The Development of the Discipline Based Art Education
By
Mohammad Aldosary
Introduction
The visual art teaching in the United States has been concerned with the art
production over other visual art areas such as art history, art criticism, and aesthetic that
helps in providing a comprehensive art knowledge and understanding.
Since the last quarter of the 20th century there have been calls from the art
education curriculum and educational institutions for providing school students with a
comprehensive art curriculum that adequately serve students knowledge and
understanding about visual arts by going beyond the production of the art objects to the
artistic forms, historical and cultural background, and critical and aesthetic aspects of the
art objects. DBAE is a comprehensive art approach based on four art disciplines, artmaking, art history, art criticism, and aesthetic that all together could be applied in
teaching art in a comprehensive way.
This paper discusses the historical background about the major educational reform
movements and studies in the 20th century that attributed to creating the current visual art
curriculum in the United States. It also provides an overview of DBAE regarding its
roots, development, and its content.
The 20th Century Educational Movements and Studies Contributed in Creating the
Current Status of Art Education
In the 19th century art education in the United States was allied with industrial
education when drawing teachers taught the elements of manual training as well as crafts
and design. However, a separation between art education and industrial education
appeared when organizations for art education separate from organization for the
industrial education.
In 1874, the first professional organization of art teachers in the
2
United States was established in Massachusetts. A second organization, called the
Industrial Art Teachers’ association, was founded in 1882 in Boston. In addition, the
Massachusetts Board of Education report in 1906 recommended that public schools
should teach manual and industrial elements and there should be schools special
industrial schools separated from the public schools (Efland, 1990 p. 180).
In the opening of the 20th century, the emphasis on drawing instructions related to
craft and industrial reasons that characterized art education in the United States started to
transit to teaching more inclusive education, such as appreciation, design, and crafts as a
sign of a split between art education and vocational education that greatly influenced art
education’s practices during the industrial revolution in the 19th century. Bailey 1910,
suggested the emphasis on the appreciation of the beauty in art education indicating that
the split between vocational education and art education was in the air.
“As teachers of drawing we must hold to our ideals of beauty. “Make everything
beautiful”, must be our motto. And we must hold to this with an ever tighter grip
these days when the clamor for “Industrial Education” is increasing. (Bailey, T.
1910 p. 32)
The reason of teaching the working men the beauties and the principles of art were
was to create genuine artistic designs with western style instead of imitating the European
designs.
“Unless our Industrial Education opens the minds of working men to the beauties of
the world, to the glories of artistic achievement, to the eternal principles of art, we
shall continue to steal our designs from Germany and France, and all our industrial
training will go to the making of clever parrots and monkeys. (Bailey, T., 1910 p. 33)
In 1930s, art education was influenced with solving problems of living related to the
individual replaced realizing appreciation of beauty in art as the purpose of art education.
3
Art education was to help individuals understand their lives and communicate with others
through cooperative activities. Hopkins and Burnett (1936) indicated that the purposes of
art education:
“Is to aid the individual to improve his daily living by helping him to discover in it
more and varied insights, deeper feeling, and broader understandings. This means
beginning with the individual where he is in his thinking, desiring, and appreciating,
and working with him in the realization of his purposes.” (Hopkins and Burnett,
1936)
Another purpose of art education serves the field of social attitudes and abilities of
the individual.
“An individual who has little communication with other individuals lives a poor
life…. But with increased contacts comes the necessity to learn how to work
together, to cooperate toward common ends.” (Hopkins & Burnett, 1936 pp. 13-14).
Art teaching was affected by the child psychology studies in the late 19th and
beginning of 20th centuries. A contributor to the child study was James Sully who
classified children’s art into different stages according to the child age and drawing
characteristics by studying drawings of children in different ages. Earl Barnes in two
volumes of articles analyzed the child’s mind and thinking by studying his drawing. His
articles included studies of the pictorial evaluation of a man, children’s attitudes toward
problems of perspectives analysis of the illustration of stories made by children, and
evidences of the quality difference of the children’s thinking driven from drawings. In
addition, Barnes in his studies analyzed the child’s mind based on his drawing. Results
of Barnes’s studies described children’s drawings and indicated that children preferred
symbol drawing rather than representing objects as they appear. Child drawing studies
indicated that children’s drawing abilities depends on a process of lawful development, p.
