School art 2024: Compliant conciliation or a quiet revolution?

Grant, Will; Wild, Carol

Abstract

In 2004 Downing and Watson published School Art: what’s in it? on the content of the taught curriculum in English secondary art and design education. They reported that, despite negligible prescribed content in the National Curriculum for Art and Design (1999) it was possible to discern, in many art departments, a tendency towards narrow historical canon, a disproportionate emphasis on the ‘formal elements’, and a focus on skills over content.

In the two decades since, much has changed politically, economically, and culturally; English society is arguably more liberal than twenty years ago, but simultaneously riven by the rhetoric of divisive culture wars.

Repeating Downing and Watson’s research, we want to find out how twenty years of social change, and associated educational policy and practice positioning, have impacted the taught content of the art and design curriculum. Do the curriculum choices of art and design teachers reflect a compliant conciliation with contemporary political agenda, or do they represent a quiet revolution that provides foundation for transformative art and design in schools?

The answer to this is complex. In this paper we will share some of our preliminary findings.

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Paper (unpublished)
• Conference Name: iJADE 2024: Peace
• Start Date: Nov 7, 2024
• End Date: Nov 9, 2024
• Deposit Date: Nov 12, 2024
• Publicly Available Date: Nov 12, 2024
• Print ISSN: 1476-8062
• Electronic ISSN: 1476-8070
• Publisher: Wiley
• Peer Reviewed: Not Peer Reviewed
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/13417367