounding how to distinguish the practice of that which was considered the ‘local
280 environment’ and ‘Australian’ from ‘culture’, the Art Syllabus Committee developed a syllabus that included two contradictory ‘culture’ discourses. In doing so, knowledge of culture was to be normalised, on the one hand, in accordance with the students’ own cultural experiences. On the other, this limited experience was expanded by the study of the wider, social and historical underpinnings of this experience by the exploration of ‘other’ and ‘different’ cultures. The Art Syllabus Committee sought to produce ideals of a ‘total’ culture through these coexisting discourses but in doing so, the Focus Area ‘Art and Culture’, it has been argued, was inadvertently in contention with ‘Australian’.
As illustrated in Chapter Three, government policies were instrumental in the normalisation of a ‘media’ discourse in the visual arts curriculum. Competing discourses existed in the 1980s surrounding what constituted ‘media’ education. As a result, the Art Syllabus Committee audited their behaviour through the disciplinary technology of self-regulation by seeking compliance with the Department of Education’s policy on ‘mass media’ education. The ambitious growth-oriented Art Syllabus Committee, however, struggled to negotiate a meaning for ‘mass media’ amidst the discursive authority of the K-12 concept as it did not yield to the psycho-logistic characterisation of the child. The solution to the contradictory ‘media’ discourses was its inclusion in the 1987 syllabus as the third Focus Area, ‘Art and Media’. Under this Focus Areas, media oscillated between a physical thing as ‘materials’, as ‘symbol/s’, and as ‘the media’ in contemporary culture. This latter characterisation of media was an appeal to technology in education that was circulating with great authority. The archive revealed an identifiable concern for the Art Syllabus Committee with the ideological power of technology in the curriculum and subsequently the syllabus committee was motivated to expand its use in the Visual Arts.
This genealogical analysis found that the impetus for building a design focus into the visual arts curriculum can be attributed to this emphasis on technology, notable in the K-12 statement. The syllabus committee acted upon their own subjectivity in order to accept the challenge of new technologies and privileged ‘Art and Design’ as the last of the four Focus Areas. The acquisition and development of skills and awareness involved in the design process appearing in the Visual Arts was a strategy for dealing with the demands of rapid technological changes in education during this time.
The control or regulation of the visual arts curriculum by the powerful technology of formal examinations has also been identified in Chapter Three. The Focus Areas, it has been argued, were created with the intent to resolve a number of problems, including the structure of the examination. The artifice and contradictions of the Focus Areas as written in the syllabus,
281 however, made them notoriously difficult to delineate. The examination paper was revised to include forty artworks, or ‘40 plates’, that had the added benefit of explaining, by example, the meaning of the Focus Areas. The analysis has shown how this curriculum reform was ruptured by copyright difficulties. Significantly, the action taken by the syllabus committee in complying with the copyright warning highlighted the disciplinary power of the examination. The RAS were subsequently conceived as the agent in the construction of the examination paper and were intended to be read and interpreted in conjunction with the appropriate Focus Area. The regulating effect of the examination was reinforced as teachers and students were required to conform to the selected knowledges valued under this new curriculum structure. The study found that this supposed revolutionary framework for studying art, however, also failed to provide greater interpretative content for the visual arts curriculum and as a result, reverted to an examination structure of the very type of content and questions originally intended to be overturned.
The intervention of Federal government in state curriculum in the 1980s and 1990s as evidenced in the national collaborative curriculum projects revealed the politics of curriculum practice. The study has discussed the emergence and development of the national curriculum projects in Chapter Four as evidence of how changes in government policy circumscribed and influenced art education and as a result, substantially impacted the development, structure and content of the Visual Arts syllabus. The projects were construed as a means to regulate subjects in accordance with the objectives of the Government: the procurement of ‘normal’, moral and responsible individuals. In relation to this issue, art education was denied subject authority as the syllabus was forced to engage with discourses of the wider field.
Tracing the circulation of discourses and regimes of truth regarding the national curriculum projects contributed to an understanding of the context in which The Arts National Statement and Profile were conceptualised. The ‘core’ curriculum has been identified as one of the broader discourses framing the formulation of the projects. The emergence of the CDC, as a central, authoritative institutional site, supported relations of power through existing structures in the States and Territories that enabled more work to be conducted in the curriculum field. The development by the CDC of a core, or broad curriculum areas of knowledge and experience, that were to be included in the curriculum was an authoritative measure aimed at circumscribing the freedom of school communities in determining their own curriculum policies, designs and resources. This is viewed as an attempt to reconsolidate power and control in a central authority.
This study has examined the sources of political power and processes behind the discursive mechanisms that shaped the national curriculum projects. Dawkins’s policy statement
282 Strengthening Australia’s Schools (1988) and the AEC’s Common and Agreed Goals for Schooling (1989) have both been identified as contributing to national intervention in education in the 1980s. The analysis has shown that the AEC was the major institutional site for national education policy development during this period. Furthermore, the establishment by the AEC of the CCA was another institutional apparatus and administrative mechanism aimed at enhancing and maintaining the exercise of power for the AEC. The study revealed how the AEC delegated responsibility for overseeing the production of national statements and profiles to CURASS in early 1991. The institutional practices and disciplinary effects of the set of rules established by CURASS governed and regulated the frames of reference within which the writers of the statement and profile were able to work in constructing this new discourse for the arts.
National curriculum statements were accompanied by assessment profiles that attempted to provide benchmarks for student achievement at different levels of schooling. The development of A statement on the arts for Australian schools (AEC, 1994a) and The arts – a curriculum profile for Australian schools (AEC, 1994b) has been mapped, followed by an analysis of the regulative discourses selected and embedded in the official texts. The statement provided a common framework for curriculum development in the arts whilst the profile presented very detailed curricular outcomes articulated in terms of what students should be able to do across the years of schooling in the arts. The published texts are clearly represented in this thesis as outcome-based curricular implementation guides that address the future needs of students collectively rather than their individual needs. The benchmarking of student learning listed in such a succinct and cohesive order positions the Profile in this investigation as a regulatory device upon which individual students are evaluated and teachers’ performance, schools or entire systems possibly measured. The ultimate aim of the statement and profile, it is argued, was to create obedient, useful and docile subjects, whose attitudes and behaviours would be normalised in accordance with ‘acceptable’ practices. The status quo would subsequently be re- produced, re-enforced and re-inscribed.
The investigation highlighted how a comprehensive review of education in NSW in the late 1980s, that included the publication of three major reports, resulted in substantial reform of curriculum policies and practices that directly impacted the field of art education. The analysis demonstrated how the control and administration of the curriculum was affected by this restructuring. The power of the Minister and the BOS as a central authority increased as well as the implementation of a framework to guide the development of new curriculum initiatives. The BOS governed the production of the KLAs as a central and authoritative component of the school curriculum and established KLACCs for each of the eight KLAs. Significantly, the
283 establishment of the KLAs emphasised the power of government to influence and control the curriculum.
A focus on ‘outcomes’ entered the discourse with the emergence of the KLAs. This focus on educational objectives and outcomes that placed emphasis on normalisation and accountability was compounded by the development of the national statements and profiles. Despite the national curriculum project as a distinct event failing, the ways in which the centralised education system in NSW negotiated the national curriculum frameworks has been examined. It has been argued that the more powerful and dominant interests of the Commonwealth authorities involved in these reforms and the disciplinary effects of this curriculum governance profoundly influenced and shaped the formation of curriculum discursive practices in NSW. Despite the Visual Arts Syllabus Committee receiving the unification of discrete subjects, prescribed under the curriculum areas Creative Arts, with uncertainty, Chapter Four shows how art educators regulated their behaviour and curriculum outcomes were modified in ways consistent with the norms and requirements of the national curriculum reforms. This is another outcome of research question four. NSW art educators had the capacity to refine, interpret, or partially implement the curriculum outcomes however it was apparent that they were influenced by the new expectations and obligations presented to the discipline. Technologies of government and normalisation, as argued in this thesis, position those whose resist as deviant and abnormal. In this sense, the subsequent inclusion of this regulative discourse in Visual Arts syllabuses supported notions of homogeneity and sameness rather than diversity and difference. The focus on accountability and achieving measurable outcomes was a mechanism of accountability that justified the role of the arts in the curriculum.
This research has surveyed the various key areas of critique brought to the fore by NSW’ art educators, particularly the Years 7-12 Visual Arts Syllabus Committee, in response to The Arts National Statement and Profile. These critiques have been identified as relevant to this study as they can all be classified as tactics and techniques of ‘normalisation’ that attempted to delimit and circumscribe the boundaries of legitimate thought and action for the field of art education. As disciplinary mechanisms, the statement and profile imposed authoritative categorisation on the arts that was carefully constructed to regulate the discipline as well as create conformity among individuals. The national curriculum project defined the subject, Visual Arts, according to a set of normative discursive practices that included regulating the conduct of the syllabus committee by requiring them to convey knowledge in a certain way.
Utilising one of the central tenets of Foucault’s concept of governmentality, that the self becomes the subject of one’s own government, this thesis addressed research question five by
284 demonstrating the ways in which the Visual Arts Syllabus Committee contested dominant discourses and practices (unlike on previous occasions), and took an active role in their own governance in the 1990s. This process of resistance involved the development of discourses that produced new knowledges and provided new truths for the Visual Arts. ‘The Frames’ in the Visual Arts syllabus, it is argued, were formulated to challenge the dominant discourses of standards and outcome-based reforms of government. This study has shown how the syllabus committee was also disgruntled by the intuitively creative and subjective accounts of meaning in art as represented in the 1987 syllabus. The increasing intervention of Federal powers in educational decision-making incited the Visual Arts Syllabus Committee to act upon their own subjectivity and consciously change their circumstances by revising the syllabus and incorporating diverse perspectives into the curriculum.
A genealogy of the Frames as emergent and prominent art education discourse in NSW art curricula has been examined in Chapter Five. This thesis has illustrated how the discursive formation of the four Frames – Subjective, Cultural, Structural and Postmodern – came to prominence by revealing the material conditions of their existence. That is, the specific conditions of their development, how it was that the particularities of the Frames were chosen and not others, and the relations between each of the four Frames, has been traced and analysed. The Visual Arts Syllabus Committee as an instrument of power was central to this investigation. The Frames are acknowledged in this thesis as the outcome of the discursive practices of the syllabus committee, notably one university representative, Neil Brown. From this perspective, the syllabus committee is regarded as the site that allowed the group of statements that belonged to the formation of the Frames to be regulated and subjected to individuals and ultimately provided for the circulation of the discourse within the field. Significantly, analysis of the historical record supported the view that, like Smith, Brown’s formal institutional credentialing accorded him the right and privilege as the agent and voice of authority for the formation and dissemination of this new ideological discourse.
The analysis of the Frames exposed the ways in which the assumptions underlying each of the four discursive statements did not originate in the artworld, but rather, were taken from their broader setting within the history of ideas. Brown, it is shown, appropriated existing and historically legitimised preoccupations from literary criticism and cultural theory. In doing so, the Frames constructed normative concepts for the Visual Arts based upon ontological and epistemological beliefs. That is, the explanatory power of the Frames resided in their ability to construct a set of discourses or ‘norms’ that shaped the ways in which the field of art education and its related practices constituted themselves. The Frames were developed as a pedagogical mechanism to be used by art educators. In doing so, they produced normative discursive
285 practices that affirmed four particular ways of knowing in the Visual Arts. In this thesis, the Visual Arts is viewed as a disciplinary practice in the 1990s that adopted and institutionalised its own regimes of norms in the discourses of the Frames.
In applying a genealogical method to this analysis of the specific types of knowledge that constructed the discipline during the chosen period, this research represents a significant departure from teleological studies and orthodox critiques of visual arts curriculum history. The research contributes an alternative discourse for understanding the constitution of the subject Visual Arts in NSW and a new way of conceiving power relations in art education. Constructing a ‘history of the present’ has highlighted the array of normalised discursive practices that assisted in the creation of the two senior matriculation syllabuses. The value of Foucauldian genealogy is that it does not seek to unify the discipline’s existence as a process of succession. Rather, this study has attended to the discontinuities, disruptions, and transformations that occurred in the development of art educational discourses.
One of the innovations of this study has been the sustained discourse analysis of archival records and policy documents in the Visual Arts. The benefit of this archaeological method, derived from Foucault, is that it has demonstrated how this material, notably the syllabus committee minutes, were prime sites for studying the strongly normative discourses that served to constitute the visual arts curriculum. There is scant evidence of such a systematic and disciplined critique in previous research conducted in the field. In analysing how the two syllabus texts came to have their particular form and content, this study not only provides a new way of conceptualising the complex constructions of the subject Visual Arts but also advances theoretical positions for the interrogation of other syllabuses and curriculum documents.
The value in using Foucault’s principles of governmentality in this investigation resided in its identification of the sources of political power and institutional structures that impacted the development and implementation of knowledge in the discipline. Significantly, this study isolated the power relations that made it possible for particular discourses to operate as regimes of truths, which in turn set the parameters of practice for the Visual Arts. The field of art education is governed by its own discursive practices about who can speak and what can be said, but even within these, struggles for a dominant discourse or ‘truths’ are exerted. Governmentality provided the theoretical framework for examining the authorising discursive practices that permeated art education and affected the ways in which the field came to speak about and conduct itself within the educational institution. The conceptualisation of art education’s subjectivity, as an affect of this governance, provides new understandings of the
286 normalising effects of these power/knowledge networks that ultimately constructed possibilities and constraints within the field.
This research is significant in light of current curriculum reform initiatives regarding the development of a National Arts Curriculum throughout Years K-12; including the release of the draft paper Shape of the Australian Curriculum: The Arts by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) on the 8th October, 2010. The discourses identified in this study, and the study’s methodology itself proposes a framework for the future research and evaluation of this more recent material.
