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TRANSFORMING ART EDUCATION IN SAUDI ARABIA: INCLUSION OF
SOCIAL ISSUES IN ART EDUCATION
Ghadah Shukri H. Albakri
Dissertation Prepared for the Degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS
August 2020
APPROVED: Jim Laney, Major Professor Carol Wickstrom, Major Professor Dan Krutka, Committee Member Nadine Kalin, Committee Member Misty Sailors, Chair of the Department of
Teacher Education and Administration Randy Bomer, Dean of the College of
Education Victor Prybutok, Dean of the Toulouse
Graduate School
Albakri, Ghadah Shukri H. Transforming Art Education in Saudi Arabia: Inclusion of
Social Issues in Art Education. Doctor of Philosophy (Curriculum and Instruction), August 2020,
242 pp., 26 tables, 24 figures, 3 appendices, references, 217 titles.
The purpose of this study was to describe in-service Saudi Arabian art education
teachers’ (a) philosophies of education before and after an issues-based art education (IBAE)
workshop, (b) perceptions of the IBAE workshop and its products, (c) perception of the
importance of IBAE approach, reasons, topics, and challenges after the workshop, and (d)
perception of IBAE within the Saudi Arabian context. A mixed-methods approach was followed.
The qualitative portion of the study utilized a post-workshop questionnaire and reflective essay
completed by 37 participants, and personal teaching journal protocol and focus group discussion
from 18 participants who attended the workshop and implemented the IBAE lesson in their
classrooms. Analysis of the data confirmed that art teachers’ perspectives towards IBAE
positively increased after attending the IBAE workshop. Specifically, in the quantitative
findings, participants indicated a positive attitude toward the teaching philosophy of social
reconstruction after the IBAE workshop. These results demonstrate that the tenets of social
reconstruction align with the IBAE approach. In addition, the quantitative data suggests that
teacher participants’ overall perception of the importance of addressing social issues in the art
curriculum was positive, with 91.9% of respondents agreeing. Overall the qualitative findings,
indicated a positive attitude toward the IBAE workshop. Further, the analysis confirmed that
these teachers had positive perspectives toward incorporating social issues in their art education
again in their classroom of the IBAE approach especially within the Saudi Arabian context.
ii
Copyright 2020
By
Ghadah Shukri H Albakri
iii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Achieving my dream of earning a Ph.D. would not have been possible without the
support of my family, committee members, and friends. I would like to dedicate this study to my
family. Without their love and support, I would not have been able to complete this journey. To
my parents, Shukri and Khairiah, thank you for your prayers and your support, which have kept
me optimistic during the process of completing this study. Special appreciation goes to my dear
husband Dhafer, for being my rock and supporting everything, and our two sons, Mazen and
Battal; thank you for offering help, patient, and being supportive. Thank you to my brothers
Faisal and Hussam, and my sisters Maha, Jameela, Shatha, Reema, and Shahad, for being
supportive all the time. Thank you to all of my friends and relatives, who supported me and kept
asking when I would return home. I thank the Islamic Society in Denton, especially Imam
Mohamed and sister Marie. Indeed, huge thanks go to the Saudi government for providing the
scholarship for me to attain my degree. I would like to acknowledge my committee members,
first, Dr. Carol Wickstrom, whom I appreciate beyond words. Dr. Wickstrom, I would like to
thank you for guiding me through the entire process and particularly for your expert help in the
qualitative part. Thank you for being so supportive and kind. Dr. Jim Laney, your guidance,
contribution, and role as a Major Professor were a valuable part of my dissertation writing
process and in the creation of a professional development IBAE workshop. Dr. Laney, thank you
for your support, time, and knowledge in preparing the art workshop, which made my
dissertation much more powerful and fruitful. Dr. Nadine Kalin and Dr. Dan Krutka, thank you
for your support, time, knowledge, and optimistic motivation. Finally, thank to Dr. Jeffrey Rasch
and Jim Redmond, for their support, time, and commitment. Their constant support, help, and
encouragement improved my dissertation.
iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ............................................................................................................. iii
LIST OF TABLES ....................................................................................................................... viii
LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................................ x
CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY ...................................................................... 1
The Global Movement to Integrate Social Issues Within Art Education ........................... 2
Saudi Arabian Integration of Social Issues Within Art Education ..................................... 3
The Purpose of the Study .................................................................................................... 6
The Method of Study .......................................................................................................... 8
Potential Contributions of the Study ................................................................................... 9
Organization of the Dissertation ......................................................................................... 9
CHAPTER 2. REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE ............................................................. 11
Research Question 1 ......................................................................................................... 11
Vision 2030 ........................................................................................................... 11
Changes Related to Arts Education ...................................................................... 12
Research Question 2 ......................................................................................................... 13
The Historical Roots of Art Education in Saudi Arabia ....................................... 13
The Phases of Growth and Development.............................................................. 14
Research Question 3 ......................................................................................................... 20
The Current Status of Saudi Art Learning and Teaching ..................................... 20
Saudi Art Education and/or Social Studies ........................................................... 22
Needed Developments in Light of Recent Socio-Political Changes in Saudi Arabia .................................................................................................................... 23
Research Question 4 ......................................................................................................... 25
The History of the IBAE (IBAE) Approach ......................................................... 25
Instructional Strategy of the IBAE (IBAE) Approach .......................................... 27
Definition and the Procedures of Using IBAE (IBAE) ........................................ 28
Research Question 5 ......................................................................................................... 30
Humanistic and Social Reconstruction Concept Foundation with IBAE: Why? . 30
v
Conceptual Foundations of the IBAE Approach .................................................. 31
Philosophies for Humanism and Social Reconstructionism in Light of the IBAE in Saudi Arabia.......................................................................................................... 39
My Positions and Examples .................................................................................. 43
Research Question 6 ......................................................................................................... 44
Art Education Approaches in Light of Social Issues ............................................ 44
Why was IBAE Chosen for this Study? ................................................................ 50
Research Question 7 ......................................................................................................... 52
Research Question 8 ......................................................................................................... 53
Research Question 9 ......................................................................................................... 55
The Importance of Issues-Centered Education ..................................................... 56
The Imperative to Make Issues-Centered Education Part of the School Curriculum............................................................................................................................... 57
The Global Movement to Integrate Issues-Centered Education Within the Art Curriculum ............................................................................................................ 58
How Issues-Centered Education Informs Art Education ...................................... 59
Applying Issues-Centered Education in the Art Curriculum ................................ 65
Example of Informing Students about Social Issues in Art Education ................. 68
IBAE: Example of a Particular Educator .............................................................. 71
Research Question 10 ....................................................................................................... 73
Research Question 11 ....................................................................................................... 74
Recommendations for Using IBAE ...................................................................... 74
Possibilities and Limitations Offered by Various Approaches ............................. 75
IBAE in the Saudi Context ................................................................................... 77
To Achieve the 2030 Vision in the Art Education Curriculum ............................ 80 CHAPTER 3. METHOD OF THE STUDY ................................................................................. 82
Statement of the Problem .................................................................................................. 82
Research Questions ........................................................................................................... 83
Research Sites and Participants ........................................................................................ 84
Instruments ........................................................................................................................ 85