4
162, which initiated calls for investigating the traditional art teaching methods and new
methods of teaching art soon appeared (Efland, 1990 p. 161).
As a result of these studies, more attention to learners’ interests and needs as well as
connecting art activities to the learner’s daily life characterized art teaching in the 1930s.
According to Gearhart (1938), art education
“Develops the child’s use and awareness of art in his daily life…. The emphasis on
art is on its contribution to the child’s well-balanced outlet in work as well as in play.
Opportunity is offered for varied experienced based on child’s interests and needs.”
Art education in school became a subject consisted of units of instructions with
lessons that relate to other educational subjects in the school curriculum such as history,
geography, science, languages, mathematics, industrial arts, social studies, and music.
Leon Winslow’s in his book “The Integrated School Art Program” (1939) advocated
integrating art in the curriculum to serve a broadly cultural education along with the
humanities and natural science in elementary and secondary school programs. Due to the
nature of art and its functional importance in social, economic life, and broadening
cultural values, Winslow insisted on integrating art as a general rather than a special
subject in the school program. For art instruction, he recommended that art subject
consists of unit instructions and each unit consists of correlated lessons that serve the unit
subject. The unit should include general information derived from the subjects of the
curriculum, such as history, geography, science, and music, and technical information
derived from the subject matter or what we call today art elements, such as line, mass,
and color, as well as structural principle of design with construction, rhythm, harmony,
and balance, (Winslow, 1939 pp. 30, 32, 36, 41).
5
After the World War II art education emphasized the child’s development and
individuality as central issues as a result of theorists’ educational thoughts such as Victor
Lowenfeld who advocated the free expression as a vital way for the child’s healthy
growth and development. He also believed that developing the child’s creativity and
giving him the opportunity to apply his experience in the art to life situations is the main
goal for art education rather than rather than the art itself and the product’s aesthetic,
(Michael, 1982).
In his book “Creative and Mental Growth” Lowenfeld provided successfully
descriptions for the child developmental basis helping in understanding the child’s art.
He clearly described theses stages and provided examples of children’s drawings and
paintings. In addition, he suggested appropriate art activities for every developmental
stage. In addition, he provided different educational purposes, such as child
development, individual development, aspects of growth, and developmental stages,
which should be taken in consideration when designing classroom and school exhibits,
(Lowenfeld, 1947, p 75).
Teaching art during the war had social purposes of strengthening the community and
personal living to defend democracy and the western culture believing that the war was
both military as well as cultural war referring to fascism. Some art styles, such as
escapism, were excluded from teaching art and artistic self-expression was the way for
social force and artists’ free speech. Articles in the Art Education Today were suggesting
school art activities to promote the war effort. After the war, art education aimed to
promote peace and social harmony. Herbert Read established the peace movement which
6
discussed in it first meeting the international understanding through art (Efland 1991 pp.
230-233).
The launching of the first Soviet artificial satellites Sputnik in 1957 had the
Americans to evaluate the quality of their education. As a result, major educational
reforms, especially in science and mathematics, occurred. The old art curriculum that
depended on self-expression and social reconstruction was eliminated and educators had
to defend the art subject by explaining its importance among the other educational
subjects. Lowenfeld argued that art is important because it promote and develop the
creative problem-solving skills faster than the other subjects do. Since creativity is same
in all areas, Lowenfeld believed that when it is developed by art activities it could be
transferred to other subject areas, (Lowenfeld 1958).
Discipline Oriented Art Education
According to Efland (1991), discipline the definition of discipline derived from
the sciences and means having an organized body of knowledge, specific methods of
inquiry, and a community of scholars who generally agree on the fundamental ideas of
their field. In his book The Process of Education (1960), Jerome Bruner indicated that
the key for successful educational reform occurs in the structure of the disciplines. He
saw the problem with the curriculum at his time is being cluttered with subjects, facts,
and techniques organized for instruction. He believed that disciplines should be
represented in some intellectually honest form that fits with the students at all
development levels and enables them to apply their learning to new problems (Bruner
The Process of Education (1960) from Efland p.238). Burner in his philosophy imposed
7
a curriculum development originally developed for science disciplines upon other
subjects such as social studies and art assuming that their structures are similar to those of
sciences (Efland, p.243).
