A Cross-Site Analysis of Strategies Used by Three Middle School Art Teachers to Foster Student Learning

This cross-site, collaborative study focused on the instructional practices of three middle school art teachers from Arizona, Indiana, and New York. The researchers found similarities as well as differences among the teachers' strategies. At all three sites, emphasis was on curriculum related to their students' lives, developing technical skills, visual perception, aesthetic judgment, and personal expression, and on evolving understandings about art heritages, self-identity, diversity, and multicultural concerns, but curricular forms differed. All three teachers used state standards in curricular planning and conducted in-process and final group assessments. Findings support the idea that social class context may have a greater influence than geographical location on the type and magnitude of art curricula developed in middle schools.