Kauchak and Eggen (2014) Questionnaire ........................................................... 85
Reflective Essay and Post-Workshop Questionnaire ............................................ 85
Modified Milbrandt (2002) Questionnaire ............................................................ 86
vi
Personal Teaching Journal Protocol and Focus Group Suggested Questions Protocol ................................................................................................................. 86
Mixed-Method the Research Design ................................................................................ 87
Procedures for Answering Questions................................................................................ 89
Data Collection and Analysis............................................................................................ 94
Pretest and Posttest Kauchak and Eggen (2014) Questionnaire ........................... 94
Reflective Essay and Post-Workshop Questionnaire ............................................ 95
Modified Milbrandt (2002) Questionnaire ............................................................ 96
Personal Teaching Journal Protocol and Focus Group Discussion ...................... 98
Inductive Approach ........................................................................................................... 99
Thematic Analysis Approach .......................................................................................... 100
Possible Threats and Complications ............................................................................... 103
Credibility and Trustworthiness of the Study ................................................................. 103 CHAPTER 4. RESULTS OF THE STUDY ............................................................................... 105
The Demographic Characteristics of the Participants ..................................................... 105
Quantitative Analysis and Findings ................................................................................ 112
Research Question 1 ........................................................................................... 112
Research Question 3 ........................................................................................... 120
Qualitative Analysis and Findings .................................................................................. 129
Phase 1: Prepare and Explore Data, Identify Big Ideas ...................................... 131
Phase 2 A: Re-read, Examine Data, Create Coded Data, Place Coded Data in Sub-Categories ........................................................................................................... 132
Phase 2B: Data Summary, Revise Coding Scheme ............................................ 137
Phase 3: Focus Coding Scheme and Report Findings ........................................ 145
Category 1: Evaluation of IBAE by Reflective Essay and Post-Workshop Questionnaire ...................................................................................................... 147
Category 2: Perception of IBAE Lesson Plan Generation and Implementation by Using Journal Protocol and Focus Group Discussion......................................... 152
Summary ......................................................................................................................... 160 CHAPTER 5. DISCUSSION OF THE RESULTS..................................................................... 163
Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 163
Discussion ....................................................................................................................... 167
Conclusions Related to Quantitative Results, Research Question 1 ................... 167
vii
Conclusions Related to Qualitative Results, Research Question 2 ..................... 169
Conclusions Related to Quantitative Results, Research Question 3 ................... 175
Conclusions Related to Qualitative Research Data, Research Question 4 ......... 178
Merging the Quantitative and Qualitative Data .............................................................. 190
The Qualitative Confirmed Quantitative Analyses/Findings for Question 1...... 190
The Qualitative Confirmed Quantitative Analyses/Findings for Question 2...... 192
Relationship of the Conclusions to the Teaching Philosophies of Social Reconstructionism and Progressivism ................................................................ 193
Implications and Challenges for Classroom Practice ..................................................... 196
Recommendations for School Leaders, Teachers and Teacher Educators, National Curriculum Leaders, and Future Researchers ................................................................. 198
School Leaders .................................................................................................... 198
Teachers and Teacher Educators ........................................................................ 199
National Curriculum Leaders .............................................................................. 200
Future Researchers .............................................................................................. 201 APPENDIX A. STUDY ITEMS................................................................................................. 203 APPENDIX B. IBAE WORKSHOP PICTURES ...................................................................... 214 APPENDIX C. LIST OF IBAE ARTWORKS’ PICTURES...................................................... 216 REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................... 228
viii
LIST OF TABLES
Page
Table 3.1. List of Instruments to Collect Data .............................................................................. 84
Table 3.2. The Research Timeline ................................................................................................ 88
Table 4.1. Frequencies and Percentages of Responses Regarding Demographic Variables: Age..................................................................................................................................................... 106
Table 4.2. Frequencies and Percentages of Responses Regarding Demographic Variables: Highest Qualification (Degree) and Academic Major ................................................................ 106
