ART HISTORY TEACHING IN TEACHER EDUCATION IN SOUTHERN BRAZIL: A STUDY OF AN ALTERNATIVE PROGRAMME AND ITS RELATION TO CULTURAL IDENTITY AND SOCIAL ASPIRATIONS ROSEMEIRE ODAHARA GRA£A PhD in Education Institute of Education, University of London 2009 Supervisor: Professor Andrew Brown Faculty of Culture and Pedagogy Department of Learning, Curriculum and Communication 1 UNIVERSITY OF LONDON INSTITUTE OF EDUCATE* - - AUG 2009 NOT TO BE Rf: Vr FROM THE ,i ; ABSTRACT This thesis provides a critical account of a practitioner research project in which an alternative art history teaching programme was designed and undertaken in 2002-2003. This was run as part of a fine arts teacher-training course at a culturally-diverse college in Southern Brazil. The project arose from a perceived need to transform art history teaching in Southern Brazil from being an instrument of acculturation to a process of cultural empowerment, and to enable it to be more closely aligned to the current requirements of preparing art teachers to be educators of culturally reflective visual readers. The design of the alternative programme requires changes in course content and teaching strategies. The research into the processes and impact of the alternative programme involved collecting data through observations, semi-structured interviews (individual and group), questionnaires, and tasks (assignments, reading, and critical appraisals). The analysis of this data showed that changes were possible without impairing the students’ engagement with art history as a field of study. It was also found that art education and history can play a role in shaping the aspirations of immigrant families and their plans for social mobility. In examining the influence of their descendants’ education in the arts on their families’ plans for social mobility, it became apparent that Eurocentric art history education, which the alternative programme had sought to avoid, could still be appropriate to the social context of the students because of the value placed on it by their families. The findings of the study suggest that the students benefited from the changes introduced to the teaching programme since they led them to reflect on their own social and cultural structures, and allow them to become teachers able to employ the kind of art history teaching they prefer, even if it retains Eurocentric features. 2 DECLARATION I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, it contains no material previously published or written by another person or material which to a substantial extent has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma of the university or other institute of higher learning, except where due acknowledgment has been made in the text. Word count (pages 9-163): 63414words Rosemeire Odahara Gra 9a 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ............................................................... 7 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................. 8 CHAPTER 1 - INTRODUCTION ........................................................ 9 1.1 Purpose and structure of this thesis .................................................. 20 CHAPTER 2 - SEARCHING FOR ANSWERS IN THE LITERATURE ......................................................................... 22 2.1 Art history in art education ................................................................. 22 2.2 Art history in visual literacy ............................................................... 25 2.3 Art history and its approaches to art ................................................ 27 2.4 Art history teaching ............................................................................... 38 2.5 History teaching .................................................................................... 45 2.6 Summary and conclusions ................................................................... 46 CHAPTER 3 - THE SOCIETY FOR WHICH THE ALTERNATIVE PROGRAMME WAS DESIGNED ................................................... 49 3.1 The cultural context ............................................................................... 49 3.2 The educational context ....................................................................... 68 3.3 Summary and conclusions ................................................................... 72 CHAPTER 4 - THE ALTERNATIVE ART HISTORY TEACHING PROGRAMME ............................................................. 74 4.1 Educational goals .................................................................................. 75 4.2 Syllabus ................................................................................................... 75 4.3 Learning activities ................................................................................ 76 4.3.1 Assignments ................................................................................................ 77 4.3.2 Reading activities ....................................................................................... 79 4.3.3 Critical appraisals ...................................................................................... 80 4.4 Teaching procedures ............................................................................. 81 4.5 Assessment ............................................................................................... 82 4.6 Outline of the programme .................................................................... 83 4.7 Summary and conclusions .................................................................... 83 4 CHAPTER 5 - CONDUCTING THE RESEARCH: METHODS AND ANALYSIS .............................................................. 85 5.1 The research approach adopted .......................................................... 85 5.2 The tools used for data collection ....................................................... 87 5.2.1 The questionnaire ....................................................................................... 87 5.2.2 Individual interviews ................................................................................. 89 5.2.3 Group interviews ........................................................................................ 90 5.2.4 Field notes ................................................................................................... 91 5.2.5 Assignments ................................................................................................ 91 5.3 Undertaking practitioner research ..................................................... 91 5.4 Procedures adopted for the organisation and analysis of the data ... 96 5.5 Summary and conclusions .................................................................. 101 CHAPTER 6 - THE STUDENTS’ EXPERIENCE WITH THE ALTERNATIVE PROGRAMME .............................. 103 6.1 An examination of the student sample ............................................. 103 6.2 First research activity ......................................................................... 107 6.3 Second research activity ...................................................................... 112 6.4 Third research activity ....................................................................... 115 6.5 Fourth research activity ..................................................................... 119 6.6 The students’ opinions of the programme ..................................... 120 6.7 Ways students changed during the experience ............................. 125 6.8 Summary and conclusions .................................................................. 132 CHAPTER 7 - ART HISTORY TEACHING AND THE SOCIAL ASPIRATIONS OF IMMIGRANT FAMILIES ............................ 137 7.1 Immigrant families and an education in art history ..................... 137 7.2 Changes in art history teaching and the emergence of identity crises in descendants of immigrants ............................................................. 139 7.3 Summary and conclusions ................................................................. 142 CHAPTER 8 - AN ANALYSIS OF THE GENERAL DESIGN OF THE ALTERNATIVE TEACHING PROGRAMME ................... 144 8.1 Educational goals .................................................................................. 144 8.2 Syllabus .................................................................................................. 145 8.3 Teaching procedures ........................................................................... 149 8.4 Learning activities and assessment .................................................. 151 5 8.5 Summary and conclusions 153 CONCLUSION .................................................................................... 158 Evaluating the research work: achievements, limitations, contributions and possibilities for further studies ........................ 161 REFERENCES ...................................................................................... 164 APPENDIX 1 - AN ANALYTICAL GUIDE FOR WORKS OF ART - COMPILED BY NESSI (1968) (SPANISH VERSION REPRODUCED IN NESSI, 1968, pp.74-76) 193 APPENDIX 2 - TEXTS SELECTED AS READING ACTIVITIES (GROUP DISCUSSION) ...................................................................... 194 APPENDIX 3 - TEXTS SELECTED AS READING ACTIVITIES (RESEARCH ACTIVITIES) .............................................................. 195 APPENDIX 4 - INSTITUTIONS CHOSEN FOR STUDENT VISITS (CRITICAL APPRAISALS) ...............................................