Burner’s philosophy was introduced to art education in 1962 in the Arts and
Humanities Program that funded 17 conferences on arts to form a discipline oriented art
education curriculum. There was an agreement that art is a discipline that has its own
structure and goals that should be to help engage in disciplined inquiry in art. After these
conferences, there was a movement to create a discipline oriented art education resulted
series of curriculum development projects were formed to create a discipline oriented art
curriculum. As a result of the movement, the focus in art education shifted from the selfexpression to a focus on the discipline and what should be taught (Efland, 1991 pp.241243).
By the mid 1970s, Burner theory of discipline oriented education was questioned.
Burner’s structure of knowledge excluded aspects of feeling and assumed that
understanding could be accomplished by conceptual organization of instructional
materials. For Bruner, a mastery technique such as the hypothetico-deductive process of
scientific reasoning as an inquiry within the mathematic discipline that it depends on;
however, mathematicians reported that they do not use this technique to curry their
inquiry rather their thinking is closely similar to the imaginative activity of artists.
Richard Jones (1968) indicated that Burner’s hypothesis had missed the fifth and sixth
grade students certain forms of understandings that pertain to similarities between
Eskimo social structure and the Americans, especially when the students had strong
8
feelings after they watched a film about Eskimo life. The students needed to deal with
their feeling to understand what they were learning, (Efland, 1991 p. 243).
Accountability Movement
In the 1970s it was disagreement on the discipline-oriented approach due to the
poor result of students’ scores, particularly in mathematics, in schools that applied this
approach. Therefore, there were calls for greater accountability and evaluation in
educational programs. The focus in the school programs shifted from the content to
identifying the effective evaluation and measurement instruments and from inquiry and
discovery to mastery and facts (Popkewitz, P. & Barry, A. 1986).
Evaluating the school programs depended on the behavioral objectives, which
became common for all subjects including art. In 1969, there was a project funded by the
Education Commission of the States to investigate the educational problems and
activities and to identify the objectives that should be achieved for ten subjects including
art. The project identified five objectives expecting the students have the ability to: 1)
perceive and respond to aspects of art, 2) value art as an important realm of human
experience, 3) produce works of art, 4) know about art, 5) make and justify judgments
about aesthetic merit and quality of works of art. These objectives were divided to
smaller units and assessment forms were developed to assess the level of meeting these
objectives (Efland p. 250). D. Jack Davis (1969) in his book Behavioral Emphasis in Art
Education, indicated that it is difficult for art teachers to provide clear evidence of their
instructional programs’ quality due to the nature of the art education that differs from
other subjects that could easily be majored by students scores. In this book, Davis tried
9
to help art teachers evaluating and planning their lessons by providing sample objectives
could be used for teaching art and by identifying and classifying the various behaviors
that occurs in art learning (Efland p. 249).
Discipline Based Art Education
In the 1980s there were calls fro curriculum development and evaluation. One of
which was the widely spread report “A Nation at Risk” in 1983 that warned that the
American public schools do poorly and that the American students are falling behind
comparing to students of other countries. In 1984 the Getty Center for Education in the
Arts, now called the Getty Education Institute for the Arts, sponsored a comprehensive
approach called Discipline Based Art Education (DBAE) derived from four art
disciplines, art production, art history, art criticism, and aesthetic (Dobbs p.16).
DBAE aimed to acquire students with a comprehensive understanding of art
beyond the making of art and utilitarian purposes that characterized the teaching of art.
According to Dobbs (1998), “comprehensive approach to art education is markedly
different from the approach taken in most U.S. schools fro most of the twentieth century.