Table 4.3. Frequencies and Percentages of Responses Regarding Years of Teaching Experience, Level Taught, Number of Years Teaching Current Grade Level, and Teaching Experience at Grade Level(s) ............................................................................................................................ 107
Table 4.4. Frequencies and Percentages of Responses Regarding Teaching Experience by Subject......................................................................................................................................... 108
Table 4.5. Frequencies and Percentages of Responses Regarding the Types of Art Lesson Used and Social Issues/Topics Addressed ........................................................................................... 108
Table 4.6. Frequencies and Percentages of Responses Regarding Subject Matter Knowledge and Formal Backgrounds ................................................................................................................... 110
Table 4.7. Paired Sample Descriptive Statistics at Pretest and Posttest for Four Teaching Philosophies (N = 37) ................................................................................................................. 113
Table 4.8. Paired Sample t-Test Results: Paired Differences for the Four Pretest-Posttest Teaching Philosophy Variables .................................................................................................. 115
Table 4.9. Percentages of Art Education In-service Teachers’ Disagreement Responses at Pretest and Posttest on Kauchak & Eggen’s Questionnaire (2014), from High to Low ......................... 117
Table 4.10. Percentages of Art Education In-service Teachers’ Agreement Responses at Pretest and Posttest on Kauchak & Eggen’s Questionnaire (2014), from High to Low ......................... 119
Table 4.11. Response Alternative Percentages Related to Addressing Contemporary Social Issues within the Art Curriculum ........................................................................................................... 121
Table 4.12. Response Alternative Percentages for the Importance of Addressing Contemporary Social Issues Within the Art Curriculum and for Underlying Reasons/Rationales .................... 122
Table 4.13. Response Alternative Percentages for the Importance of Various Contemporary Social Issues/Topics in the Art Curriculum ................................................................................ 123
ix
Table 4.14. Response Alternative Percentages for the Importance of Various Challenges in Addressing Contemporary Social Issues Within the Art Curriculum ......................................... 124
Table 4.15. Mean Ratings and Standard Deviations for the Importance of Addressing Contemporary Social Issues within the Art Curriculum (N = 37) .............................................. 125
Table 4.16. Mean Ratings and Standard Deviations for Underlying Reasons/Rationales for Addressing Contemporary Social Issues within the Art Curriculum (N = 37) ........................... 126
Table 4.17. Mean Ratings and Standard Deviations for the Importance of Various Contemporary Social Issues/Topics in the Art Curriculum (N = 37) ................................................................. 127
Table 4.18. Mean Ratings and Standard Deviations for the Importance of Various Challenges in Addressing Contemporary Social Issues in the Art Curriculum (N = 37) .................................. 129
Table 4.19. Qualitative Data Analysis Procedures ..................................................................... 131
Table 4.20. Phase 2A: Re-Read, Examine Data, Create Code Data, Place Coded Data in Categories ................................................................................................................................... 135
Table 4.21. Example of the Sub-Categories Collapsed into One Coding Scheme ..................... 139
Table 4.22. Tag Cloud from Phase 2B: Revised Coding Schemes of Polished and Non-Repetitive Codes........................................................................................................................................... 140
Table 4.23. Phase 3: Category 1 ................................................................................................. 148
Table 4.24. Phase 3: Category 2 ................................................................................................. 153
x
LIST OF FIGURES
Page
Figure 4.1. Percentage plots of types of art lesson used. ............................................................ 109
Figure 4.2. Percentage plots of social issues addressed .............................................................. 109
Figure 4.3. Line graph based on % of responses to subject matter knowledge levels. ............... 111
Figure 4.4. Line graph based on % of responses to formal background levels .......................... 111
Figure 4.5. Circle/pie graph of the teachers’ prior backgrounds in IBAE. ................................. 112
Figure 4.6. Mean plots of art education teachers’ philosophies before and after the IBAE workshop. .................................................................................................................................... 114
Figure 4.7. Percentage plots of art education teachers’ pretest-posttest disagreement responses..................................................................................................................................................... 118
Figure 4.8. Percentage plots of art education teachers’ pretest-posttest agreement responses. .. 119
Figure 4.9. Tag cloud from Phase 2 (B): Revised coding schemes of polished and non-repetitive codes. .......................................................................................................................................... 144
Figure 4.10. Category 1 word cloud for coding schemes. .......................................................... 147
Figure 4.11. Category 2 word cloud for coding schemes. .......................................................... 153
Figure 4.12. Final focus coding schemes showing the final relationships between sub-categories...................................................................................................................................................... 161