This study has demonstrated, through Foucauldian methods of genealogy, archaeology, and governmentality, how the power relations and political contexts of curriculum practice impacted the subject Visual Arts in NSW. The work undertaken has illuminated the contested nature of curriculum change and the complex construction of a subject in senior syllabus texts. Curriculum reform is situated as a site over which significant disciplinary, ideological and political struggles are played out. The findings of this inquiry have contributed to an increased awareness of the relationship between institutional structures and the constitution of a subject that have application for future curriculum development. A major value of the methodology resides in its identification of the interplay of power relationships within the discursive field that impacted the discipline Visual Arts, and the capacity of individuals and groups to negotiate discursive change despite the effects of ideological and material interference of government in regulating curriculum content. In particular, this study has highlighted some of the ways in which particular terminologies, orientations, and rationalities appeared as authoritative positions that were subsequently legitimated through the relevant policy and curriculum processes.
Considering this, the theoretical and methodological frameworks employed offer educational researchers and curriculum developers a new approach to examining the function, role and outcome of discursive practices that sanction curriculum change and educational reform. They also have the potential to be used as the basis for further explorations and examinations of other Visual Arts syllabuses and curriculum documents and their implementation, including comparative work in other states of Australia, or other areas of the curriculum.
287 REFERENCES35
American Psychological Association. (2010). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.). Washington, DC: Author.
Aquilina, J. (1997). Securing their future: The New South Wales Government’s reforms for the Higher School Certificate. Sydney, Australia: NSW Minister for Education and Training.
Australia. Department of Communications and the Arts. (1994). Creative nation:
Commonwealth cultural policy, October 1994. Canberra, Australia: Author.
Australia. Task Force on Education and the Arts. (1985). Action: education and the arts.
Canberra, Australia: Australian Government Publishing Service.
Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority. (2010). Draft shape of the Australian curriculum: The arts. Retrieved from http://www.acara.edu.au/verve/_resources/Draft+Shape+Of+The+Australian+Curriculum +The+Arts-FINAL.pdf.
Australian Education Council. (1989). Common and agreed national goals for schooling
(Hobart declaration). Canberra, Australia: Australian Government Publishing Service.
Australian Education Council. (1994a). A statement on the arts for Australian schools. Victoria,
Australia: Curriculum Corporation.
Australian Education Council. (1994b). The arts – a curriculum profile for Australian schools.
Victoria, Australia: Curriculum Corporation.
35 These references are styled according to the American Psychological Association. (2010). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.). Washington, DC: Author.
288 Australian Institute of Art Education. (1986). National policy: Visual arts education. Author.
Baildon, M. (2008). Troubling data: A Foucauldian perspective of a “multiple data source
approach” to professional learning and evaluation. Workplace. 15, 126-144.
Ball, S. J. (Ed.). (1990a). Foucault and education: disciplines and knowledge. London,
England: Routledge.
Ball, S. J. (1990b). Politics and policymaking in education: explorations in policy sociology.
London, England: Routledge.
Ball, S. J. (1993). Education policy, power relations and teachers’ work. British Journal of
Educational Studies. 41(2), 106-121.
Ball, S. J. (1994). Education reform: A critical and post-structural approach. Buckingham,
London: Open University Press.
Ball, S. J., & Bowe, R. (1992). Subject departments and the ‘implementation’ of national
curriculum policy: an overview of issues. Journal of Curriculum Studies. 24(2), 97-115.
Banham, R. (1966). The new brutalism; Ethic or aesthetic? New York, NY: Reinhold.
Barcan, A. (1988, February). The 1987 ACT and the reshaping of NSW education. ACES
Review. 12-16.
Barcan, A. (2001). The nineteen eighties: Prelude to curricular reform. Critical Studies in
Education. 42(1), 45-78.
289 Barthes, R. (1961). The photographic message. In The responsibility of forms: Critical essays
on music, art, and representation (pp. 3-20). (R. Howard, Trans.). Berkeley, California:
University of California Press, 1985.
Barthes, R. (1977). The death of the author. In Image, music, text (pp. 142-148). (S. Heath,
Trans.). New York, NY: Hill and Wang. (Original work published in 1967).
Baxandall, M. (1985). Patterns of intention: On the historical explanation of pictures. New
Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press.
Beardsley, M. C. (1981). Aesthetics: Problems in the philosophy of criticism. Indianapolis,
Indiana: Hackett.
Bellamy, R. (1982a). K-12 visual arts: what’s it all about? Creativity in Art Education Bi-
Annual Conference, August 30 – September 1. Sydney, Australia: Art Education Society
of New South Wales.
Bellamy, R. (1982b, November). The K-12 visual arts education curriculum statement. Art
Issues: Selected articles from the Art Educators Conference, Medlow Bath, June 1982.
Black, D. (2006). John Dawkins: member for Freemantle 1977-1993. Retrieved from
http://john.curtin.edu.au/fremantle/dawkins.html.
Board of Secondary Education. (n.d). The nature, role and responsibilities of the NSW Board of
Secondary Education: A draft response to the Carrick committee. Sydney, Australia:
Author.
290 Board of Secondary Education. (1987). Visual arts syllabus years 11-12. Sydney, Australia:
Author.
Board of Senior School Studies. (1978). Art syllabus year 11 and year 12, 3 unit course and 2
unit course. Sydney, Australia: New South Wales Department of Education.
Board of Senior School Studies. (1979). Annual report 1979. Sydney, Australia: Author.
Board of Studies. (1991a). Annual Report to 30 June 1991. North Sydney, Australia: Author.
Board of Studies. (1991b). Curriculum outcomes. North Sydney, Australia: Author.
Board of Studies. (1991c). Implementation of curriculum initiatives: information and discussion
document, March 1991. North Sydney, Australia: Author.
Board of Studies. (1992). Subject Outcomes: Creative Arts 7-12. North Sydney, Australia:
Author.
Board of Studies. (1994). Visual arts years 7-10 syllabus: mandatory course and additional
studies course. North Sydney, Australia: Author.
Board of Studies. (1996a). Annual report 1996. North Sydney, Australia: Author.
Board of Studies. (1996b) Draft stage 6 visual arts years 11-12 syllabus, preliminary, 2 unit
HSC, and 3 unit courses. North Sydney, Australia: Author.
Board of Studies. (1996c) Draft stage 6 visual arts years 11-12 support document. North
Sydney, Australia: Author.
291 Board of Studies. (1997a). Visual arts syllabus years 7-10. North Sydney, Australia: Author.
Board of Studies. (1997b). Visual arts syllabus years 7-10 support document. North Sydney,
Australia: Author.
Board of Studies. (1999). Visual arts stage 6 syllabus preliminary and HSC courses. Sydney,
Australia: Author.
Board of Studies. (2001). The Board’s syllabus development process. Sydney, Australia:
Author.
Boston, K. (1993, July 14). What does the AEC decision on national statements and profiles
mean for New South Wales? School Education News. 10(3).
Boston, K. (1994). A perspective on the so-called ‘national curriculum’. Curriculum
Perspectives. 14(1), 43-45.
Bouchard, D. F. (Ed.). (1977). Language, counter-memory, practice: selected essays and
interviews by Michel Foucault. USA: Cornell University Press.
Boughton, D. (1989). The changing face of Australian art education: New horizons or sub-
colonial politics. Studies in Art Education. 30(4), 197-211.
Boughton, D., & Aland, J. (1989). Advocacy: art, design and the world of work. Australian Art
Education. 13(2), 43-48.
292 Boughton, D. (1992, November 23). Will the national arts curriculum be stillborn:
Resuscitation through research or merciful euthanasia? Paper presented at the
AARE/NZARE Joint Conference. Deakin University, Victoria, Australia.
Boughton, D. (1993a). Shaping the national curriculum: issues for Australian art educators. In
E. P. Errington (Ed.), Arts education: Beliefs, practices and possibilities (pp. 19-30).
Victoria, Australia: Deakin University Press.
Boughton, D. (1993b). The national arts curriculum and profiles: Is uniformity necessary in
national curriculum design? Curriculum Perspectives. 13, 64-67.
Boughton, D. (1995). Six myths of national curriculum reforms in art education. Journal of Art
and Design Education. 14(2), 139-151.
Boughton, D. (1997). Reconsidering issues of assessment and achievement standards in art
education. Studies in Art Education. 38(4), 199-213.
Bourriaud, N. (2002). Relational aesthetics. Les Presses du reel.
Boyd, J. (1993). Statements and profiles: Some barriers to change and some ways to change the
barriers. Australian Art Education. 17(1), 44-53.
Brady, L., & Kennedy, K. (1999). Curriculum construction. New South Wales, Australia:
Prentice Hall.
Braithwaite, R. J. (1994). The governance of curriculum in Australia, 1981-1991. Journal of
Curriculum Studies. 26(5), 541-552.
293 Brown, N. (1988). Similarities between creativity and politics as forms of praxis. Australian Art
Education. 12(2), 24-28.
Brown, N. (1989a). A critique of the visual arts syllabus. In Perspectives on the four focus areas
of the senior syllabus. Occasional seminar in art education 1 (pp. 43-52), August 12-13.
Sydney, Australia: College of Fine Arts, The University of New South Wales.
Brown, N. (1989b). Art and the four focus areas. In Perspectives on the four focus areas of the
senior syllabus. Occasional seminar in art education 1 (pp. 4-7), August 12-13. Sydney,
Australia: College of Fine Arts, The University of New South Wales.
Brown, N. (1990). Distinguishing artistic from vernacular performances in the visual arts: A
classroom perspective. In Understanding art as the basis for primary art teaching.
Occasional seminar in art education 2 (pp. 1-11), September 22-23. Sydney, Australia:
College of Fine Arts, The University of New South Wales.
Brown, N. (1991). Non-structural, commensurable forms of knowing as the basis for cognition
in art. Australian Art Education. 15(2), 13-19.
Brown, N. (1992a). Art education curriculum praxis: A time for collaboration. In A. Weate & P.
McKeon (Eds.), Art education curriculum praxis: A time for collaboration. Occasional
seminars in art education 4 (pp. 57-67). Sydney, Australia: College of Fine Arts, The
University of New South Wales.
Brown, N. (1992b). Theoretical perspectives: research into children’s cognition and knowledge
in the visual arts. In Theoretical perspectives: Research into children’s cognition and
knowledge in the visual arts: Occasional seminars in art education 3 (pp. 67-74), July 23,
1991. Sydney, Australia: College of Fine Arts, The University of New South Wales.
294 Brown, N. (1993). Art education and the mutation of Art. Visual Arts Research. 19(1), 63-84.
Brown, N. (1994a). The unacceptable terms of the national curriculum in the arts: A response to
‘National Collaborative Curriculum Development – Enduring Achievement or Fading
Dream’ (Point and Counterpoint, April 1994). Curriculum Perspectives. 14(3), 57-63.
Brown, N. (1994b, August 17). What is wrong with the national profiles? Forum, College of
Fine Arts, The University of New South Wales. Sydney, Australia: College of Fine Arts
Print Services.
Brown, N. (1996, April 9). The frames and the visual arts. In Draft visual arts years 11-12
syllabus, support document (pp. 6-13). North Sydney, Australia: Board of Studies.
Brown, N. (2000, December). The triviality of transfer in the arts. Paper presented at the AARE
Annual Conference. Sydney, Australia.
Brown, N. (2006). The frames and relational aesthetics. In Learning & teaching new media
practice and the frames in visual arts & photography: Occasional seminar in art, design
and education 11 (pp. 33-40), July 23, 2005. Sydney, Australia: College of Fine Arts, The
University of New South Wales.
Brown, N., & Haynes, F. (1990). Commentary. The politics of arts advocacy: Or do you really
want to marry the boss? Australian Art Education. 14(1), 31-36.
Brown, N., & Weate, A. (2002). A decade of curriculum reform in Australian art education.
Australian Art Education. 25(1), 41-50.
295 Burchell, G., Gordon, C., & Miller, P. (Eds.). (1991). The Foucault effect: Studies in
governmentality. Chicago, USA: The University of Chicago Press.
Burn, I., Lendon, N., Merewether, C. & Stephen, A. (1988). The necessity of Australian art: An
essay about interpretation. Sydney, Australia: Power Publications.
Canberra Bureau. (1973, May 14). PM announces enquiry on arts in education. The Advertiser,
p. 3.
Caputo, J., & Yount, M. (Eds.). (1993). Foucault and the critique of institutions. Pennsylvania,
USA: The Pennsylvania State University Press.
Carrick, J. [Chair]. (1989). Report of the committee of review of New South Wales schools.
Sydney, Australia: New South Wales Government Printer.
Carrier, D. (1992). Teaching the new art history. In P. M. Ambergy, D. Soucy, & M. A.
Stankiewicz (Eds.), Proceedings of the second Penn State conference (pp. 65-92). Reston,
Virginia: National Art Education Association.
Carter, M. (1993). Framing art: Introducing theory and the visual image. Sydney, Australia:
Hale & Iremonger.
Cherryholmes, C. H. (1988). Power and criticism: Poststructural investigations in education.
New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
296 Cheung, O. (1992). Discipline based art educational praxis: the concept of discipline as
curriculum. In A. Weate & P. McKeon (Eds.), Art education curriculum praxis: A time
for collaboration. Occasional seminars in art education 4 (pp. 41-55). Sydney, Australia:
College of Fine Arts, The University of New South Wales.
Clark, G. A., Day, M. A. & Greer, W. D. (1989). Disciplined-based art education: Becoming
students of art. In R. A. Smith (Ed.), Discipline-based art education: Origins, meanings
and development (pp. 129-193). Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press.
Clements, M. A. (1996). The national curriculum in Australia. Education Research and
Perspectives. 23(1), 61-92.
Collins, C. (2001). The Australian curriculum context for visual arts education. In Reassessing
the foundations of art in education. Occasional seminar in art education 10 (pp. 42-51).
Sydney, Australia: College of Fine Arts, The University of New South Wales.