He added, since its appearance art in school curriculum “followed the predictable path of
utilitarian necessity” and he give examples “in the nineteenth century the evolution of the
American work ethic placed a premium on drawing skills, weather for the purpose of
acquiring job skills to work in a factory, to sketch portraits, or simply to encourage good
penmanship and “hand-eye coordination.” (Dobbs p.17)
DBAE has its root from the 1960s when Jerome Bruner called for a major
curriculum reform that shift focus of education from teaching facts to understanding and
10
problem solving. As indicated earlier, Burner philosophy was introduced to art education
by Barkan who indicated that the art curriculum should help students to have art
experiences related to art criticism, and art history by exposing the students to a wide
range of art activities. He claimed that these experiences and knowledge are vital for
students’ creation and understanding of art. Barkan’s ideas were discussed in a
conference held at Pennsylvania State University indicating that schools should provide
students with a wide range of art activities (Dobbs p. 19).
The term discipline-based art education first appearance was in 1984 in an article
by Dwain Greer and start to spread to be applied in many educational districts, but the
ideas and philosophies that formed it existed in the field and were actively discussed in
the literature throughout the last quarter of the 20th century (Dobbs p.18). In 1966 Ralph
smith called for a synthesis of discipline and child-center conception of art education
writing about aesthetic, art history, artistic creation, and art criticism, and finally
establishing the Journal of Aesthetic Education encouraging a comprehensive view of
arts education. In the same time, researches and articles were investigating and
discussing the students perception, talk about art, responses to artworks, and other
subjects about the consequences of curriculum (Dobbs p. 19).
In the early1980s, there was a trend to reform the old state curriculum frameworks
encouraging comprehensive approaches. The South Regional Laboratory (SWRL) in Los
Angeles developed an art program for the elementary grades that including content and
visual resources focusing on art production, art history, and art criticism. The trends of
comprehensive art approach was adopted by the National Art Education Association’s
“Quality Goals Statement” that required a comprehensive modification in conceptions of
11
art education goals, learners, teacher training, instructional resources, and other aspects of
art curriculum. Then, books and articles were published in response to the need for the
comprehensive art education. In addition, textbooks and verity of instructional resources
and material designed according to the elements of the approach started to appear in the
market for the use of schools and art teachers. Although these commercial products
supported the comprehensive art approach, it was not enough for the needs of art
specialists and general classroom teachers. Finally, the processional effort to develop a
comprehensive art approach was provided by the Getty Education Institute for the Arts
outlining its view in a publication titled “Beyond Creating: the Place for Art in America’s
Schools” in 1984 reinforcing the concept of discipline-oriented art curriculum appeared
in 1960s later developed by Gilbert Clark, Michael Day, and Dwaine Greer to discipline
based art education providing a comprehensive art approach derived from four disciplines
art-making, art history, art criticism, and aesthetic (Dobbs, 1992 p. 21-22).
Discipline based art education is not a curriculum rather it is a comprehensive
approach. According to Elliot Eisner “because DBAE is not a curriculum, conceptual
clarity about its aims, components, and their meaning is particularly important.” (a quote
from Dobbs p. x). Dobbs (1998 p. 6) indicated that DBAE “is not a curriculum in the
sense of being a stipulated series of learning arranged in a prescribed manner. Rather, it
is a conceptual framework or set of principles and an approach to teaching and learning
in art based upon disciplines that contribute to the making and understanding of art.”
The content of DBAE consists of four foundational disciplines or areas. The
discipline as defined by Dobbs (1992 p. 9) is a field of study that has a recognized body
of knowledge or content, a community of scholars who study the discipline, and a set of
12
characteristic procedures and ways of working that facilitate exploration and inquiry.
The four disciplines that create the DBAE are art making, art history, art criticism, and
aesthetic aiming to acquire students with comprehensive knowledge, skills, and
understanding of art to be able to make art, evaluate and interpret art, know and
understand the role of art in the society, and understand the quality of art and how people
make judgments about it by making discussion and talk about art (Dobbs 1992 p. 9).
