Author: Lindsey Nicole Summers

Publisher:

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 180

ISBN-13:

This project stemmed from my experiences as a white, cis gendered female K-5 visual arts teacher going from teaching in a racially and culturally diverse school to teaching in a school that is 86% white. The goals of this study were first to improve my own practice and analyze my personal biases, second to inform other teachers with similar struggles, and third, to teach my students about a broader range of artists. The lessons I had previously taught revolved around a one-dimensional representation of culture, such as a holiday or tradition, unintentionally creating a stereotype. In addition to the cultural lessons, I also realized I had created a curriculum of white, deceased, Western, male artists. Subconsciously, I felt this was an unspoken requirement because it was what I learned to teach during own undergraduate teacher education. In response, I developed a more culturally responsive teaching practice that introduced my students to new contemporary artists who are diverse in terms of ability, race, ethnicity and gender. My research questions for this study were: What strategies could I use to decentralize whiteness in my classroom curriculum? How can I include a wide range of diverse artists without lessons centered around stereotype-based projects such as holidays or traditions? How will teaching contemporary artists from diverse backgrounds shift the perspective of my students? For this study, I taught 80 5th grade students for three months during the 2017-2018 school year at a public elementary in the north suburbs of Chicago. The four classes met twice a week for thirty-minutes. To answer my research questions, I employed action research methodology and my data included pre- and post-unit surveys, student artwork, personal fieldwork notes and sketches. Among my initial findings were that my students demonstrated a strong bias towards the canon of Western, male-dominated art before I began teaching a more inclusive, less biased contemporary art curriculum, which I anticipated. At the conclusion of the study, my students changed their associations of the term artist to a more inclusive definition which they demonstrated through their art-making and post-unit surveys. Through my own experiences, I recommend that other art teachers analyze their curriculum for bias and adapt their methods to teach contemporary art and ideas that will engage students with a broad view of the world they inhabit.