Commonwealth of Australia. (1968). Copyright amendment Act. Canberra, Australia: Author.
Connell, W. F. (1993). Reshaping Australian education 1960-1985. Victoria, Australia: The
Australian Council For Educational Research.
Cormack, P. (2001). Forming the english subject in early twentieth century South Australia.
Paper presented at the Education Futures and New Citizenships, 10th National ACSA
Biennial Conference, September 29 – October 1. Canberra, Australia.
Cormack, P. (2002). The subject of english: Constructing a new child in the discourses of ‘New
Education’ in the early twentieth century. Paper presented at American Educational
Research Association Annual Meeting, April 1-5. New Orleans, Louisiana.
297 Cormack, P. (2003). Adolescence, schooling and english/literacy: Formations of a problem in
early twentieth century South Australia. (Doctoral dissertation). The University of South
Australia, South Australia.
Crump, S. (1993). Curriculum eighties-style: the politicisation of education policy 1983-1993.
In D. L. Smith. (Ed.), Australian curriculum reform: Action and reaction (pp. 1-13).
Canberra, Australia: Australian Curriculum Studies Association & Social Science Press.
Curriculum Corporation of Australia. (1994). CURASS guidelines papers. Victoria, Australia:
Author.
Curriculum Development Centre. (1978). Report of the curriculum development centre study
group on environmental education. Canberra, Australia: Author.
Curriculum Development Centre. (1980). Core curriculum for Australian schools: What is it
and why is it needed. Canberra, Australia: Author.
Curriculum Development Centre. (1981). Core curriculum and values education: a literature
review. Canberra, Australia: Author.
Curriculum Development Centre and Bicentennial Australian Studies Schools Project. (1988).
Developing an Australian curriculum. Canberra, Australia: Author.
Danto, A. (1981). The transfiguration of the commonplace. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard
University Press.
Dawkins, J. (1988). Strengthening Australia’s schools: a consideration of the focus and content
of schooling. Canberra, Australia: Australian Government Publishing Service.
298 Dean, M. (1999). Governmentality: Power and rule in modern society. London, England: SAGE
Publications.
Derrida, J. (1978). Writing and difference. (A. Bass, Trans. and Ed.). Chicago, Illinois:
University of Chicago Press. (Original worked published in 1967).
Dewey, J. (1934). Art as experience. New York, NY: Putman Books.
Dickinson, L. (2003). Arts curriculum reform: Social and cultural reproduction in Victorian schools. (Doctoral dissertation). Deakin University. Victoria, Australia.
Docker, J., & Fischer, G. (2000). Race, colour and identity in Australia and New Zealand. Sydney, Australia: UNSW Press.
Donald, J. (1992). Sentimental education. London, England: Verso.
Donzelot, J. (1977). The policing of families. Baltimore, Maryland: The John Hopkins
University Press.
Dreyfus, H. L., & Rabinow, P. (1983). Michel Foucault: Beyond structuralism and
hermeneutics (Second Edition). USA: The University of Chicago Press.
Eagleton, T. (2008). Structuralism and semiotics. In Literary theory: An introduction (pp. 79-
109). USA: University of Minnesota Press.
Ebert, L. (1993). From the President. Curriculum Perspectives. 13(4), 63-64.
Efland, A. (1976). The school art style: A functional analysis. Studies in Art Education. 17(2),
149-157.
299 Efland, A. (1990). Changes in the conception of art education. Australian Art Education. 14(3),
11-22.
Eisner, E. W. (2001). Should we create new aims for art education? Art Education. 54(5), 6-10.
Elliot, A. D. (1997). Continuity and change in New South Wales, syllabuses in art education. In
Continuity and change in NSW art education: The reinvention of practices and content.
Occasional seminars in art education 7 (pp. 21-33). September 21, 1996. Sydney,
Australia: College of Fine Arts, The University of New South Wales.
Elsden-Clifton, J. (2005a). Negotiating transformative waters: students exploring their
subjectivity in art. International Journal of Education through Art. 1(1), 43-51.
Elsden-Clifton, J. (2005b). Exploring the spaces of art education. Paper presented at the
Australian Association for Research in Education Conference. New South Wales,
Australia.
Elsden-Clifton, J. (2006). Constructing ‘Thirdspaces’: Migrant students and the visual arts.
Studies in Learning, Evaluation, Innovation and Development. 3(1), 1-11.
Eltis, K. (1990). Trends in curriculum & assessment in NSW education. In D. L. Kramer
(Conference Chairman), Education examined: Curriculum and assessment in the 1990s.
Victoria, Australia: Institute of Public Affairs Ltd.
Eltis, K. (1993). New South Wales and national collaboration in curriculum: Well and truly
‘sharing the spirit’. Curriculum Perspectives. 13(4), 10-12.
300 Eltis, K. (1995). Focusing on learning: Report of the review of outcomes and profiles in New
South Wales schooling. Sydney, Australia: NSW Department of Training and Education
Co-ordination.
Eltis, K., & Mowbray, B. (1997). Focusing on learning in New South Wales. In Australian
Council for Educational Research. (1997). Describing learning: Implementation of
curriculum profiles in Australian schools 1986-1996 (pp. 82-101). Victoria, Australia:
ACER Press.
Emery, L. (1986). Australian visual arts education. In D. McRae. (Ed.). Bicentennial Australian
Studies Schools Project. Bulletin 8 (pp. 14-19). Canberra, Australia: Commonwealth
Schools Commission.
Emery, L. (1994). Room to move in the arts. EQ Australia. 1, 5-7.
Emery, L., & Hammond, G. (1992a, April 30). Formal consultative brief: Brief for arts national
curriculum statement and profile. Melbourne, Australia: University of Melbourne.
Emery, L., & Hammond, G. (1992b, June 18). The arts: Brief for arts national curriculum
statement and profile. Melbourne, Australia: University of Melbourne.
Errington, E. P. (Ed.). (1993). Arts education: Beliefs, practices and possibilities. Victoria,
Australia: Deakin University Press.
Executive Officers Bulletin. (February 1979). A review of the first year’s activity for
implementation of the report on education and the arts. 1-14.
Fairclough, N. (1989). Language and power. London, England: Longman.
301 Federman, M. (2004). What is the meaning of the medium is the message? Retrieved from
http://individual.utoronto.ca/markfederman/article_mediumisthemessage.htm.
Fien, J. (1986). Education for the Australian environment. In D. McRae. (Ed.), Bicentennial
Australian Studies Schools Project. Bulletin 6 (pp. 6-29). Canberra, Australia: Curriculum
Development Centre.
Fifield, J. (1981). Core curriculum: descriptions of practice in nineteen Australian schools.
Canberra, Australia: Curriculum Development Centre.
Fillion, R. (2005). Moving beyond biopower: Hardt and Negri’s post-Foucauldian speculative
philosophy of history. History and Theory. 44(4), 47-72.
Fitzgerald, K. R. (1996). From disciplining to discipline: A Foucauldian examination of the
formation of english as a school subject. JAC: A Journal of Composition Theory. 16(3),
435-453.
Forster, K. (1995). Plus ca change … The national curriculum framework in New South Wales.
In C. Collins. (Ed.), (1995). Curriculum stocktake (pp. 205-213). Australia: The
Australian College of Education.
Foucault, M. (1970). The order of things: An archaeology of the human sciences. New York,
NY: Vintage Books.
Foucault, M. (1971). Nietzsche, genealogy, history. In Paul Rabinow. (Ed.), (1984). The
Foucault reader (pp. 76-100). New York, NY: Pantheon Books.
Foucault, M. (1972). The archaeology of knowledge. London, England: Routledge.
302 Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison. (A. Sheridan, Trans.). New
York, NY: Vintage. (Original work published 1975).
Foucault, M. (1978). The will to knowledge: The history of sexuality volume 1. (R. Hurley,
Trans.). USA: Penguin Books.
Foucault, M. (1980). Power/knowledge: Selected interviews and other writings 1972-1977. (C.
Gordon, L. Marshall, J. Mepham, & K. Soper, Trans.). C. Gordon (Ed.). New York, NY:
Pantheon Books.
Foucault, M. (1981). The order of discourse (Inaugural Lecture – 2 December, 1970). (Ian
McLeod, Trans.). In R. Young. (Ed.), Untying the text: A poststructuralist reader (pp. 52-
64). Boston, Massachusetts: Routledge and Kegan.
Foucault, M. (1982). Afterword: The subject and power. In H.L. Dreyfus & P. Rabinow, Michel
Foucault: Beyond structuralism and hermeneutics (pp. 208-226). Chicago, Illinois: The
University of Chicago Press.
Foucault, M. (1988a). Technologies of the self. In L. H. Martin, H. Gutman, & P. H. Hutton.
Technologies of the self: A seminar with Michel Foucault (pp. 16-49). USA: The
University of Massachusetts Press.
Foucault, M. (1988b). The political technology of individuals. In L. H. Martin, H. Gutman, & P.
H. Hutton. Technologies of the self: A seminar with Michel Foucault (pp. 145-162). USA:
The University of Massachusetts Press.
303 Foucault, M. (1991). Governmentality (Inaugural Lecture – February, 1978). (Pasquale
Pasquino, Trans.). In G. Burchell, C. Gordon, & P. Miller (Eds.), The Foucault effect:
Studies in governmentality (pp. 87-104). Chicago, Illinois: The University of Chicago.
Gadamer, H. G. (1975). Truth and method. London, England: Sheed and Ward.
Gadamer, H. G. (1976). Philosophical hermeneutics. Berkeley, California: University of
California Press.
Gaudry, G. (1994, August 17). What is wrong with the national profiles? Forum, College of
Fine Arts, The University of New South Wales. Sydney, Australia: College of Fine Arts
Print Services.
Gebhardt, P. (1986). Arts in the Australian curriculum. In D. McRae. (Ed.). Bicentennial
Australian Studies Schools Project. Bulletin 8 (pp. 3-6). Canberra, Australia:
Commonwealth Schools Commission.
Gooding-Brown, J. (1997). Text, discourse, deconstruction and an exploration of self: A
disruptive model for postmodern art education. In S. Thunder-McGuire, Working papers
in art education, 1996-1997 (pp. 74-83). School of Art and Art History, Iowa University:
Iowa City.
Gooding-Brown, J. (2000). Conversations about art: A disruptive model of interpretation.
Studies in Art Education. 42(1), 36-50.
Goodman, N. (1976). The languages of art. Indianapolis, Indiana: Hackett Publishing.
Goodman, N. (1983). Fact fiction and forecast. Cambridge, England: Harvard University Press.
304 Goodson, I. (1988). The making of curriculum: Collected essays. London, England: The Falmer
Press.
Goodson, I. (1993). School subjects and curriculum change. Bristol, London: The Falmer Press.
Goodson, I., & Marsh, C. J. (1996). Studying school subjects. London, England: The Falmer
Press.
Greenall, A. E. (1981). Environmental education – a case study of national curriculum action.
Paper presented at the AARE Annual Conference, November 11-15 Adelaide, South
Australia.
Grundy, S. (1994, August 17). What is wrong with the national profiles? Forum, College of
Fine Arts, The University of New South Wales. Sydney, Australia: College of Fine Arts
Print Services.
Habermas, J. (1984). Theory of communicative action, volume one: reason and the
rationalisation of society. (T. McCarthy, Trans.). Boston, Massachusetts: Beacon Press.
Haese, R. (1981). Rebels and precursors: The revolutionary years of Australian art. Australia: Penguin Books.
Halbert, K. (2006). History in the making: constructions of ‘nation’ and ‘citizen’. Paper presented at the AARE International Education Research Conference, November 26-30. Adelaide, South Australia.
Hamblen, K. A. (1992). Shifting historical interpretations. In P. M. Ambergy, D. Soucy, & M.
A. Stankiewicz (Eds.), Proceedings of the second Penn State conference (pp. 200-208).
Reston, Virginia: National Art Education Association.
305 Hammond, G. (1981). Art education ideologies: Current emphases in Australia. Journal of the
Institute of Art Education. 5(3), 83-93.
Harris, C. (2001). Subject departments as mediators of change: A help or hindrance?
Curriculum Perspectives. 21(3), 13-23.
Harris, C. (2003). Syllabus development in New South Wales: Curriculum control and its
impact on teachers. Curriculum Perspectives. 23(1), 50-55.
Harris, C., & Marsh, C. (2003). Who initiates? Who controls? Who delivers? Disjunctions
between Australian Federal and State policies in curriculum. Paper presented at the
ACSA Biennial Conference. Adelaide, Australia.
Harris, C., & Marsh, C. (2005). Analysing curriculum change: Some reconceptualised
approaches. In C. Harris & C. Marsh (Eds.), Curriculum developments in Australia:
promising initiatives, impasses and dead-ends (pp. 15-38). Canberra, Australia:
Openbook Publishers.
Haseman, B. (1993). Adaptation in the arts – to beg, steal or borrow? In E. P. Errington (Ed.),
Arts education: Beliefs, practices and possibilities (pp. 147-155). Victoria, Australia:
Deakin University Press.
Haynes, F. (1993). What counts as a competency in the arts? Paper presented at the AARE
Annual Conference, November 22-26. Freemantle, Western Australia.
Haynes, F. (1999). Digging into learning areas. Paper presented at the AARE/NZARE Joint
Conference, November 29 – December 2. Melbourne, Australia.
306 Heidegger, M. (1981). Nietzsche. Volume 1: The will to power as art. (D.F. Krell, Trans.).
London, England: Routledge & Kegan. (Original work published 1961).
Heyning, K. E. (2001). Teacher education reform in the shadow of State-university links. In T.
S. Popkewitz, B. M. Franklin, & Pereyra, M. A. (Eds.), Cultural history and education:
Critical essays on knowledge and schooling (pp. 289-312). New York, NY:
RoutledgeFalmer, 289-312.
Honan, E. (2002). “Double Moves”. Paper presented at AARE International Education
Research Conference, December 1-5. Brisbane, Australia.