The Four Discipline Foundation of DBAE
Art making:
Art making is using tools and techniques in skillful and imaginative way to
respond ideas feelings and observations to create artistic objects (Dobbs 1998 p.27). By
making art, students can explore and experience many aspects including:
o Applying a wide range of art materials, tools, equipment, and techniques and
becoming familiar with them
o Learning about tradition of craftsmanship developing respect and utilitarian ways
of materials
o Learning attitudes and feelings of artists toward their work
o Acquiring the personal qualities and skills required for successful artistry, such as
persistence, patience, and self-criticism
o Learning artistic techniques and solutions to express ideas and feelings in visual
form
o Understanding the motivations and attitudes of artists by learning their lives and
appreciating their contribution to the society
13
o Appreciating the cultural histories forms from which the artists draw ideas and
inspiration to create their works (Dobbs 1992 p. 71-72)
Art criticism:
Art criticism means describing, analyzing, interpretation, and evaluation of works
of art for the purpose of understanding and appreciating of art. Art criticism seeks
answers for the works of art’s perception and description, what they mean through
analysis and interpretation, and finally, what their worth and value through judgment.
Through art criticism, students involve in a process of comparing and contrasting works
to one another considering the social and cultural contexts in which the works were
produced (Dobbs, 1992 p.72).
Art history:
Art history teaches students about the art objects’ historical, social, and cultural
contexts. Art history helps students to understand the historical order of the art
movements and stylistic traditions. By studying art works history, students develop a
sense of Western, Eastern and other non Western civilizations (Dobbs, 1998 p.38-39).
Aesthetic:
There is confusion between and art criticism. Aesthetic is a scanning that focuses
on the visual appearance of works of art. Aesthetic, therefore, could be a tool that
initiates the process of art criticism. It helps students learn and evaluate the basis upon
14
which to make judgments about art. Aesthetic seeks answers for the definition of art,
beauty, how to support or justify judgments about art (Dobbs, 1992 p.75-76).
Aesthetic scanning is a method developed by Harry Broudy and Dwaine Greer
aimed to help the learner to visually see what is in works of art in four properties. First,
are the sensory properties that help learners identify the visual elements of the works of
art including lines, shapes, values, textures, colors, and spaces. Second, are the formal
properties that describes how the work of art elements are organized, who they work
together to shape the whole work and express ideas, the repetition and emphasis of
elements to give that characterize the work, and how the element are distributed in the
work. Third, are the technical properties that identify the tools, equipment, and art
techniques the artist used to make the work. Fourth, are expressive properties that
discuss the expressive characteristics of the work and how it sounds. Students learn that
the elements of the work of art give verity of feelings. For example, wavy lines and blue
color gives a feeling of relaxation (Broudy & Greer from Dobbs 1992 p. 79).
Through exploring these disciplines, students study in a coherent and
consequential way and know and understand art from different sources. Dobbs indicated
that it is acceptable to consider art production as creative experience, art history as
cultural heritage, art criticism as perception and response, and aesthetic as talk about art
(Dobbs 1992 p. 22).
The National Arts Education Association considered the components of DBAE
important curriculum content in visual arts. The National Standards for Arts Education
development by the Consortium of National Arts Education Associations, published in
15
1994, established content and achievement expectations for K-12 students considering
aesthetic, history, creation, and performance as basic curriculum content in visual arts
(Dreeszen, Craig, & Comp, 2001).
DBAE Evaluation
According to Wilson, between 1988 and 1994 evaluators visited more than one
hundred elementary schools that implanted DBAE. He indicated that it was obvious that
art programs that used DBAE were successful.
“The evaluators could tell within a few minutes of their arrival whether or not they
were at a “DBAE elementary school”.” (Wilson, B., 1997, p. 140)
The walls of the DBAE elementary schools and classrooms showed many
students works of art that showed the influence of artist works. In the art classroom,
students study and discuss ideas, subjects, styles and quality of works of art. The
students’ exhibited arts were accompanied with students’ critical and historical writing
about artists’ work and their works showing the relationship and connection between
their works and the artists’.
Schools that applied DBAE showed improvement in their art programs and art
teachers became active members involving in school planning. According to Wilson
(1997),
“Evaluators found that schools that once had weak visual arts programs have since
developed strong ones. In other schools, visual arts programs have moved from their
customary place at the margins of the school curriculum to its core. Art teachers
who were accustomed to working by themselves are now working as key members
of school planning teams intent on broadening school instruction programs. And
principals are using DBAE initiatives to organize entire elementary school
curriculum.” (Wilson, 1997)
16
Wilson also indicated that art teachers worked cooperatively and communicated
with people from other fields such as museum educators, artists, art critics and professors,
which reflect the quality of education they provide to their students. Wilson indicated
that the art teacher working with other fields’ members
“Together they have planned programs that have symbolically removed classroom
walls, virtually bringing the art world into classrooms. At the same time students
have gone into the art world to receive an authentic education in the arts.” (Quiet p.
