| This study investigates the crisis of art education in the contemporary era (1899-1988). From the early 1900's to the 1960's, art education curriculum was dominated by ideas of Child Art and Expressive Art Education, emphasizing the individual as the center of art education. By the mid-1960's, however, there was a major transition towards discipline as the heart of art education curriculum. Discipline Based Art Education (DBAE), especially as developed by the Getty Educational Institute, developed in the context of discipline-oriented curriculum proposals.;An historical analysis is used to identify the hegemony of forces confronting the establishment of a Modern or democratic art education curriculum since the turn of the century. The shift from Modernism and Post-Modernism thought provides a basis for the analysis of Discipline Based Art Education as a Post-Modernist phenomenon. Aspects of Post-Modernism confronting Modernism are traced as a basis for analyzing their problematic implications on art and art education.;This analysis discusses the hegemony of the groups and institutions that support DBAE, including collectors, critics, corporations, art museums, and technical and formalistic schools. This hegemony has supported those ideological commitments in art and art education that tend to perpetuate the separation of artistic creation from culture and society.;Discipline Based Art Education is identified as a post-Modernist phenomenon since it: (1) reduces the role of the individual, (2) is elitist, (3) reduces the role of creative production, (4) is corporate sponsored and oriented, (5) is technocratic, and (6) decentralizes art education curriculum into four contradictory disciplines.;It is suggested that a Modern and Progressive art education is crucial to a free and democratic society. An alliance of all progressive forces is called for in order to support the modern spirit of the artist as a first step against anti-Modernist, reactionary responses in art and art education. |