Horne, D. (1989). Ideas for a nation. Sydney, Australia: Pan Books.
Horwood, J. (1994). Towards control of a mathematics curriculum. Curriculum Perspectives.
14(1), 11-16.
Howard, I. (1989). Art and culture as practice: Art and practice as culture. In Perspectives on
the four focus areas of the senior syllabus. Occasional seminar in art education 1 (pp. 19-
21). August 12-13. Sydney, Australia: College of Fine Arts, The University of New South
Wales.
Hunter, I. (1988). Culture and government: The emergence of literary education. London,
England: Macmillan Press.
Hunter, I. (1994). Rethinking the school: Subjectivity, bureaucracy, criticism. New South
Wales, Australia: Allen & Unwin.
307 Hunter, I. (1996). Assembling the school. In A. Barry, T. Osborne, & N. Rose (Eds.), Foucault
and political reason: Liberalism, neo-liberalism and rationalities of government (pp.
143-166). Chicago, Illinois: The University of Chicago Press.
Karaolis, J. (1994, August 17). What is wrong with the national profiles? Forum, College of
Fine Arts, The University of New South Wales. Sydney, Australia: College of Fine Arts
Print Services.
Kennedy, K. (1995). National curriculum statements and profiles: what have we learnt? In C.
Collins (Ed.), (1995). Curriculum stocktake (pp. 153-171). Australia: The Australian
College of Education.
Kemmis, S. (1990, August). The Curriculum corporation: Observations and implications.
Occasional Paper Number 1. Australian Curriculum Studies Association.
King, K. (1994, November 12). “Black Thursday: the subjective frame in art historical study. In
Art and design practices in education: Visual arts years 7-10 syllabus. Occasional
seminars in art education 6 (pp. 33-45). Sydney, Australia: College of Fine Arts, The
University of New South Wales.
King Mcfee, J., & Degge, R. M. (1977). Art, culture and environment: A catalyst for teaching.
Belmont, California: Wadsworth Publishing Company.
Kirk, D. (1992). Defining physical education: The social construction of a school subject in
postwar Britain. London, England: The Falmer Press.
Knight-Mudie, K. (1994). Competent survival of the arts: A profile for loosening future tension.
Australian Art Education. 17(3), 31-38.
308 Knudson, R. (1984, November). How we get here – where we’re going. K-12 Art Bulletin.
Metropolitan West Art-Craft Committee. 2.
Knudson, R. (1988, July). Sketching a background to the new visual arts syllabuses. Art in
Education. 13, 11-13.
Lacan, J. (1968). The language of the self: The function of language in psychoanalysis.
Baltimore, Maryland: The John Hopkins University Press.
Lee, A. (1997). An examination of the new visual arts syllabus years 11-12 for NSW.
Australian Art Education. 20(3), 23-31.
Lewis, J. (1994, August 19). National experiment under attack. The Sydney Morning Herald, p.
4.
Livermore, J. (1992, November 23). The arts in the curriculum: An area of learning or political
expediency? Paper presented at the AARE/NZARE Joint Conference. Deakin University,
Victoria, Australia.
Livermore, J. (1995). Arts education comes of age. In C. Collins, (Ed.), (1995). Curriculum
stocktake (pp. 140-149). Australia: The Australian College of Education.
Losche, D. (1989). Art and culture in anthropological practice. In Perspectives on the four focus
areas of the senior syllabus. Occasional seminar in art education 1 (pp. 22-24). August
12-13. Sydney, Australia: College of Fine Arts, The University of New South Wales.
309 Lyotard, J. (1984). The postmodern condition: A report on knowledge. (G. Bennington and B.
Massumi, Trans.). Manchester, England: Manchester University Press. (Original work
published in 1979).
Maginnis, H. (1990). The role of perceptual learning in connoisseurship: Morelli, Berenson, and
Beyond. Art History. 13(1), 104-117.
Mahon, M. (1992). Foucault’s Nietzschean genealogy: Truth, power, and the subject. New
York, NY: State University of New York Press.
Mansfield, N. (1988). Authentic culture. In B. Edwards (Ed.), Literature and national cultures
(pp. 98-108). Victoria, Australia: Centre for Studies in Literary Education, Deakin
University.
Maras, K. (1994, November 12). Framing critical study: Subjective and cultural. In Art and
design practices in education: Visual arts years 7-10 syllabus. Occasional seminars in art
education 6 (pp. 47-58). Sydney, Australia: College of Fine Arts, The University of New
South Wales.
Marsh, C. (1994). Producing a national curriculum: Plans and paranoia. New South Wales,
Australia: Allen & Unwin.
Marsh, C. (1997). Planning, management, and theory: Key concepts for understanding
curriculum. London, England: The Falmer Press.
310 Marsh, C., & Prideaux, D. (1993). Curriculum responses to changes in the management of
education: Centre to site-based and decentralised management. In D.L. Smith, (Ed.),
Australian curriculum reform: Action and reaction (pp. 28-39). Canberra, Australia:
Australian Curriculum Studies Association & Social Science Press.
Marshall, H. J. (1978). Reviewed works: Art, culture, and environment: A catalyst for teaching.
Art Education. 31(6), 23.
McBride, M. (1989). A Foucauldian analysis of mathematical discourse. For the learning of
mathematics. 9(1), 40-46.
McGaw, B. (1996). Their future. Options for reform of the Higher School Certificate. Sydney,
Australia: Department of Training and Education Co-ordination NSW.
McGaw, B. (1997). Shaping their future. Recommendations for reform of the Higher School Certificate. Sydney, Australia: Department of Training and Education Co-ordination NSW.
McKay, B. (Ed.). (1999). Unmasking whiteness: Race, relations and reconciliation. Brisbane, Australia: Queensland Studies Centre.
McKeon, P. (1992). The place of art history in visual art education. In A. Weate & P. McKeon, P. (Eds.), Art education curriculum praxis: A time for collaboration. Occasional seminars in art education 4 (pp. 27-39). Sydney, Australia: College of Fine Arts, The University of New South Wales.
McKeon, P. (1993). Reconciling art and art education. In N. Brown, P. McKeon & K.
Snapvangers (Eds.), Reconciling art and objectivity in art education. Occasional
seminars in art education 5 (pp. 61-66). Sydney, Australia: College of Fine Arts, The
University of New South Wales.
311 McKeon, P. (1996). Small victories, big gains: Some remarks on recent events. Art in
Education. 17(1), 11-14.
McKeon, P. (1997). Eighty five years of school art history. In Continuity and change in NSW
art education: The reinvention of practices and content. Occasional seminars in art
education 7 (pp. 35-55). 21 September, 1996. Sydney, Australia: College of Fine Arts,
The University of New South Wales.
McKeon, P. (1998, October 9). An historical view. In The forces underlying current art
educational developments. Occasional seminars in art education 8 (pp. 49-57). Sydney,
Australia: College of Fine Arts, The University of New South Wales.
McLuhan, M. (1964). Understanding media: The extensions of man. New York, NY: McGraw-
Hill.
McRae, D. (Ed.). (1986, September). Bicentennial Australian Studies Schools Project. Bulletin
1. Canberra, Australia: Commonwealth Schools Commission.
Meadmore, D. (1993). The production of individuality through examination. British Journal of
Sociology of Education. 14(1), 59-73.
Meadmore, D. (1997). ‘This Slender Technique’: Examining assessment policy. In C. O’Farrell
(Ed.), Foucault: The legacy (pp. 620-630). Queensland, Australia: Queensland University
of Technology, 620-630.
Merleau-Ponty, M. (1964). Eye and mind. In J. M. Edie (Ed.), The primacy of perception (pp.
159-190). Northwestern University Press.
312 Metherell, T. (1989). Excellence and equity. A white paper on curriculum reform in New South
Wales Schools. Sydney, Australia: NSW Ministry of Education and Youth Affairs.
Miller, P., & Rose, N. (1990). Governing economic life. Economy and Society. 19(1), 1-31.
Moore, B. (Ed.). (2004). The Australian oxford dictionary, 2nd Edition. Victoria, Australia: Oxford University Press.
Moreton-Robinson, A. (2000). Talkin’ up to the white woman: Aboriginal women and feminism. Brisbane, Australia: University of Queensland Press.
New South Wales Department of Education (1978, April). A survey of the secondary schools board and the board of senior school studies. Sydney, Australia: Author.
New South Wales Government. (1990). Education reform act. Sydney, Australia: Author.
Section 14 (2)-14(3).
Nietzsche, F. (1906). Beyond good and evil. (Helen Zimmern, Trans.). New York, NY: Courier
Dover Publications. (Original work published 1885).
Nietzsche, F. (1996). On the genealogy of morals. (Douglas Smith, Trans.). New York, NY:
Oxford University Press. (Original work published 1887).
Ninnes, P. (2001). Representations of ways of knowing in junior high school science texts used
in Australia. Discourse: studies in the cultural politics of education. 22(1), 81-94.
Ninnes, P. (2004). Discourses of cultural diversity in the science curriculum: Connections,
contradictions, and colonialisms. Discourse: studies in the cultural politics of education.
25(2), 261-278.
313 O’Farrell, C. (2005). Michel Foucault. London, England: SAGE Publications.
O’Neill, M. (1992). Contested ground: English syllabus and examination practices in Western
Australia. Curriculum Perspectives. 12(1), 9-22.
Ozga, J. (1990). Policy research and policy theory: a comment on Fitz and Halpin. Journal of
Education Policy. 5(4), 359-62.
Paechter, C. (1999). Issues in the study of curriculum in the context of lifelong learning. Paper
presented at the British Educational Research Association Annual Conference, September
2-5. University of Sussex, Brighton.
Parliament of Australia, Parloinfo Search. (August, 2008). Biography for DAWKINS, the Hon.
John Sydney. Retrieved from
http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;page=0;query=john%20da
wkins;rec=4;resCount=Default.
Patterson, A. (2000). English in Australia: its emergence and transformations. In R. Peel, A.
Patterson, & J. Gerlach. Questions of english: Ethics, aesthetics, rhetoric and the
formation of the subject in England, Australia and the United States (pp. 235-253). New
York, NY: RoutledgeFalmer.
Pearse, H. (1992). Beyond paradigms: Art education theory and practice in a postparadigmatic
world. Studies in Art Education. 33(4), 244-252.
Peers, C. (2003). Mapping histories of art education in New South Wales. Historical Studies in
Art Education. 15(2), 299-326.
314 Peters, M. (1996). Poststructuralism, politics and education. USA: Bergin & Garvey.
Phillips, A. A. (2006). A. A. Phillips on the cultural cringe. Victoria, Australia: Melbourne
University Publishing.
Piper, K. (1989, September). National curriculum: Prospects and possibilities. Curriculum
Perspectives. Newsletter edition, 3-7.
Piper, K. (1992). National curriculum: An historical perspective. Unicorn. 18(3), 20-24.
Popkewitz, T. S., & Brennan, M. (Eds.). (1998). Foucault’s challenge: Discourse, knowledge,
and power in education. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
Popkewitz, T. S., Franklin, B. M., & Pereyra, M. A. (2001). Cultural history and education:
Critical essays on knowledge and schooling. New York, NY: RoutledgeFalmer.
Power Institute of Fine Arts. (1975). Dr John Power & the power bequest: The Power Institute
and the Power Foundation: An illustrated survey. Sydney, Australia: Author.
Quin, R. (2003). A genealogy of media studies. The Australian Educational Researcher. 30(1),
101-121.
Rabinow, P. (Ed.). (1984). The Foucault reader. New York, NY: Pantheon Books.
Reynolds, R. (2001). A framework for researching syllabus development and curriculum
change. Curriculum Perspectives. 21(3), 1-11.
315 Rieser, L. (1980). The development of a rationale for art education K-12 and the need for
revision of art syllabuses. Art in education curriculum development K-12: Directorate of
studies conference report. April 21-22. Crest Hotel, Sydney.
Reiser, L. (1983, June). Art in New South Wales schools: Patterns of change. Art in Education.
8, 9-12.
Rieser, L. (1984a, November). Changes in schools, society and syllabuses. K-12 Art Bulletin.
Metropolitan West Art-Craft Committee. 2, 21-26.
Rieser, L. (1984b, November). Reflecting change. K-12 Art Bulletin. Metropolitan West Art-
Craft Committee. 2, 13-14.
Riordan, G., & Weller, S. (2000). The reformation of education in NSW: The 1990 education
reform act. Paper presented at the AARE Conference, December 4-7. Sydney, Australia.
Rose, N. (1989). Governing the soul: The shaping of the private self. London, England:
Routledge.
Rose, N., & Miller, P. (1992). Political power beyond the state: problematics of government.
British Journal of Sociology. 43(2), 173-205.
Ryan, S. (1985, June). The CDC is combining with the Australia Bicentennial Authority in a
pioneering project in Australian studies. Curriculum Development in Australian Schools.
1, 38-39.
Schools Commission and the Australian Council (1977). Education and the arts: New South
Wales report. Canberra, Australia: Commonwealth of Australia.
316 Scott, B. [Chair]. (1989). Schools renewal: A strategy to revitalise schools within the New South
Wales State education system. Sydney, Australia: Management Review Committee.
Seddon, T. (2001). National curriculum in Australia? A matter of politics, powerful knowledge
and the regulation of learning. Pedagogy, Culture and Society. 9(3), 307-331.
Senate Environment, Recreation, Communications and the Arts References Committee. (1995,
October). Arts education. Australia: Commonwealth of Australia.
Shapiro, M. (Ed.). (1984). Language and politics. Oxford, England: Basil Blackwell.
Simola, H. (1992, November 23). “The road to hell is paved with good intentions”. Teacher
education discourse in Finnish committee reports from 1922 to 1991. Paper presented at
the AARE/NZARE Joint Conference, Deakin University. Victoria, Australia.
