The Arts in Education as Police Technologies

Abstract

The paper aims to provide a platform for thinking about the presence of the arts in education at the present as a practice of governing. Through an analysis of the incorporation of the arts in the school curriculum we can see how this was a subject able to promote a political subjectivation of each child as citizen of the future. I focus on the arts in education as police technologies in the government of the child's soul. Police technologies give attention to the ways in which the child is fabricated as a moral, autonomous citizen.

Creativity as a Racializing and Ableizing Scientific Object: Disentangling the Democratic Impulse From Justice-Oriented Futures

“…J. Cropley, 1990; Harris, 2014). In short, where and how creative development has been engaged with concerns for the social and political integration of people, it has also assumed hierarchies of human difference based on claims about their peripheral status (Martins, 2013).…”

“…For instance, where the arts are typically considered an acceptable means of deviating from the status quo, arts education has become part of a “disciplinary device to inculcate obedience” (Martins, 2013, p. 70). Historically, obedience and spontaneity have involved learning to engage “properly” in school-based arts with topics overrepresented by “classical” and European art forms (Martins, 2013), a situation paralleled in creativity studies by emphasis on the biographies of eminent figures (represented as predominantly White men; cf. Clapp, 2016; Gardner, 1988).…”

“…What is notably absent is an account of the connection between public education and systems of mass incarceration that continue to disproportionately impact marginalized communities (e.g., Skiba et al, 2014). This is particularly a concern when art in formal learning environments “emerged in relation to the issue of the deviant child, the immigrant or the children of the poor” (Martins, 2013, p. 71) and therapeutic efforts to prevent mental illness through schooling have been disproportionately directed toward those assigned peripheral status (see also Ziols & Kirchgasler, 2021).…”

“…However, the premises undergirding empowerment and liberation hopes also warrant scrutiny. For example, expanding and improving access to creativity-related educational spaces are commonly presented as interventions, adjustments, or programming that target the (often urbanized and racialized) child as needing additional intervention, guidance, surveillance, and expertise (see also, Martins, 2013; cf. Clapp, 2016; Kaufman, 2017).…”

Historizando al niño ahistórico del currículum portugués de educación artística en la enseñanza primaria. La educación artística en la escuela como forma de gobierno del alma del niño

“…En la sección tercera observaré cómo, dentro del currículum de las artes, esta libertad como autoexpresión y los enfoques motivadores para aprender y enseñar las artes forman parte del gobierno del niño que activa técnicas confesionales, en las que las artes se convierten en una tecnología de la vigilancia de sí mismo (Martins, 2014). Por tanto, una mirada a los currículos desde este enfoque teórico nos permite problematizar el niño ahistórico del currículum de educación artística como un proyecto más amplio que busca el gobierno del niño.…”