Abstracts

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Samuel Adu-Poku, Youngstown, OH
Community-based African-centred Multicultural Art Curriculum and Pedagogy

This presentation is based on recent research that describes the development, implementation, and outcomes of a community-based African-centred multicultural art model as an alternative curriculum and pedagogy. The study was situated within Africentric theory, critical ethnography, critical pedagogy, as well as a wider socio-political analysis of Black/African-Canadian experiences that reveals systemic exclusion of their perspectives from art education and mainstream curricula. Three central questions are raised to investigate: participants' perceptions of existing art curricula and school practices in Vancouver, Canada; the collaborative African-centred art curriculum process; and the impact of the art curriculum on Black students in a community setting and their counterparts from a multi-ethnic public middle school in Vancouver. Results indicate that culturally relevant inclusive art curricula could engender expanded knowledge, critical thinking, cross-cultural literacy, self-confidence, positive cultural awareness, attitudinal change and healthy inter-personal relations among all students.

Elizabeth Ament, Madison, WI
Art, Cognitive Studies, and Meaning-Making

In the recently developed interdisciplinary field of cognitive studies, a major area of interest is the study of brain functioning activated when a person is engaged in artistic experiences that result in the creation of meaning. The focus of this presentation is to consider the theories of V. Ramachandran and Semir Zeki. These cognitive theorists each examine the intersection of experiences in the arts, brain function, and the creation of meaning. Their views offer intriguing perspectives for arts education as we consider the role of art in integrating the many activities involved in meaning-making, including perception, emotion, and developing our mental models of the world. Questions considered include: "Is artistic activity a basic human function in all cultures? Which components of artistic practice do these theorists believe can be learned and which are innate? What is neuro-aesthetics and what does this concept suggest for art education?"