Reforming the School Curriculum and Assessment in England to Match the Best in the World – A Cautionary Tale

Steers, John

doi:10.1111/j.1476-8070.2014.12038.x

Cited by 22 publications

(18 citation statements)

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“…Art and design appears then to be subject to the 'illusory standards of the psychosocial imaginary' described by Shildrick via the definition and prioritisation of core curriculum subjects which define art and design education as excessive to the economic demands of education policy. This emphasis on economic drivers for education policy was reinforced when a central defence of the arts drew on the economic argument for art and design to retain a central place in the curriculum (Steers, 2014). Here art and design education was deemed to be most 'able', when aligned with normative arguments 15 for economic productivity through the growth of creative industries.…”

Section: Support and Aspiration: Producing The Excessive And Excludedmentioning

confidence: 99%

Special educational needs and art and design education: plural perspectives on exclusion

Penketh

2015

Journal of Education Policy

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Education policy proposals by the UK Coalition government appeared to be based on a process of consultation, participation and representation. However, policy formation seems to prioritise and confirm particular ways of knowing and being in the world. This paper recognises the ontological and epistemological invalidation at work in education policy by examining the shared context for policy formation in Special Educational Needs (SEN/D) and art and design education. There is value in recognising plurality, acknowledging the ways in which apparently singular policies relating to special education are understood through subject or disciplinary perspectives. The neoliberal aim to foster an economically productive 'subject' is evident in policy formation relating to art and design education as well as SEN/D.Both subjects, the disabled child and art and design education, are defined as excessive and are excluded where they do not conform to particular notions of productivity. The paper explores theoretical frameworks that are essential for recognising meaning in education when subjects cannot be put to work. The paper makes use of theoretical frameworks from disability studies in order to examine the ways in which the disabled child and art and design education are 'excessive' and therefore excluded if they do not conform to 'typical' notions of the productive subject. The paper begins by outlining recent theoretical frameworks emerging from the field of

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Section: Support and Aspiration: Producing The Excessive And Excludedmentioning

confidence: 99%

Special educational needs and art and design education: plural perspectives on exclusion

Penketh

2015

Journal of Education Policy

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“…We used to debate issues of diversity in the art and design curriculum (for example, Downing & Watson ) but the Survey Report findings transfer our attention to the fundamental issue of curriculum access. Those who have voiced concern (for example, Adams , ; Butterworth ; Steers ) are fully vindicated by this research evidence.…”

Section: Challenging Institutional Inequalitiesmentioning

confidence: 88%

“…The DfE (, 5) indicates a credible justification for curriculum choice relates to the removal of ‘unnecessary red tape’ by increasing leadership autonomy in academies and free schools. Steers (, 7) reiterates the assertion that the DfE agenda, in privileging schools directly accountable to the government, is releasing education professionals from the confines of responding to ‘top‐down initiatives’. This is presented as an incentive to encourage more schools to convert to academy status (Cameron ).…”

Section: The (Not So) National Curriculummentioning

confidence: 99%

The NSEAD Survey Report 2015–16: Political Reflections from Two Art and Design Educators

Payne¹,

Hall²

2017

Int J Art Design Ed

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In 2015 the (UK) National Society for Education in Art and Design (NSEAD) conducted their biggest and most comprehensive survey to date with art and design educators. Some 1,191 teachers and lecturers employed in early years to further education settings across England and Wales responded to the survey, which aimed to capture how government policy since 2010 has affected art and design education. Four key areas were examined: curriculum provision; value given to the subject within the school community; professional development opportunities; and well‐being and workload. The results are troubling, indicating a systemic marginalisation of art and design across all sectors, evident in a reduction in choice, provision and curriculum time, and evidence of falling standards in student attainment at primary to secondary transfer. We supported the NSEAD with constructing the survey and writing the report and in this article we utilise the Survey Report to fuel a broader discussion about our concerns regarding the demise of art and design education. Value is identified as an essential theme and we posit that our subject, largely due to neoliberalist policy, is currently perceived as a ‘bimbo’: attractive, but unintelligent and frivolous. In this article we pay particular attention to the value of art and design education from a political perspective, challenging narrow government agendas.

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“…Beauty is a marginalised theme in art and education and widely regarded as a problematic notion in a range of cultural contexts (Beech 2009;Hickey 2009;Winston 2010). Art educators seeking to raise children's levels of engagement with art tend to be resistant to the concept of beauty, associating it with the passive appreciation of art rather than active engagement with the subject (Steers 2014). Previous studies of children's aesthetic preferences have been based on an assumption that aesthetic development involved a gradual progression towards an appreciation of art that foregrounded expressive qualities and marginalised aesthetic appeal (Parsons 1987).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Children’s images of beauty: environmental influences on aesthetic preferences

Watts

2018

Education 3-13

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This article reports on a recent study that explored children's aesthetic preferences. Authors of previous studies in this area have concluded children have a relatively narrow range of preferences based on judgments about their responses to images. In other contexts, researchers have investigated children's perspectives on their environments and created opportunities for them to take photographs in response to research tasks. This study is the first to draw on both approaches in order to develop a clearer understanding of children's aesthetic preferences. 51 children in two primary schools were asked to find and photograph images to represent their perceptions of beauty. In order to investigate whether or how children's environments influenced their preferences, the schools were located in contrasting urban and rural areas. The article explores several contrasts between the two sets of images and offers explanations for these contrasts. It suggests that previous studies may have underestimated the diversity of children's aesthetic preferences and that social, cultural and environmental factors may explain the differences between children's aesthetic preferences. The article concludes that both researchers and teachers could adopt similar methods to develop our understanding of children's perspectives, identities and experiences.

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Reforming the School Curriculum and Assessment in England to Match the Best in the World – A Cautionary Tale

Cited by 22 publications

References 1 publication

Special educational needs and art and design education: plural perspectives on exclusion

Special educational needs and art and design education: plural perspectives on exclusion

The NSEAD Survey Report 2015–16: Political Reflections from Two Art and Design Educators

Children’s images of beauty: environmental influences on aesthetic preferences

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