An Uneasy Guest in the Schoolhouse

An Uneasy Guest in the Schoolhouse recounts how art education has been conceptualized, taught, and advocated for in the United States in the face of its persistent marginalization in the education system. Tracing various rationales offered from the 19th century onward, Winner argues that art education has failed to be justified as a good in and of itself--and this failure has affected both the status of visual art education in our schools and the quality of its teaching. Winner's comprehensive book maps recurrent pendulum swings between "traditional" and "progressive" approaches to art education in the United States, supplemented by her firsthand experiences observing art teaching in schools in China and Italy. Despite this problematic and uncertain past, 21st century art education in the United States and abroad has exploded with a wealth of new ideas aligned with the progressivism of the early 20th century and informed by the practices of contemporary art. As Winner details, an understanding of the history of art education, along with a focus on current challenges and opportunities, is essential for arts researchers, educators, and advocates, as well as anyone in the general public who cares about quality education in the 21st century.

Ellen Winner is Professor Emerita of Psychology at Boston College, where she taught from 1978 until 2020, served three terms as chair of her department, and directed the Arts & Mind Lab. She is a long-time member of Project Zero, a research group on education and the arts at Harvard's Graduate School of Education. She received a B.A. in English Literature from Radcliffe College and a Ph.D. in Psychology from Harvard. Her research focuses on development in the arts in typical and gifted children, arts education, and philosophical questions about the arts that can be addressed empirically. She has published over 200 empirical articles as well as six previous books.

Preface
Chapter 1. A 1982 Journey to Reggio Emilia
Chapter 2. A 1987 Journey to China
Chapter 3. Art Education in 19th Century America: Parallels to China
Chapter 4. The Progressivist Revolt: Parallels to Reggio Emilia
Chapter 5. Two Offshoots of Progressivism: Arts in Education Movement and Aesthetic Education
Chapter 6. Arts as its Own Academic Discipline: Discipline-Based Art Education
Chapter 7. Putting Making at the Center: The Arts PROPEL Alternative to Discipline-Based Art Education
Chapter 8. Standards and Assessment: The Struggle for Authenticity and Reliability
Chapter 9. Shameless Utilitarianism: Arts for Boosting Academic Performance
Chapter 10. Studio Thinking: Teaching for Artists' Habits of Mind
Chapter 11. Reimagining Art Education for the Twenty-First Century (and More Parallels to Reggio Emilia)
Final Words