Cross-Provincial Policies in Canadian Art Education

Abstract

The concern of this study is educational policy, more specifically the construction of policy for instruction in the visual arts in the various provinces of Canada. Recent literature has emphasized the role of policy and decision making in the arts. MacGregor (1985) recognizes that 1I •••educational decision making policies dominate and control curriculum considerations, rather than the other way around.1I The intention underlying the discussion is to isolate those certain common objectives which are manifested in the various educational policies governing art education in Canada. It will be suggested that these common elements reveal an existing consensus among Canadian art educatorsa consensus upon which a national policy for education in the visual arts might readi Iy be constructed.Constitutionally, jurisdiction over education in Canada is assigned exclusively to the ten individual provinces. The Department of Education for each province mandates the production of curriculum materials, selects committee members and develops the basic philosophies of curriculum program ming. The provincial governments appoint directors of curriculum who in turn assign members of their staffs to the task of administering one or more subject areas. What occurs with some regularity in these educational bureaucracies is that promotion of the arts is attenuated relative to those areas of study which are viewed as the 'core subjects'. A second result of this constitutional arrange ment has been the almost total lack of communication and idea sharing in the arts at a national level.In preparing for this study three factors are taken to be given: firstly, that with ten educational bureaucracies at work in similar institutional and cultural environments, there will inevitably be a measure of commonality; secondly, that a cross-fertilization induced by a sharing of ideas nationally would serve to enhance the art education policies of each of the provinces; and, thirdly, that the creation of a national policy would offer each of the provincial educa tional authorities a degree of consensus that will enhance policy and decision making.IICanadian art teachers manage to maintain several productive coaxial connections that provide a steady flow of art education ideas and images. These connections run north and south, east and west, and span the Atlantic and Pacific oceans (Gray, 1984).11 Ideas, attitudes toward educational practices, and the various language and cultural groups across the nation are among the factors which affect the development of curriculum and will form the character of a national policy for the arts. MacGregor (1984) commented in an article on Canadian art educators that "What emerges when we compare notes, trans provincially is that given their random origins and piecemeal development, provincial and even local differences do not seem as pronounced in terms of content as they are in terms of teacher availability, the kinds of facilities that