Engaged Curriculum in Art Education: A Case Study Addressing Border Monuments

Abstract

This research engages with public issues converging at border monuments. I view border monuments as a public curriculum, which prompts me to explore notions of curriculum work and engagement in art education, particularly socially engaged art education. This leads to my inquiry about (1) what engaged educational experiences reveal about curriculum; (2) how engaged arts can operate as curriculum work; and (3) how participant responses inform the design of socially engaged art education curriculum. The research is applicable in art classrooms and museums, as well as cultural work, public art management, and public policy. The research was conducted with an elementary after-school program, two undergraduate art education classes, and a visitor study at a monument site. All of these sites are in a city of the American Southwest in close proximity to the U.S.-Mexico border. I use narrative inquiry in the research for its descriptive power and its ways of exploring experiences tied to actions, empowerment, and meaning making while respecting participants' voices. Three sets of findings stand out: One is about art curriculum theory and relates to issues of appropriateness, the curriculum of borderity, and seeing curriculum as an initiation. Another is about educational engagement and shows how participant responses involve integration of subjectivities and ricochets to related topics. Directionality of engagement is also shown to be an important factor. The third set of findings is about socially engaged art education, how it can benefit from theories on engaged curriculum and a curriculum for solidarity, strategies like exhibition and kinds of preparation, and the establishment of engagement policies.