Simons, J. (1995). Foucault and the political. London, England: Routledge.
Skilbeck, M. (1980). Core curriculum: An essay in cultural reconstruction. Discourse: Studies in
the Cultural Politics of Education. 1(1), 20-38.
Skilbeck, M. (1981). Core curriculum: Implications for curriculum research. Sydney, Australia:
NSW Institute for Educational Research.
Smith, D. (1990, March). Legislated curriculum in NSW: the education reform bill. Curriculum
Perspectives. Newsletter edition.
Smith, T. (1983a, June). Why change the art syllabus? Art in Education. 8, 6-8.
317 Smith, T. (1983b). Writing the history of Australian art: Its past, present and possible future.
Australian Journal of Art. 3, 10-29.
Smith, T. (1985, December). Submission to committee to review Australia studies in tertiary
education. New South Wales, Australia: The Power Institute of Fine Arts, The University
of Sydney.
Smith, T. (1986a, July). Interpreting the new art syllabus. Art in Education. 13, 4-5.
Smith, T. (1986b). The local, the national and the international in Australian art. In K. Brereton,
C. Payne, & P. McCarthy. Australian mythological sights, sites, cities (pp. 158-162).
Sydney, Australia: Third Degree.
Smith, T. (1989). The new art syllabus in its education context. In Perspectives on the four focus
areas of the senior syllabus. Occasional seminar in art education 1 (pp. 40-42). August
12-13. Sydney, Australia: The University of New South Wales, College of Fine Arts.
Speedy, G. (1992). Curriculum Initiatives. Canberra, Australia: Australian Government
Publishing Service.
Squire, K. D. & Reigeluth, C. M. (2000). The many faces of systemic change. Educational
Horizons. 78(3), 143-152.
Sullivan, G. (1989a). Crisis in art and design: Danger or opportunity. In Perspectives on the four
focus areas of the senior syllabus. Occasional seminar in art education 1 (pp. 8-14).
August 12-13. Sydney, Australia: College of Fine Arts, The University of New South
Wales.
318 Sullivan, G. (1989b). Curriculum in art education: The uncertainty principle. Studies in Art
Education. 30(4), 225-236.
Sullivan, G. (1989c). The arts: Umbrellas and androgyny. Australian Art Education. 13(3), 4-5.
Sullivan, G. (1993). Art-based art education: Learning that is meaningful, authentic, critical and
pluralist. Studies in Art Education. 35(1), 5-21.
Swan, D. A., & Winder, R. B. (1991). Restructuring in New South Wales. In G. Harman, H.
Beare, & G. F. Berkeley (Eds.), Restructuring school management: Recent administrative
reorganisation of public school governance in Australia (pp. 123-153). Canberra,
Australia: Australian College of Education.
Tamboukou, M. (1999). Writing genealogies: an exploration of Foucault’s strategies for doing
research. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education. 20(2), 201-217.
Temmerman, N. (1991, March). A review of recent directions in arts education curriculum
development in Australia. Curriculum Perspectives. Newsletter edition.
The University of Sydney. (1984). Arts handbook. New South Wales, Australia: Author.
Thomas, K. (1998, October 9). The new HSC: Proposals for the visual arts stage 6 syllabus draft
writing brief. In The forces underlying current art educational developments. Occasional
seminars in art education 8 (pp. 35-43). Sydney, Australia: College of Fine Arts, The
University of New South Wales.
319 Toomey, R. & Chipley, D. R. (1981). Core curriculum in Australian schools: case studies of
relationships between values and core curriculum. Canberra, Australia: Curriculum
Development Centre.
Vaughan, J. (1994, November 12). Framing critical study: Structural and postmodern. In Art
and design practices in education: Visual arts years 7-10 syllabus. Occasional seminars
in art education 6 (pp. 81-90). Sydney, Australia: College of Fine Arts, The University of
New South Wales.
Vinson, T. (2002). Inquiry into the provision of public education in NSW: report of the ‘Vinson
Inquiry’. Sydney, Australia: NSW Teachers Federation and Federation of P&C
Associations of NSW.
Wallace, R., & Wolf, A. (1999). Contemporary sociological theory: Expanding the classical
tradition. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
Watkins, M. (2003). Discipline and learn: Theorising the pedagogic body. (Doctoral
dissertation). The University of Western Australia, Western Australia.
Watson, A. (1999). The arts: a mixed bag. EQ Australia. 4 (Summer), 8-9.
Weate, A. (1989). An Australian art history? In Perspectives on the four focus areas of the
senior syllabus. Occasional seminar in art education 1 (pp. 28-32). August 12-13.
Sydney, Australia: College of Fine Arts, The University of New South Wales.
Weate, A. (1992a). Agenda setting for research in art education: A discourse for art education.
Australian Art Education. 16(1), 27-31.
320 Weate, A. (1992b, November 23). Nationalism, public formation and art education. Paper
presented at the AARE/NZARE Joint Conference, Deakin University. Victoria, Australia.
Weate, A. (1993, July). Public formation and art education in the 1980s. Paper presented at the
ACSA Biennial Conference. Brisbane, Australia.
Weate, A. (1994, November 12). A move from subjectivity. In Art and design practices in
education: Visual arts years 7-10 syllabus. Occasional seminars in art education 6 (pp.
91-102). Sydney, Australia: College of Fine Arts, The University of New South Wales.
Weate, A. (1996). Les liaisons dangereuses: Foucauldian genealogies in art education research.
Australian Art Education. 19(3), 48-59.
Weate, A. (1997). A genealogy of creativity: Well-regulated liberty. In Continuity and change
in NSW art education: The reinvention of practices and content. Occasional seminars in
art education 7 (pp. 85-99). September 21, 1996. Sydney, Australia: College of Fine Arts,
The University of New South Wales.
Weate, A. (1998, October). Securing the curriculum: Modalities of governmentality. Keynote
presented as the Australian Institution of Art Education Conference. New South Wales,
Australia.
Weate, A. (2000a). A Foucauldian report on standards and testing in art education curriculum.
Paper presented at the 30th Annual InSEA World Congress, September 21-26, 1999.
Brisbane, Australia.
Weate, A. (2000b). New century trends: Social trends and professional practice. Paper
presented at the NAEA Conference. Los Angeles, California.
321 Weller, S. (1998, May). Who is driving the school bus? Address to the Australian College of
Education, 1.
Willis, A. M. (1989). Reading culture as text. In Perspectives on the four focus areas of the
senior syllabus. Occasional seminar in art education 1 (pp. 15-18). August 12-13.
Sydney, Australia: College of Fine Arts, The University of New South Wales.
Yates, L., & Collins, C. (2008, September 11). The absence of knowledge in Australian
curriculum reformulations. Paper presented at The European Conference on Educational
Research Conference. Gothenberg, Sweden.
Young, C. (1993). The recent politics of history syllabus development in New South Wales. In
K. Kennedy, O. F. Watts, & G. McDonald (Eds.), Citizenship education for a new age
(pp. 29-46). Queensland, Australia: USQ Press.
322 APPENDIX A CITED ART SYLLABUS COMMITTEE ARCHIVAL RECORDS
Board of Senior Schools Studies Art Syllabus Committee
Date Meeting Other Documents Minutes 1977, September 26 BSSS, Art Syllabus Committee: School of Architecture, UNSW. 1977, October 31 BSSS, Art Syllabus Committee: School of Art Education, UNSW. 1977, November 23 Letter from Eric Daniels, Chairman, Art Syllabus Committee, to The Secretary, SSB. Subject: Art Syllabus For Years 11 and 12 – Proposal for Examination Restructure. 1978, April 5 BSSS, Minutes of Meeting. 1978, July 14 BSSS, Planning and Development Committee. Minutes of Meeting. 1978, August 21 BSSS, Art Syllabus Committee: School of Architecture, UNSW. 1978, October Draft HSC Art Syllabus. 1978, October 30 BSSS, Art Syllabus Committee: HSC Art Syllabus Revision Sub- Goodsell Building, Sydney. Committee Report. 1979, February Des Walsh, Executive Officer. Education and the Arts: Executive Officer’s Bulletin. 1979, February 21 BSSS, Art Syllabus Committee: School of Architecture, UNSW. N.D. Paul Milton, Executive Officer. Study of Education and the Arts: State Committee Brief. N.D. Memorandum to Syllabus Committees of the Secondary Schools Board. 1980, March 26 Letter from Roy Knudson, Chairman, SC Syllabus Committee, to The Secretary, SSB.
Draft Rationale for Visual Arts Education (K-12).
The Place of the Visual Arts in Education.
323
Date Meeting Other Documents Minutes 1980, April 24 Letter from David Cohen, Director of Studies, to The Secretary, SSB. Reference: Art Education. 1980, July 10 Letter from Roy Knudson, Chairman, SC Art Syllabus Committee, to The Secretary, SSB. 1980, August 26 Letter from David Swan, Director-General of Education, to The Secretary, SSB. 1980, October Memorandum 82: Re-Definition of BSSS Courses. 1980, November 21 Report: BSSS Visual Arts K-12 Curriculum Development Project. 1980, December 1 BSSS, Art Syllabus Committee: Conference Room, School of Architecture, UNSW. 1981, March 11 Media Release: By the Minister for Education, Paul Landa. 1981, March 16 BSSS, Art Syllabus Committee: The School of Architecture, UNSW. 1981, April 7 Letter from Noel Cislowski, Chief Curriculum Officer, to Terry Smith, Chairman, Art Syllabus Committee. 1981, April 10 Letter from Terry Smith, Chairman, to Members of the Art Syllabus Committee, BSSS. 1981, April 27 BSSS, Art Syllabus Committee: Draft Visual Mass Media UNSW. Syllabus Year 11 and Year 12, 2 Unit Course. 1981, April 28 Letter from Terry Smith, Chairman, to Dorothy Shepard, Acting Secretary, BSSS. Re: Circular 82, 1980 and the Memorandum of October, 1980 Re-Definition of BSSS Courses. 1981, June 18 BSSS, Art Syllabus Committee: Draft Australian Art and Culture Ante Room, USYD. Syllabus Year 11 and Year 12, 2 Unit Course. 1981, September 23 Planning and Development Committee. Communicating K-12. 1981, October 7 BSSS. Minutes of Meeting. 1981, October 13 Letter from Dorothy Shepard, Assistant Secretary, BSSS to Terry Smith, Chairman, Art Syllabus Committee.
324
Date Meeting Other Documents Minutes 1981, November 11 David Swan, Director-General of Education. Curriculum Development within the Department of Education: Some Structural Changes. 1982, March 3 BSSS, Art Syllabus Committee: Professional Board Room, USYD. 1982, June Curriculum Standing Committee. A K-12 Approach to Curriculum Planning and Design. 1982, September 15 BSSS, Art Syllabus Committee. 1982, September 22 SSB, Art Syllabus Committee 1982, October 20 BSSS, Art Syllabus Committee: Western Tower Room, Quadrangle, USYD. 1983 Statement of Principles For Years K-12. 1983, February 16 SSB, Art Syllabus Committee: USYD. 1983, February 23 BSSS, Art Syllabus Committee: Conference Room, Fisher Library, USYD. 1983, May Directorate of Studies, NSW Department of Education. Technological Change and its Impact on Society. 1983, June 22 BSSS, Art Syllabus Committee: Western Tower Room, USYD. 1984 Mass Media Curriculum Project Team. All About Mass Media Education K-12. 1984, February 29 SSB, Art Syllabus Committee: Strathfield Education Centre. 1984, March 21 BSSS, Art Syllabus Committee: Ivan Turner Room, USYD. 1984, July 13 Draft Visual Arts Education Syllabus Years 11-12, 2 Unit Course and 3 Unit Course.
325 Board of Secondary Education Years 11-12 Visual Arts Syllabus Committee
Date Meeting Other Documents Minutes 1989, March 2 BSE, Years 11-12 Visual Arts Syllabus Committee: Ivan Tuner Room, Sydney Institute of Education, USYD. 1989, November 13 Memorandum 164 1990, February 2 Ministerial Memorandum, No. 90/6. From: Dr Terry Metherell, Minister for Education and Youth Affairs to Chairman, BSE. Subject: Implementation of Curriculum Reforms. 1990, June 22 Letter from Nancy Whittaker, Secretary, NAAE to Amanda Weate, COFA, UNSW.
First Board of Studies Years 7-12 Visual Arts Syllabus Committee
Date Meeting Other Documents Minutes 1990, July 23 BOS. Minutes of the Inaugural Meeting. 1990, October 25 BOS, Visual Arts Syllabus Committee: BOS, North Sydney. 1991, February 25 Letter from John Lambert, President, BOS to Len Rieser, Chairman, Visual Arts Syllabus Committee. 1991, March 7 BOS, Years 7-12 Visual Arts Syllabus Committee: BOS, North Sydney. 1991, April 10 Neil Brown. Visual Arts Syllabus Year 11-12. 1991, April 19 Visual Arts Syllabus Review Sub-Committee Meeting. 1991, April 24 BOS, Years 7-12 Visual Arts Proposals: Remit Drafts Syllabus Committee: BOS, North Sydney. Creative Arts KLACC. Pilot Curriculum Projects in New Technologies in the Creative Arts. 1991, May 10 Visual Arts Syllabus Review Sub-Committee Meeting. 1991, May 29 Proposal: Other 2 Unit Creative Arts Courses.