Figure 5.1. Network of responses resulting from the last cycle of coding for benefits of IBAE and the IBAE workshop..................................................................................................................... 171
Figure 5.2. Network of responses resulting from the last phase of coding for quality of IBAE workshop ..................................................................................................................................... 171
Figure 5.3. Network of responses resulting from the last phase of coding for reasons for using IBAE approach............................................................................................................................ 172
Figure 5.4. Network of responses resulting from the last phase of coding for teachers' perceptions of IBAE workshop ...................................................................................................................... 174
Figure 5.5. Network of responses resulting from the last phase of coding for the challenges in IBAE and the IBAE workshop ................................................................................................... 174
Figure 5.6. Network of responses resulting from the last phase of coding for IBAE within Saudi society ......................................................................................................................................... 179
xi
Figure 5.7. Network of responses resulting from the last phase of coding for IBAE lesson implementation process .............................................................................................................. 181
Figure 5.8. Network of responses resulting from the last cycle of coding for teachers’ views of IBAE implementation ................................................................................................................. 182
Figure 5.9. Network of responses resulting from the last phase of coding for students' behaviors based on teachers' observations .................................................................................................. 185
Figure 5.10. Network of responses resulting from the last cycle of coding for topics generation..................................................................................................................................................... 186
Figure 5.11. Network of responses resulting from the last cycle of coding for challenges in implementation of IBAE lessons ................................................................................................ 187
Figure 5.12. Network of responses resulting from the last cycle of coding for improvements and suggestions .................................................................................................................................. 189
1
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY
In the 21st century worldwide, there has been increased interest in art education programs
aimed at producing art that incorporates or comments on social issues. Alazmi (2017) and
Nordlund, Speires, and Stewart (2010) have described these developments. This movement was
in agreement with what artists themselves do. Artists have often played a key role in social
movements, addressing such social issues as violence, racism, and terrorism. For example, the
paintings, photographs, and poetry they have created question, challenge, and aim to change
situations of inequity.
Through artistic expression, as Petru (2016) argues, artists can change and challenge
cultural narratives. Like other Arab countries, Saudi Arabia has tended toward ignorance about
contemporary art, and there is a lack of such practices at schools because of the influence of what
is culturally acceptable and of social aspects such as religion, tradition, and gender. Saudi Arabia
is now seeing some change (AlSaud & Qurban, 2016; Al-Mutairi, 2017). For example, Mission
2030, a plan to reduce dependence on oil, diversify the economy, and develop public service
sectors such as health, education, infrastructure, recreation, and tourism, has been initiated.
Art education in Saudi Arabia appears to be undergoing change, too, so there may now be
space within the art curriculum for students to use art to explore social issues. In 2016, Saudi
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman issued an authoritative document entitled Vision 2030,
which describes Saudi Arabia as the heart of the Arab and Islamic worlds and the hub connecting
three continents. Not only does it present goals for enhancing Saudi Arabia's economy and
positioning the country more prominently in global markets, but it also presents changes to be
made in the social infrastructure, including education. One of the three major themes is that of a
2
“vibrant society.” With this document, the country is committed to increasing the number and
variety of cultural activities and to showcasing Saudis’ myriad talents. Attention is given to
developing children’s character, including “social skills, cultural knowledge, and self-awareness”
by “reshaping our academic and educational system” (p. 28). Mention is made of preparing a
“modern curriculum.” Vision 2030 focuses on promoting and reinvigorating social development
to build an active and productive community.
Even though there is a global movement to integrate social issues within the curriculum
and within art education specifically, a review of prior studies revealed that there are gaps in our
knowledge about the ways art teachers are able to survive in difficult circumstances, to make
changes in their programs to accommodate the requirements of various kinds of students, to learn
more about the art forms native to their country and community, and to respond to pressures of a
global nature (Alamoud,1991; Al-Salloum, 1995; Alsaud & Qurban, 2016; Alshehri, 2005;
Kattan, 2015; Lutfi, 2018).
The Global Movement to Integrate Social Issues Within Art Education
Art can be used as a means of exploring the basic values related to social issues affecting
the community. Some scholars (Albers, 1999; Atkinson & Dash, 2005; Beauregard, Gunter, &
Paquette, 2017; Carpenter, Cornelius, & Sherow, 2010; Chalmers, 1996; Chang, Lim, & Kim,
2012; David & McCaughan, 2006; Freedman, 2000; Lindström, 2014) have pointed to the
potential of art to strengthen education through the lessons it provides on social issues. Art has a
unique ability to bring us onto a path to social change; it can play a significant role in the
community.