11)
Arkansas Fine Arts Standard
The Arkansas fine arts standard is designed to guide the art curriculum in grades
K-12. It provides expectation of the students’ learning in every grade level regarding
what to know and do in visual art during the school year. The standard has a content of,
inquiring, exploring, discovering, creating, reflecting, responding, and rediscovering
representing a process for art making and responding to art. The art standard for K-4
grade expect students to inquire, explore, discover historical, cultural, social,
environmental, and personal references from which to develop ideas and concepts.
Effective Art Teacher
The role of teacher in the class is very important because the quality teaching
depend greatly on the good teacher. According to Gaudelius & Speirs (2002, p. 22), due
to the importance of teacher’s role in classrooms, teachers education is continuously
17
improved to meet students’ social and scientific needs as well as the discipline and the
society.
Due to the important role of the teachers and their teaching characteristics in
education, there have been efforts define what teachers should do and characteristics they
should acquire to promote the teaching profession and improve learning. The National
Board for Professional Teaching Standards Students was established to improve teaching
profession and learning. This board’s efforts to identify effective teachers resulted five
main hypotheses including: (a) teachers have good knowledge about their subjects and
how to transfer this knowledge to the students; (b) teachers are fully engaged in teaching
and caring of the students and their learning; (c) teachers manage and monitor students
learning; (d) teachers learn from their teaching experiences; and (e) teachers are active
members in the learning community.
The researches and textbooks defined the effective teachers as the ones who are
adequately knowledgeable about the subject they teach, plan and sequence their lessons
presenting them to students with full explanation and examples, and active in the class
responding to the students’ questions and giving immediate feedback.
The effective teachers, according to Cotton (1995), are those who pre-plan their
lessons, efficiently use the instructional time, and have students know what learning is
expected and what learning activities they need to do in order to achieve it. In addition,
effective teachers give great attention to feedback, check students’ understanding of what
been learned and review if needed, promote critical and creative thinking, and watch
students progress. Finally, Cotton indicated the use of reinforcement and stimulation
18
through rewards and recognition to promote students’ learning and good behavior.
(Cotton p. 5)
In addition, effective teachers are those who encourage students’ active
participation, skillfully use questions and wait for the students’ answers, provide
assignment that support students’ understanding of what is being learned (Finn, 1993;
Good & Brophy, 1994; Redfield & Rousseau, 1981; Rosenshine & Stevens, 1986; Tobin,
1987). (p. 4)
According to the National Art Education Association, art teachers must
understand and be skilled in, pedagogy, curriculum alignment, assessment, collaborative
teaching, working with community resources, and the reflective practice embedded in
action research (Dreeszen, Craig, & Comp, 2001). (P. 8)
19
Reference
Bailey, H. T., (1910). The flush of the dawn: Notes on art education. New York:
Davis Press.
Dobbs, S. (1991). The DBAE handbook: an overview of discipline-based art
education. Santa Monica, CA: Getty Center for Education in the Arts.
Dobbs, S. (1998). Learning in and through art. LA: The Getty Education Institute for
the Arts.
Efland, A. (1990). A history of art education: intellectual and social currents in
teaching the visual arts. New York: Teachers College Press.
Lowenfeld, V., (1947). Creative and mental growth. New York: Macmillan.
Michael, A., (1982). The Lowenfeld lectures. University Park: Pennsylvania.
Popkewitz, P., Pitman, A., & Barry, A., (1986). Educational reform and its millennial
quality: The 1980s. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 18(3), 267-283.
Wilson, B. (1997). The quiet evolution: changing the face of arts education. LA: The
Getty Education Institute for the Arts.
Winslow, L. (1939). The integrated school art program. New York, London,
McGraw-Hill book company, Inc.
20