326
Date Meeting Other Documents Minutes 1991, May 31 Len Rieser, Chairman, Visual Arts Syllabus Commttee. Syllabus Review. 1991, June 24 Letter from Len Rieser, Chairman, Visual Arts Syllabus Committee to The President, BOS. Subject: Visual Arts Syllabus 7- 12 and HSC Examination 1993/4. 1991, June 26 BOS, Years 7-12 Visual Arts Syllabus Committee: BOS, North Sydney. 1991, July 31 BOS, Years 7-12 Visual Arts Syllabus Committee: BOS, North Sydney. 1991, September 25 BOS, Years 7-12 Visual Arts Syllabus Committee: Marking Centre, Royal Agricultural Showground, Sydney. 1991, September 26 Ministerial Memorandum, No. 464/CW. From: Minister, Virginia Chadwick to John Lambert, President. Subject: Syllabus Development Process. 1991, October 30 BOS, Years 7-12 Visual Arts Syllabus Committee: BOS, North Sydney. 1991, November BOS Memorandum No. 169/1991 Attention: Principals and Teachers of Visual Arts. Subject: RAS for the Visual Arts HSC Examination. 1991, November 22 Amanda Weate. Recommended Areas of Study for the 1992 Visual Arts Examination. 1992, March 25 BOS, Years 7-12 Visual Arts Syllabus Committee: BOS, North Sydney. 1992, April 4 Letter from Len Rieser, Chairman, Visual Arts Syllabus Committee to John Lambert, President, BOS. Subject: The Removal of the 40 Plates and their replacement by RAS. N.D. Steering Committee. Specifications for Statement and Profile Writers.
327
Date Meeting Other Documents Minutes 1992, December 2 BOS, Years 7-12 Visual Arts Draft Visual Arts Years 7-10 Syllabus Committee: Syllabus BOS, North Sydney. Penny McKeon, COFA, UNSW. Visual Arts Syllabus Years 7-10, Mandatory Course and Additional Studies Course: Response to Draft. 1992, December 14 Years 7-12 Visual Arts Syllabus Committee: Working Party Meeting. 1993, March 8 Amanda Weate, AES Syllabus Representative. Report from the Visual Arts 7-12 Syllabus Committee. 1993, March 31 Len Rieser, Chairman, Visual Arts Syllabus Committee. The National Curriculum in the Arts.
Paul Milton/Kerry Thomas. Response to the National Profile.
Associate Professor Neil Brown. An Opposition to the National Curriculum in the Arts. 1993, May 17 BOS, Years 7-12 Visual Arts Syllabus Committee: BOS, North Sydney. 1993, May 31 Progress Report – Visual Arts Syllabus Years 7-10. 1993, June Draft Visual Arts Years 7-10 Syllabus. 1993, July 27 BOS. Minutes of the Thirty-Sixth Meeting. 1993, July 28 Visual Arts Years 7-10 Syllabus. 1993, October, 11 Letter from Len Rieser, Chairman, Visual Arts 7-10 Syllabus Committee to Craig Maylon, St. George Girls High School. 1993, October 29 Letter from Len Rieser, Chairman, Visual Arts 7-10 Syllabus Committee to Jan Plummer, Dawn Polglase, and Terry Hicks, Penshurst Girls’ High School. 1993, December Letter from Kerry Thomas, Curriculum Officer, Creative Arts, Chairperson (elect), to Members of South West Art Group.
328
Date Meeting Other Documents Minutes 1994 Penny McKeon, UNSW. The Frames as Orientations for Investigating Art Historical Questions. 1994, January 11 Letter from Kerry Thomas, Chairperson, Visual Arts Syllabus Committee to Syllabus Committee Members. 1994, February 24 Report on the 11-12 Visual Arts Syllabus Review Meeting 1994, March 2 BOS, Years 7-12 Visual Arts Syllabus Committee: BOS, North Sydney. 1994, March 29 Draft Letter from Amanda Weate to Writers of the 7-10 support document. 1994, April Letter from Kerry Thomas, Chairperson, Visual Arts Syllabus Committee to Sam Weller, President, BOS. 1994, April 13 BOS, Years 7-12 Visual Arts Report on the survey responses Syllabus Committee: received on the Formal BOS, North Sydney. consultation Draft of the 7-10 Visual Arts Syllabus. 1994, June 8 The Department of School Education Response to the Draft Years 7-10 Visual Arts Syllabus. N.D. Ms Ina Burt, President, AES. Response to the Draft 7-10 Visual Arts Syllabus, 1994, from the AES. 1994, July 4 Minutes of the Forty-Seventh Meeting of the BOS. 1994, July 20 Letter from Kerry Thomas, Chairperson, Visual Arts Syllabus Committee and Inspector, Creative Arts to Syllabus Committee Members.
329 Second Board of Studies Visual Arts Syllabus Advisory Committee
Date Meeting Other Documents Minutes 1994, November 30 BOS: Proposal For Years 11-12 Visual Arts Syllabus 1995, April 5 BOS, Years 11-12 Visual Arts Syllabus Advisory Committee: BOS. 1995, October 1 Letter from Graham Dawson, Acting Deputy Director-General of School Education to Sam Weller, President, BOS. Department of School Education Response to the Draft Visual Arts Years 11-12 Syllabus. 1996, March 27 BOS, Years 11-12 Visual Arts Draft Visual Arts Years 11-12 Syllabus Advisory Committee: Support Document. BOS. 1996, July 15 Amanda Weate and Kerry Thomas: Visual Arts Response to McGaw Green Paper. 1996, July 17 BOS, Years 11-12 Visual Arts Syllabus Advisory Committee: BOS. 1996, August 26 Memorandum to Principals from Sam Weller, President, BOS: Stage 6 Syllabus Development – variation to current schedule 1997, March 25 Minutes of the Thirtieth Meeting of the Second BOS. 1997, April 30 Visual Arts Syllabus Advisory Committee Sub-Committee Meeting. COFA, UNSW. 1997, September 1 Syllabus Advisory Committee. Report to the BOS 1998, June 30 Minutes of the Fifty-Second Meeting of the BOS. 1998, December Visual Arts Stage 6 Syllabus Writing Brief.
330 APPENDIX B ART SYLLABUS COMMITTEE MEETINGS 1976 - 1999
Board of Senior School Studies Art Syllabus Committee
Meeting Copy Chair Members Present Apologies Viewed 1976, Professor Mrs T. Afford, Mr R.J. Knudson November 4 E.C. Associate Professor N.J. (Inspector), Daniels Anderson, Brother C.J. Mr R.E. Apperly, McDonald, Mrs R. Gordon, Miss L.M. Nimmo, Dr D.C. Hickey, Mr M.E Sell, Mr L. Rieser, (Inspector), Miss I. Seivl, Mr B. Teal Miss G. Sharp, Mr D.H. Simpson, Mr T.E. Smith, Miss B.A. Wood.
Observer: Mr W.J. Stanton 1977, Professor Mrs T. Afford, Miss Douglas, September 26 E.C. Mr R.E. Apperly, Mr Brady Daniels Dr D.C. Hickey, (Secretary), Mr L. Rieser, Mr Warren, Miss I. Seivl, Mr D.H. Simpson, Miss G. Sharp, Mr W.J. Stanton, Mr T.E. Smith, Associate Professor Mr R.K. Doig, N.J. Anderson Miss B.A. Wood, Mr R.J. Knudson (Inspector), Mr M.E. Sell (Inspector), Brother C.J. McDonald 1977, Professor Dr D.C. Hickey, Associate Professor October 31 E.C. Miss F. Sharp, N.J. Anderson, Daniels Miss I. Seivl, Mr B. Teale, Miss T. Afford, Mr M. Brady Miss B. Wood, (Secretary) Miss L. Nimmo, Mr T.E. Smith, Mr R.K. Doig, Mr R. Apperly, Mr L. Rieser, Brother C.J. McDonald, Mr M.E. Sell (Inspector), Mr R.J. Knudson (Inspector)
331
Meeting Copy Chair Members Present Apologies Viewed 1977, Professor Mrs T. Afford, Associate Professor November 21 E.C. Miss F. Sharp, N.J. Anderson, Daniels Miss B.A. Wood, Miss L. Nimmo, Mr L. Rieser, Dr D.C. Hickey, Mr R.K. Doig, Mr R. Apperly, Mr W.J. Stanton, Mr T.E. Smith, Mr R.J. Knudson Mr M. Brady (Inspector), (Secretary) Mr M.E. Sell (Inspector), Brother C.J. McDonald 1978, Professor Mrs T. Afford, Mr R. Stanton, August 21 E.C. Mr J. Allen, Mr T.E. Smith Daniels Associate Professor N.J. Anderson, Mr R.E. Apperly, Mr R.K. Doig, Mr R.J. Knudson (Inspector), Brother C.J. McDonald, Miss L. Nimmo, Mr L. Rieser, Mr M.E. Sell (Inspector), Mr B. Teal, Miss B.A. Wood.
Observer: Mr R. Coady 1978, Professor Mrs T. Afford, Associate Professor October 30 E.C. Mr J.W. Cramp, N.J. Anderson, Daniels Professor E.C. Daniels, Miss M.E. Douglas, Mr R.K. Doig, Mr R.J. Knudson Dr. D.C. Hickey, (Inspector), Mr L. Rieser, Mr M.E. Sell Mr T.E. Smith, (Inspector). Mr B. Teal.
Observer: Mr M. Gregory
332
Meeting Copy Chair Members Present Apologies Viewed 1979, Professor Mr J. Allen, Mrs T. Afford February 21 E.C. Ms F. Bendler, Daniels Mr J.W. Cramp, Professor E.C. Daniels, Miss E.M Douglas, Mr R. Hedley, Dr D.C. Hickey, Mr R.J. Knudson (Inspector), Brother C.J. McDonald, Mr L. Rieser, Mr M.E. Sell (Inspector), Mr T.E. Smith, Mr B. Teal
Observer: Mr W.J Stanton 1979, & & August, 1 1980, & & October 22 1980, & & November 29 1980, Professor Associate Professor N.J. Associate Professor December 1 E.C. Anderson, R.E. Apperly, Daniels Mr R.K. Doig, Mr J. Allen, (Acting) Mr R. Hedley, Dr D.C. Hickey, Mr R.J. Knudson, Mr T.E. Smith, Brother C.J. McDonald, Mr B. Teal Mr L. Rieser, Mr M.E. Sell, Mr R. Demkiw (Board Secretary)
Observer: Ms R. Bellamy, Miss M. Brahe, Mr R. Coady 1981, Mr T.E. Professor R.E. Apperly, Mr R.J. Knudson March 16 Smith Mr R. Coady, Mr J. Cramp, Professor E.C. Daniels, Mr R.K. Doig, Dr D.C. Hickey, Ms W. Hill, Ms J. Paisley, Mr H. Peate, Mr L. Rieser, Mr B. Teal, Ms H. Woodcock, Mr M. McCormick (Board Secretary)
333
Meeting Copy Chair Members Present Apologies Viewed 1981, Mr T.E. Mr J. Allen, Associate Professor April 27 Smith Ms R. Bellamy, R.E. Apperly, Mr R. Coady, Ms R. Masters, Mr J.W. Cramp, Mr B.A. Teal Professor E.C. Daniels, Mr R.K. Doig, Mr J.B. Fraser, Mr R. Hedley, Dr D.C. Hickey, Ms W. Hill, Mr R.J. Knudson, Mr L. Rieser, Brother C.J. McDonald, Mrs J. Paisley, Mr H. Peate, Ms H. Woodcock, Mr R. Demkiw (Board Secretary) 1981, Mr T.E. Ms R. Bellamy, Mr J. Allen, June 18 Smith Mr R. Coady, Associate Professor Mr J.W. Cramp, R.E. Apperly, Mr R.K. Doig, Professor E.C. Mr J.B. Fraser, Daniels, Mr R. Hedley, Ms M. Gregory, Ms W. Hill, Dr D.C. Hickey, Brother C.J. McDonald, Mr R.J. Knudson, Mrs J. Paisley, Mr M.E. Sell Mr H. Peate, Mr L. Rieser, Mr B.A. Teal, Ms H. Woodcock, Mr R. Wightley, Mr R. Demkiw (Board Secretary)