Several scholars have provided recommendations for pedagogy. For example, Chang,
Lim, and Kim (2012) have suggested three strategies to teach art education, one of which is an
3
issues-based approach. They emphasize using social and cultural issues as a foundation for an art
course. In a similar recommendation, Taylor, Carpenter, Ballengee-Morris, and Sessions (2006)
have suggested that “rather than basing curriculum on learning a medium or technique, we
recommend that art teachers base their units of instruction on a problem, issue, or question
gleaned from works of art and visual culture” (p. 39). This method enables students and art
teachers to be more reflective when framing societal issues and enacting solutions. Finally,
Carpenter II (2019) agreed with Ross Schlemmer (2017) when he confirmed that an “art
education scholar should emphasize a new terrain of consciousness that is socially responsible
and ethically sound and goes beyond mere promotion of aesthetic quality to contribute to
improved quality of life” (p. 165). This kind of work is often grounded in the community.
Art for Life offers practical ideas for revealing the meaning and connection of art to
humanity. This kind of art helps art teachers and students become effective, active, and
functional in their community. Unlike most art pedagogy approaches, Art for Life presents a
holistic path and process to the art curriculum, during classroom explanation and overall art
content presentation, attractive to art students today (Anderson & Milbrandt, 2004). Thus, this
research has helped future art teachers and in-service art teachers, and it has promoted teaching
and learning of art for life and the consideration of the importance of IBAE.
Saudi Arabian Integration of Social Issues Within Art Education
Islamic art was the foundation of artistic vision in Saudi Arabia before the immigration
into the country of citizens of neighboring countries, including Egypt, Lebanon, and Morocco,
with which Saudi Arabia participates in terms of cultural history. Through this immigration, the
mixing of Islamic art and Western art became Modern Arabian Art. Distinctions between
Western and Middle Eastern art are essential, and so are distinctions between Western and
4
Middle Eastern art education. In the 19th century, Bassiouny (1984) listed a variety of factors that
differentiate the style of art education in the Middle East from Western art education and pointed
out that “within taste and style there are the tempo, attitudes, habits, and reaction to visual reality
which the Easterner has acquired through a long history of living in a certain environment” (p.
147).
A deep-rooted Islamic heritage defines Saudi culture and society. Contemporary arts
appear in the Islamic-Arab-Saudi culture. The Saudis’ art reflects their values, traditions, and
customs, which are apparent in their dress, display, sculptures, portraiture, dance, photography,
festivals, architecture, and museums—and also in their classroom art education. Several galleries
have been established for the youngest artists in different art fields such as digital photography,
animation and cartoons, caricature, and portraiture.
Today, the Kingdom is witnessing a revival in the arts. By 2012, the Saudi art scene had
become very much alive. Danforth (2016) listed the following kinds of art created by young
artists: “conceptual art, digital art, installation art, performance art, pop art, street art, and video
art” (p. 97). Youth have formed networks and collaborations related to art. Contemporary Saudi
art has become a significant component of the Middle Eastern cultural infrastructure. Saudi
contemporary artwork has many new talents and initiatives, and art markets are contributing to
the development of the Saudi Arabian art scene. This emphasis on new and exciting art has led to
an increase in artistic production as well as is its reception.
Art education—focused on visual arts, dance, theater, and music—also seems to be
undergoing change. There may now be space within the art curriculum for students to use art to
explore social issues. According to Al Zahrani (1988), the first art policy was made official in
1957. The history of art education is connected to the history of general education. Over the
5
years, art education has faced serious challenges associated with resources, but a major challenge
has been a lack of awareness of its importance. Although art education has had to go through
difficult circumstances, it has become increasingly important. Fathal (1990) described the goals
of art education in Saudi schools as seeking to help students progress in the following areas:
“emotional growth, intellectual development, physical development, perception, social
development, aesthetics, creativity, the use of the senses, respect for and love of work, self-
expression and the relieving of frustrations, self-confidence, knowledge of tools and equipment”
(p. 5). Also, he added two more contributions: the expansion of knowledge of art terminology
and the power to benefit the individual and the community.
