Research in Art & Design Education

Book excerpt: Although educators are increasingly interested in art education research, there are few anthologies tackling the subject. Research in Art and Design Education answers this call, summarizing important issues in the field such as non-text based approaches and interdisciplinary work. Contributions from internationally renowned researchers explore a broad range of topics in art education, highlighting particular problems and strengths in the literature. An indispensable and engaging resource, this volume provides a long-awaited aid for students and teachers alike. "Research in Art & Design Education confirms Picasso's claim that artists do not seek, but find; thus capturing the real meaning of art's doing and how in doing art, we learn. From their respective positions, this book's contributors converge in making a strong case for art and design research as a horizon of specificities; as a wide and ever-expanding ground of autonomous plurality; and as a discipline that is neither restricted to the empire of fact and measure, nor to generalist platitudes. Under Richard Hickman's careful editorship, this book boldly makes the case that research in art and design education is not a subject-in-waiting and less so an affair restricted to arcane practices. Rather, it is a discipline invested in the exciting prospects of art's humanity and the design by which humans work together for a better world."--John Baldacchino, Columbia University