Observer: Ms R. Masters 1981, Mr T.E. Mr J. Allen, Associate Professor August 20 Smith Ms R. Bellamy, R.E. Apperly, Mr R. Coady, Miss M. Gregory, Mr J.W. Cramp, Ms W. Hill, Professor E.C. Daniels, Ms R. Masters, Mr R.K. Doig, Mr B.A. Teal Mr R. Hedley, Dr D.C. Hickey, Mrs J. Paisley, Mr H. Peate, Mr L. Rieser, Mr R. Wightley, Ms H. Woodcock, Mr S. Nieuwendyk (Secretary)
334
Meeting Copy Chair Members Present Apologies Viewed 1981, Mr T.E. Mr R. Coady, Mr J. Allen, October 24 Smith Mr J.W. Cramp, Ms R. Bellamy, Professor E.C. Daniels, Miss M. Gregory, Mr R.K. Doig, Mr M.E. Sell, Mr R. Hedley, Mr R. Wightley, Dr D.C. Hickey, Ms H. Woodcock Ms W. Hill, Mr R.J. Knudson, Brother C.J. McDonald, Mrs J. Paisley, Mr L. Rieser, Mr B.A. Teal, Mr S. Nieuwendyk (Secretary) 1982, Mr T.E. Mr J. Allen, Miss M. Gregory, March 3 Smith Ms R. Bellamy, Dr D.C. Hickey, Mr R. Coady, Mr L. Rieser, Mr J.W. Cramp, Professor V. Spate Mr R.K. Doig, Mr J. Fraser, Mr R. Hedley, Ms W. Hill, Mr R.J. Knudson, Mr H. Peate, Mr M.E. Sell, Mr R. Wightley, Ms H. Woodcock
Observer: Mr J. Birkett, Mr C. Johnson 1982, Mr T.E. Mr J. Allen, Mr R. Coady, September 15 Smith Ms R. Bellamy, Professor E.C. Mr J.W. Cramp, Daniels, Mr R.K. Doig, Mr R. Hedley, Mr J. Fraser, Dr D.C. Hickey, Ms M. Gregory, Mr M.E. Sell, Ms W. Hill, Professor V. Spate, Mr R.J. Knudson, Mr B. Teal Ms J. Paisley, Mr H. Peate, Mr L. Rieser, Mr R. Wightley, Ms H. Woodcock
Observer: Mr J. Birkett, Mr C. Johnson, Mr R. Masters
335
Meeting Copy Chair Members Present Apologies Viewed 1982, Mr T.E. Mr J. Allen, Associate Professor October 20 Smith Ms R. Bellamy, R. Apperly, Mr J.W. Cramp, Mr R. Coady, Mr R.K. Doig, Professor E.C. Mr J. Fraser, Daniels, Ms M. Gregory, Professor V. Spate Mr R. Hedley, Dr D.C. Hickey, Ms W. Hill, Mr R.J. Knudson, Ms J. Paisley, Mr H. Peate, Mr L. Rieser, Mr M.E. Sell, Mr B. Teal, Mr R. Wightley, Ms H. Woodcock
Observer: Mr J. Birkett, Mr C. Johnson, Mr R. Masters 1983, Mr T.E. Mr J.W. Cramp, Mr J. Allen, February 23 Smith Mr R.K. Doig, Professor E.C. Mr J. Fraser, Daniels, Ms M. Gregory, Mr R. Coady, Ms W. Hill, Ms R. Bellamy, Mr R.J. Knudson, Mr R. Hedley, Ms J. Paisley, Dr D.C. Hickey, Brother C.J. McDonald, Ms R. Masters, Mr M.E. Sell, Professor V. Spate Mr R. Wightley, Ms H. Woodcock
Observer: Mr J. Birkett 1983, Mr T.E. Mr J. Allen, Associate Professor June 22 Smith Ms R. Bellamy, R.E. Apperly, Mr J.W. Cramp, Mr R. Coady, Mr R.K. Doig, Professor E.C. Mr J. Fraser, Daniels, Mr R. Hedley, Professor V. Spate Ms W. Hill, Mr R.J. Knudson, Ms J. Paisley, Brother C.J. McDonald, Mr L. Rieser, Mr M.E. Sell, Mr B.A. Teal, Mr R. Wightley
Observer: Mr J. Birkett
336
Meeting Copy Chair Members Present Apologies Viewed 1983, Mr T.E. Ms R. Bellamy, Mr M.B. Pritchard, October 19 Smith Mr J.W. Cramp, Professor V. Spate Mr R.K. Doig, Mr J. Fraser, Mr R. Hedley, Ms W. Hill, Mr B. Kirkby, Mr R.J. Knudson, Mr L. Matkevich, Mr A. Morris, Mr L. Rieser, Mr M.E. Sell, Mr R. Wightley
Observer: Ms R. Masters, Mr H. Peate 1984, Mr T.E. Ms R. Bellamy, Mr R. Hedley March 21 Smith Mr A.W. Buckland, Mr J.W. Cramp, Mr J. Fraser, Ms W. Hill, Mr B. Kirkby, Mr R.J. Knudson, Mr L. Matkevich, Mr A. Morris, Mrs J. Paisley, Ms H. Power, Mr M.B. Pritchard, Mr L. Rieser, Mr M.E. Sell, Ms A.M. Weate, Mr R. Wightley
Observer: Mr J. Birkett, Mr W.J. Stanton
337
Meeting Copy Chair Members Present Apologies Viewed 1984, Mr T.E. Mr W.R. Allen, Ms R. Bellamy, June 13 Smith Mr A.W. Buckland, Mr R.J. Knudson, Mr J.W. Cramp, Ms D. Giedraite Mr R.K. Doig, (replacing Mr W.J. Mrs R. Hedley, Stanton) Ms C.W. Hill, Mr B. Kirkby, Mr L. Matkevich, Brother C.J. McDonald, Mr A.W.J. Morris, Mrs J. Paisley, Ms H. Power, Mr M.B. Pritchard, Dr P.R. Proudfoot, Mr L. Rieser, Mr M.E. Sell, Professor V. Spate, Ms A.M. Weate, Mr R. Wightley
Observer: Ms S. Masters
1984, Mr T.E. Mr W.R. Allen, Mr A.W.J. Morris, July 18 Smith Ms R. Bellamy, Mr M.E. Sell Mr A.W. Buckland, Mr J.W. Cramp, Mr R.K. Doig, Mr J.B. Fraser, Mrs R. Hedley, Ms C.W. Hill, Mr B. Kirkby, Mr R.J. Knudson, Mr L. Matkevich, Mrs J. Paisley, Ms H. Power, Mr M.B. Pritchard, Dr P.R. Proudfoot, Mr L. Rieser, Ms A.M. Weate, Mr R. Wightley
Observer: Mr J. Birkett, Mr R.C. Johnson, Mr W.J. Stanton
338
Meeting Copy Chair Members Present Apologies Viewed 1984, Mr T.E. Mr W.R. Allen, Mr R.K. Doig, September 19 Smith Ms R. Bellamy, Mr J.B. Fraser, Mr A.W. Buckland, Professor V. Spate Mr J.W. Cramp, Mr R. Hedley, Ms C.W. Hill, Mr B. Kirkby, Mr R.J. Knudson, Mr L. Matkevich, Brother C. McDonald, Mr A.W.J. Morris, Mrs J. Paisley, Ms H. Power, Mr M.B. Pritchard, Mr L. Rieser, Mr M.E. Sell, Ms A.M. Weate, Mr R. Wightley
Observer: Ms R. Masters, Mr W.J. Stanton 1984, Mr T.E. Ms R. Bellamy, October 17 Smith Mr A.W. Buckland, Mr J.W. Cramp, Mr R.K. Doig, Mr J.B. Fraser, Mr R. Hedley, Ms C.W. Hill, Mr B. Kirkby, Mr R.J. Knudson, Brother C.J. McDonald, Mr A.W.J. Morris, Mrs J. Paisley, Ms H. Power, Mr M.B. Pritchard, Mr L. Rieser, Mr M.E Sell, Professor V. Spate, Ms A.M. Weate, Mr R. Wightley
Observer: Mr W Stanton
339
Meeting Copy Chair Members Present Apologies Viewed 1985, Mr T.E. Ms R. Bellamy, Mr R.J. Knudson, April 3 Smith Mr A.W. Buckland, Mrs J. Paisley, Mr J.W. Cramp, Mr M.B Pritchard, Mr R.K. Doig, Professor V. Spate, Mr J.B. Fraser, Mr M.E. Sell Mr R. Hedley, Ms C.W. Hill, Mr B. Kirkby, Brother C.J. McDonald, Mr L. Matkevich, Mr A.W.J. Morris, Ms H. Power, Ms A.M. Weate, Mr R. Wightley
Observer: Mr W.J. Stanton 1985, Mr T.E. Mr J.W. Cramp, Ms R. Bellamy, May 1 Smith Mr R.K. Doig, Mr J.B. Fraser, Ms C.W. Hill, Mr R. Hedley, Mr B. Kirkby, Mr A.W.J. Morris, Brother C.J. McDonald, Mr M.B Pritchard, Mr L. Matkevich, Mr M.E. Sell, Mrs J. Paisley, Professor V. Spate Ms H. Power, Mr L. Rieser, Ms A.M. Weate, Mr R. Wightley
Observer: Mr J. Birkett, Mr W.J. Stanton, Mr B. Shadwick 1985, Mr T.E. Mr W.R. Allen, Mr J.W. Cramp, July 3 Smith Ms R. Bellamy, Mr B. Kirkby, Mr A.W. Buckland, Mr R.J. Knudson, Mr R.K. Doig, Professor V. Spate, Mr J.B. Fraser, Mr R. Wightley, Mr R. Hedley, Mr M.B Pritchard Ms C.W. Hill, Mr A.W.J. Morris, Mrs J. Paisley, Ms H. Power, Mr L. Rieser, Mr M.E. Sell, Ms A.M. Weate
Observer: Mr J. Birkett, Ms M. Bishop, Mr W.J. Stanton
340
Meeting Copy Chair Members Present Apologies Viewed 1985, Mr T.E. Mr W.R. Allen, Mr J. Birkett, September 12 Smith Ms R. Bellamy, Mr B. Kirkby, Mr A.W. Buckland, Brother C.J. Mr J.W. Cramp, McDonald, Mr R.K. Doig, Mr M.B Pritchard, Mr J.B. Fraser, Professor V. Spate Mr R. Hedley, Ms C.W. Hill, Mr R.J. Knudson, Mr L. Matkevich, Mr A.W.J. Morris, Mrs J. Paisley, Ms H. Power, Mr L. Rieser, Mr M.E. Sell, Ms A.M. Weate
Observer: Ms M. Bishop, Mr W.J. Stanton 1986, Dr T.E. Mr W.R. Allen, Mr J.B. Fraser, June 4 Smith Ms R. Bellamy, Mr L. Matkevich, Mr A.W. Buckland, Professor V. Spate Mr J.W. Cramp, Mr R.K. Doig, Absent: Mr R. Hedley, Mr R. Knudson, Ms C.W. Hill, Ms H. Power, Mr B. Kirkby, Dr P. Proudfoot, Brother C.J. McDonald, Mr M. Sell Mr A.W.J. Morris, Mrs J. Paisley, Mr M.B Pritchard, Mr L. Rieser, Ms A.M. Weate, Mr R. Wightley
Observer: Mr W.J. Stanton, Mr G. Sullivan
341
Meeting Copy Chair Members Present Apologies Viewed 1986, Mr L. Mr W.R. Allen, Mr A.W. Buckland, October 15 Rieser Ms R. Bellamy, Brother C.J. Mr J.W. Cramp, McDonald, Mr R.K. Doig, Dr P. Proudfoot, Mr J.B. Fraser, Mr G. Sullivan Mr R. Hedley, Ms W. Hill, Mr B. Kirkby, Mr R.J. Knudson, Mr L. Matkevich, Mr A.W.J. Morris, Mrs J. Paisley, Ms H. Power, Mr M.B Pritchard, Mr M.E. Sell, Professor V. Spate, Mr W.J. Stanton, Ms A.M. Weate, Mr R. Wightley 1987, & & June 10
Board of Secondary Education Years 11-12 Visual Arts Syllabus Committee
Meeting Copy Chair Members Present Apologies Viewed 1987, Dr. T.E. Ms R. Bellamy, Mr A. Morris November 25 Smith Mr A.W. Buckland, Mr R.K. Doig, Absent: Mr J.B. Fraser, Mr W.R. Allen, Ms W. Hill, Mr J.W. Cramp, Mr B. Kirkby, Mr R. Hedley, Mr R.J. Knudson, Mr L. Matkevich, Brother C.J. McDonald, Mr M.B Pritchard, Mrs J. Paisley, Dr P. Proudfoot, Ms H. Power, Professor V. Spate, Mr L. Rieser, Ms A.M. Weate Mr R. Wightley
Observer: Mr M. Bishop, Mr P. Milton, Ms B. Peattie, Mr W.J. Stanton
1988, & & March 15
342
Meeting Copy Chair Members Present Apologies Viewed 1988, Dr. T.E. Mr A.W. Buckland, Ms R. Bellamy, May 26 Smith Mr R.K. Doig, Mrs M. Bishop, Mr R. Hedley, Ms H. Power, Ms W. Hill, Professor V. Spate Mrs K. King, Mr B. Kirkby, Absent: Mr R.J. Knudson, Mr J. Allen, Brother C.J. McDonald, Mr J.W. Cramp, Mrs J. Paisley, Mr J.B. Fraser, Mr L. Rieser, Mr L. Matkevich, Ms A.M. Weate, Mr M.B Pritchard, Mr R. Wightley Dr P. Proudfoot
Observer: Mr W.J. Stanton 1989, Mr L. Ms R. Bellamy, Professor V. Spate March 2 Rieser Mr J.W. Cramp, Mr R.K. Doig, Absent: Mr R. Hedley, Mr A.W. Buckland, Ms W. Hill, Mr L. Matkevich, Mrs K. King, Mr M.B Pritchard, Mr B. Kirkby, Dr P. Proudfoot Brother C.J. McDonald, Mrs J. Paisley, Ms A.M. Weate, Mr R. Wightley
Observer: Mr W.J. Stanton
First Board of Studies Years 7-12 Visual Arts Syllabus Committee
Meeting Copy Chair Members Present Apologies Viewed 1990, Mr L. Ms S. Baker, Ms K. Thomas October 25 Rieser Ms J. Barker, (Elected) Mr I. Brown, Dr N. Brown, Mr F. Doyle, Ms C. English, Ms W. Hill, Ms I. Hooper, Dr D. Kendall, Ms S. Knipe, Mr B. Marler, Mrs J. Paisley, Mr R. Waller, Ms A. Weate
Observer: Mr P. Milton
343 Meeting Copy Chair Members Present Apologies Viewed 1991, Mr L. Ms J. Barker, March 7 Rieser Mr I. Brown, Dr N. Brown, Mr F. Doyle, Ms C. English, Ms W. Hill, Ms I. Hooper, Dr D. Kendall, Ms S. Knipe, Mr B. Marler, Mrs J. Paisley, Ms K. Thomas, Mr R. Waller, Ms A. Weate
Observer: Mr P. Milton 1991, Mr L. Ms S. Baker, Dr. D. Kendall April 24 Rieser Ms J. Barker, Mr I. Brown, Absent: Mr F. Doyle, Dr N. Brown Ms C. English, Ms W. Hill, Ms I. Hooper, Ms S. Knipe, Mr B. Marler, Mrs J. Paisley, Ms J. Stevens, Ms K. Thomas, Mr R. Waller, Ms A. Weate