Today, visual art education is taught in K-12 grade schools for two hours every week. Art
has become a fundamental school subject in which students may pass to the next level or fail
according to their achievement. However, some private or international schools and art
organizations have provided classes in other kinds of arts. In 2018, the Ministry of Education in
Saudi Arabia provided the national art education curriculum and free textbooks for K-12 grades.
The current Saudi art education curriculum, which is grounded in policy established in 2008,
remains open for further developments and revisions.
According to the Ministry of Education in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (2018), the
education policy in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia indicates that art education should emphasize
society, the environment, social issues, and the cultural environment. Also, it should meet the
students’ needs and be motivated by the effort to ensure student learning and creativity. Further,
art should concentrate on the characteristics of the learner and should support the rapid
development of the student’s mental abilities through training in criticism in spoken or written
forms and discussion with adults or peers of social issues in the Saudi community. Thus, the art
6
education curriculum and systems have the potential to promote student engagement in
community projects that are socially constructed through collaborative practices. There is a need
for research to be conducted in the same context, leading to analysis from different perspectives.
My dissertation focuses on art education in Saudi Arabia—its current status and future
directions with respect to social issues. The findings show a need for teaching about issues in art
education. In this investigation, I examined the status of in-service Saudi Arabian art education
teachers’ philosophy, beliefs, opinions, and perceptions of social IBAE, specifically within the
context of Saudi Arabian society.
The Purpose of the Study
As a lecturer at Princess Noura University, I started my career as an issues-centered
teacher. That orientation increased through my developmental journey as a teacher. When I
moved from art education to the curriculum and instruction department, I engaged with the
question of how to make the theoretical subject interesting for students and more beneficial and
important for the community. I switched the focus in the syllabus from the dry theoretical
information and presentations in the textbook to creating projects and group tasks, each of which
selected and practiced the values important to the society. For example, students were asked to
step outside their own experience and interests for assistance with their work by interviewing
individuals in the community. The classrooms were alive, as they had never before been
regarding students’ relationships with their classmates.
In the beginning, some students resisted this instruction because they felt it was more
difficult than listening to the lecture and having tests at the end of the semester. However, in the
final report, these students learned and love the subject more than they would have with more
7
traditional treatment. They also ended up with more creative ideas and questions. They reached
and discovered knowledge beyond the scope of an essay or test.
Besides, as a Saudi Arabian and an international student who has lived in the U.S. for
more than seven years, I have been positioned between two cultures. While living and studying
in the U.S., I have become increasingly aware of global developments in art education, and I am
motivated to learn more about status in my country. Moreover, as a Saudi who lives out of the
country now, I have heard from abroad about new plans for the country, including curriculum
changes or additions that address social issues. I would like to explore the inclusion of social
issues in the Saudi art education curriculum.
In “The Role of Art Education in Interpreting and Controlling Ethical and Social
Behavior Among Students in General Education Grades,” Alshehri (2005) gave insights on the
role played by art education in explaining and encouraging moral and social behavior of general
education pupils and the importance of using this kind of art. To achieve this goal, he
recommends linking art education with social issues and moral behavior in order to have a
positive influence on students' personality development. He confirms the importance of giving
more focus to art education in the school timetable and working for better qualification of art
education teachers. In addition, he recommended doing more research in Saudi art education
research focusing on moral behavior and social issues.
Thus, the purpose of this study was to describe in-service Saudi Arabian art education
teachers’ (a) philosophies of education before and after an IBAE workshop, (b) perceptions of
the IBAE workshop and its effects, (c) perception of the importance of IBAE approach, reasons,
topics, and challenges after the workshop, and, (d) perception of IBAE within the Saudi Arabian
context.
8
Q1: What is the status of in-service Saudi Arabian art education teachers’ philosophy of teaching before and after a professional development workshop on teaching about social issues with and through art?
Q2: After participating in a professional development workshop on social IBAE, what is the status of in-service Saudi Arabian art education teachers’ perceptions of the workshop and lesson plan generation and activity?