Observer: Mr P. Milton
344
Meeting Copy Chair Members Present Apologies Viewed 1991, Mr L. Ms S. Baker, Mr I. Brown, May 29 Rieser Ms J. Barker, Dr D. Kendall, Dr N. Brown, Ms S. Knipe Mr F. Doyle, Ms C. English, Ms W. Hill, Ms I. Hooper, Mr B. Marler, Mrs J. Paisley, Ms J. Stevens, Ms K. Thomas, Mr R. Waller, Ms A. Weate
Observer: Mr P. Milton 1991, Mr L. Ms S. Baker, Ms S. Knipe June 26 Rieser Ms J. Barker, Dr N. Brown, Mr I. Brown, Mr F. Doyle, Ms C. English, Ms W. Hill, Ms I. Hooper, Dr D. Kendall, Mr B. Marler, Mrs J. Paisley, Ms J. Stevens, Ms K. Thomas, Mr R. Waller, Ms A. Weate
Observer: Mr P. Milton
1991, Mr L. Ms S. Baker, Ms S. Knipe July 31 Rieser Ms J. Barker, Dr N. Brown, Mr I. Brown, Mr F. Doyle, Ms C. English, Ms W. Hill, Ms I. Hooper, Dr D. Kendall, Mr B. Marler, Mrs J. Paisley, Ms J. Stevens, Ms K. Thomas, Mr R. Waller, Ms A. Weate
Observer: Mr P. Milton
345
Meeting Copy Chair Members Present Apologies Viewed 1991, Mr L. Mr I. Brown, Ms S. Baker, September 25 Rieser Mr F. Doyle, Ms J. Barker, Ms C. English, Dr N. Brown, Ms W. Hill, Ms S. Knipe, Ms I. Hooper, Mr P. Milton, Dr D. Kendall, Ms K. Thomas Mr B. Marler, Mrs J. Paisley, Ms J. Stevens, Mr R. Waller, Ms A. Weate 1991, Mr L. Ms S. Baker, Ms S. Knipe, October 30 Rieser Mr F. Doyle, Ms J. Barker, Ms C. English, Mr I. Brown, Ms W. Hill, Ms K. Thomas Ms I. Hooper, Dr D. Kendall, Absent: Mr B. Marler, Dr N. Brown Mrs J. Paisley, Ms J. Stevens, Mr R. Waller, Ms A. Weate
Observer: Mr P. Milton, Ms R. McFarland 1992, Mr L. Ms S. Baker, Dr N. Brown, March 25 Rieser Ms J. Barker, Ms J. Paisley Mr I. Brown, Mr F. Doyle, Ms C. English, Ms W. Hill, Ms I. Hooper, Dr D. Kendall, Ms S. Knipe, Mr B. Marler, Ms J. Stevens, Ms K. Thomas, Mr R. Waller, Ms A. Weate, Ms M. Tuckfield
Observer: Mr P. Milton, Ms R. McFarland
346
Meeting Copy Chair Members Present Apologies Viewed 1992, Mr L. Ms S. Baker, Dr N. Brown, May 6 Rieser Ms J. Barker, Mr I. Brown, Mr F. Doyle, Mr P. Milton Ms C. English, Ms W. Hill, Ms I. Hooper, Dr D. Kendall, Ms S. Knipe, Mr B. Marler, Ms J. Paisley, Ms J. Stevens, Ms K. Thomas, Mr R. Waller, Ms A. Weate, Ms M. Tuckfield
Observer: Ms R. McFarland 1992, Mr L. Mr F. Doyle, Ms S. Baker, June 23 Rieser Ms W. Hill, Ms J. Barker, Ms S. Knipe, Dr N. Brown, Mr B. Marler, Ms C. English, Ms J. Paisley, Dr D. Kendall, Ms J. Stevens, Mr R. Waller Ms K. Thomas, Ms A. Weate, Ms M. Tuckfield
Observer: Ms R. McFarland, Mr P. Milton 1992, Mr L. Ms S. Baker, Ms J. Barker, July 29 Rieser Dr N. Brown, Ms S. Knipe Mr I. Brown, Mr F. Doyle, Ms C. English, Ms W. Hill, Dr D. Kendall, Mr B. Marler, Ms J. Paisley, Ms J. Stevens, Ms K. Thomas, Ms A. Weate, Ms M. Tuckfield, Mr R. Waller
Observer: Ms R. McFarland, Mr P. Milton
347
Meeting Copy Chair Members Present Apologies Viewed 1992, & & August 26 1992, Mr L. Dr N. Brown, Ms J. Barker, December 2 Rieser Mr F. Doyle, Ms M. Tuckfield, Ms C. English, Dr D. Kendall, Ms W. Hill, Ms S. Baker, Ms S. Knipe, Mr I. Brown Mr B. Marler, Ms J. Paisley, Ms J. Stevens, Ms K. Thomas, Ms A. Weate, Mr R. Waller
Observer: Ms R. McFarland, Mr P. Milton 1993, Mr L. Ms S. Baker, Ms J. Barker, March 10 Rieser Dr N. Brown, Mr I. Brown Mr F. Doyle, Ms C. English, Ms W. Hill, Dr D. Kendall, Ms S. Knipe, Mr B. Marler, Ms J. Paisley, Ms J. Stevens, Ms K. Thomas, Ms M. Tuckfield, Ms A. Weate, Mr R. Waller
Observer: Ms R. McFarland, Mr P. Milton 1993, & & March 31
348
Meeting Copy Chair Members Present Apologies Viewed 1993, Mr L. Ms S. Baker, Mr I. Brown May 17 Rieser Ms J. Barker, Dr N. Brown, Mr F. Doyle, Ms C. English, Ms W. Hill, Dr D. Kendall, Mr B. Marler, Ms J. Paisley, Ms J. Stevens, Ms K. Thomas, Ms M. Tuckfield, Ms A. Weate, Mr R. Waller
Observer: Ms R. McFarland, Mr P. Milton 1993, Mr L. Ms J. Barker, Ms S. Baker, September 8 Rieser Dr N. Brown, Mr P. Milton, Mr I. Brown, Ms J. Paisley Mr F. Doyle, Ms C. English, Ms W. Hill, Dr D. Kendall, Ms S. Knipe, Mr B. Marler, Ms J. Stevens, Ms K. Thomas, Ms A. Weate, Mr R. Waller, Mr P. Wilde
Observer: Ms R. McFarland 1993, Mr L. Ms S. Baker, Dr N. Brown, November 17 Rieser Mr I. Brown, Mr P. Milton, Mr F. Doyle, Ms J. Stevens, Ms C. English, Ms J. Barker Ms W. Hill, Dr D. Kendall, Ms S. Knipe, Mr B. Marler, Ms J. Paisley, Ms K. Thomas, Ms A. Weate, Mr R. Waller, Mr P. Wilde
Observer: Ms R. McFarland
349
Meeting Copy Chair Members Present Apologies Viewed 1994, Ms K. Ms S. Baker, Mr I. Brown, March 2 Thomas Dr N. Brown, Mr R. Waller Mr F. Doyle, Ms C. English, Absent: Ms W. Hill, Ms J. Barker Dr D. Kendall, Ms S. Knipe, Mr B. Marler, Ms J. Paisley, Ms J. Stevens, Ms A. Weate, Mr P. Wilde
Observer: Ms R. McFarland
In Attendance: Ms S. Bienefelt 1994, Ms K. Mr F. Doyle, Mr I. Brown, April 13 Thomas Ms C. English, Ms J. Barker, Ms W. Hill, Mr B. Marler, Dr D. Kendall, Ms J. Stevens, Ms A. Weate, Ms S. Knipe, Mr R. Waller, Dr N. Brown, Ms B. Smith Mr P. Wilde, Ms J. Paisley Observer: Ms R. McFarland Absent: Ms S. Baker In Attendance: Ms S. Bienefelt 1994, Ms K. Ms S. Baker, Associate Professor June 15 Thomas Mr F. Doyle, N. Brown, Ms C. English, Ms J. Barker, Ms W. Hill, Mr R. Newitt, Dr D. Kendall, Mr I. Brown Ms S. Knipe, Mr B. Marler, Ms J. Paisley, Ms J. Stevens, Ms A. Weate, Mr P. Wilde, Mr R. Waller, Ms B. Smith
Observer: Ms R. McFarland
350
Second Board of Studies Visual Arts Syllabus Advisory Committee
Meeting Copy Chair Members Present Apologies Viewed 1994, Ms K. Ms J. Barker, Ms S. Baker, September 21 Thomas Mr I. Brown, Ms J. Stevens Associate Professor N. Brown, Mr F. Doyle, Ms C. English, Ms W. Hill, Dr D. Kendall, Ms S. Knipe, Mr B. Marler, Mr R. Newitt, Ms J. Paisley, Ms A. Weate, Mr P. Wilde, Mr R. Waller, Ms B. Smith
Observer: Ms R. McFarland 1995, Ms K. Ms A. Weate, Ms J. Barker, April 5 Thomas Ms K. King, Ms M. Rosicky (Executive Ms J. Stevens, Member) Mr R. Newitt, Ms W. Hill, Ms J. Paisley, Mr R. Waller, Ms J. Carroll, Professor N. Brown.
Observer: Ms R. McFarland 1995, Ms A. Ms K. Thomas Ms R. McFarland, May 23 Weate (Executive Member), Mr R. Waller. Ms K. King, Ms J. Stevens, Mr P. Wilde, Mr R. Newitt, Ms W. Hill, Ms M. Rosicky, Ms J. Paisley, Ms J. Barker, Ms J. Carroll, Professor N. Brown.
351
Meeting Copy Chair Members Present Apologies Viewed 1995, Ms A. Ms K. Thomas Ms J. Barker, June 13 Weate (Executive Member), Mr P. Wilde, Ms K. King, Ms J. Paisley. Ms J. Stevens, Mr R. Newitt, Ms W. Hill, Mr R. Waller, Ms J. Carroll, Professor N. Brown, Ms M. Rosicky.
Observer: Ms R. McFarland 1995, Ms A. Ms K. Thomas October 11 Weate (Executive Member), Ms K. King, Ms J. Stevens, Mr R. Newitt, Ms W. Hill, Ms J. Paisley, Mr R. Waller, Ms J. Carroll, Professor N. Brown, Ms J. Barker, Ms M. Rosicky
Observer: Ms R. McFarland 1996, Ms A. Ms K. Thomas Ms M. Rosicky, March 13 Weate (Executive Member), Ms M. Yates. Ms J. Barker, Ms K. King, Ms J. Stevens, Mr R. Newitt, Ms W. Hill, Ms J. Paisley, Mr R. Waller, Ms J. Carroll, Professor N. Brown, Mr P. Connolly
Observer: Ms R. McFarland
352
Meeting Copy Chair Members Present Apologies Viewed 1996, Ms A. Ms K. Thomas Mr R. Newitt March 27 Weate (Executive Member), Ms K. King, Ms J. Stevens, Ms W. Hill, Ms J. Paisley, Mr R. Waller, Ms J. Carroll, Professor N. Brown, Ms J. Barker, Ms M. Rosicky.
Observer: Ms R. McFarland 1996, & May 15 1996, Ms A. Ms K. Thomas July 17 Weate (Executive Member), Ms K. King, Ms J. Stevens, Mr R. Newitt, Ms W. Hill, Ms J. Paisley, Mr R. Waller, Ms J. Carroll, Professor N. Brown, Ms R. McFarland, Ms M. Yates, Ms M. Rosicky. 1997, Ms A. Ms K. Thomas Ms J. Stevens, February 13 Weate (Executive Member), Mr P. Connolly. Ms K. King, Mr R. Newitt, Ms W. Hill, Ms J. Paisley, Mr R. Waller, Ms J. Carroll, Professor N. Brown, Ms R. McFarland, Ms J. Barker, Ms M. Rosicky
Board Officers: Ms H. Wyatt, Ms K. Edmeads, Ms Carol Cole.
353
Meeting Copy Chair Members Present Apologies Viewed 1997, Ms A. Ms K. Thomas Ms J. Barker April 24 Weate (Executive Member), Ms K. King, Ms J. Stevens, Mr R. Newitt, Ms W. Hill, Ms J. Paisley, Mr R. Waller, Ms J. Carroll, Professor N. Brown, Ms R. McFarland, Ms M. Rosicky, Mr P. Connolly.
Board Officers: Ms H. Wyatt, Ms Carol Cole. 1997, Ms A. Ms K. Thomas Mr R. Waller, May 14 Weate (Executive Member), Ms K. Edmeades Ms K. King, (Observer). Ms J. Stevens, Ms J. Barker, Mr R. Newitt, Ms W. Hill, Ms J. Paisley, Ms J. Carroll, Professor N. Brown, Ms R. McFarland, Ms M. Rosicky, Mr P. Connolly.
Observers: Ms H. Wyatt, Ms N. Worsley (Acting Secretary). 1997, & June 11 1997, Ms A. Ms K. Thomas Ms K. Edmeades August 13 Weate (Executive Member), (Observer), Ms K. King, Ms J. Carroll, Ms J. Stevens, Associate Professor Ms J. Barker, N. Brown. Mr R. Newitt, Ms W. Hill, Ms J. Paisley, Ms R. McFarland, Ms M. Rosicky, Mr P. Connolly, Mr R. Waller.
Observers: Ms N. Worsley (Secretary), Ms P. Mckeon.
354
Meeting Copy Chair Members Present Apologies Viewed 1997, Ms A. Ms K. Thomas Ms J. Barker, September 2 Weate (Executive Member), Ms J. Carroll, Ms Karen Maras (for Associate Professor Ms K. King), N. Brown, Ms J. Stevens, Mr R. Newitt, Ms W. Hill. Ms M. Rosicky, Mr R. Waller. Observers: Ms H. Wyatt, Ms N. Worsley (Secretary), Ms R. McFarland, Ms P. Mckeon.
1997, & November 6
355 APPENDIX C LETTER FROM DR LEE EMERY INVITING CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE NATIONAL ARTS CURRICULUM ACTIVITY
356 APPENDIX D LETTER FROM GEOFF HAMMOND, CHAIR, NAAE TO MEMBERS OF THE AIAE COUNCIL
357
358 APPENDIX E PAPER PRESENTED BY NEIL BROWN TO A SUB-COMMITTEE ON THE 10TH APRIL, 1991
359