Q3: After participating in a professional development workshop on social IBAE, what is the status of in-service Saudi Arabian art education teachers’ perceptions about the relative importance of (a) the IBAE approach, (b) reasons for using IBAE, (c) various potential social issues topics in IBAE, and (d) various potential challenges in addressing social issues by using IBAE?
Q4: After participating in a professional development workshop on social IBAE and after implementing an original IBAE lesson plan, what is the status of in-service Saudi Arabian art education teachers’ perceptions of the lesson implementation activity and of social IBAE, especially within the context of Saudi Arabian society?
The Method of Study
A mixed methods approach was followed. Teddlie and Tashakorri (2009) have described
the mixed methods approach, which integrates quantitative and qualitative criteria, as an
alternative to the qualitative-quantitative dichotomy. This study drew pragmatically from both
traditions in data collection and analysis. My research answered questions from a number of
perspectives to make sure there was no gap in the information and data collected. According to
Stange, Crabtree, and Miller (2006), mixed methods research involves “integrating quantitative
and qualitative approaches to generating new knowledge and can involve either concurrent or
sequential use of these two classes of methods to follow a line of inquiry” (p. 292).
The quantitative part of the study consisted of a pretest and posttest Kauchak and Eggen
(2014) questionnaire and modified questionnaires from Milbrandt (2002) to be completed by 30-
50 in-service Saudi Arabian art education teachers. These instruments were used to answer
Research Questions 1 and 3 respectively.
9
The qualitative part of the study utilized a post-workshop questionnaire and reflective
essay to answer Research Question 2. It also utilized a teaching journal protcol on lesson
implementation and a focus group discussion session to answer Research Question 4. The
qualitative data were subjected to thematic analysis.
Potential Contributions of the Study
Previous research has examined various changes in Saudi Arabia’s art education through
the years (ALSaud & Qurban, 2016; Alshehri, 2001; Al-Mutairi, 2017). These prior studies,
however, have not focused on the capacity of Saudi art education, current or envisioned, to
address social issues. Moreover, they have not studied Saudi Arabian in-service art education
teachers’ philosophy, beliefs, or opinions about addressing contemporary social issues in art
education classrooms.
Saudi Arabia has indicated it seeks to become less isolated and more engaged as a
society, and Saudi art shows this inclination as well. But what about children’s art education? Is
it becoming more socially cognizant and more socially engaged, too? With this study, I
examined the in-service Saudi Arabian art education teachers’ philosophy, beliefs, and opinions
about addressing contemporary social issues in art education classrooms, a goal which has not
been attempted before.
Organization of the Dissertation
This introductory chapter has provided an overview of the study, which is described in
more detail in subsequent chapters. Chapter 2 provides a review of related literature, which
includes the following major areas: the relation of art to social issues, the effect of integrating
these areas, the extent to which the art education curriculum is following this trend, and the
extent to which art education teachers are adopting this orientation. Chapter 3 describes the
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methods of the study, including quantitative and qualitative data collection. Chapter 4 presents
the findings from the analyses of both kinds of data, and Chapter 5 is a discussion of those
findings in terms of what they contribute to our understanding of addressing social issues within
art education, specifically in Saudi Arabia.
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CHAPTER 2
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
The culture of Saudi Arabia is a rich one that has been shaped by the country’s Islamic
heritage, its historical and traditional role as an ancient trade center, and its Bedouin traditions.
The community in Saudi Arabia has experienced tremendous improvement over the past several
decades. The Saudi people have taken their values and traditions – their customs, hospitality, and
even their style of dress – and adapted them to the modern world. Saudi traditions are rooted in
Islamic teachings and Arab customs, which Saudis learn about at an early age from their families
and in schools. Fifty years ago, conservative groups banned some forms of art and exerted great
influence over the Saudi society. However, today the new vision has led to great changes in the
Saudi community.
Research Question 1
What changes are currently taking place in Saudi Arabia, and how do these relate to arts education?
Saudi Arabia has developed rapidly since the explosion of the oil industry, from 1938
onward. As the oil industry really took off and became a huge part of the economy, it suddenly
brought great wealth to the country (Alghamedy, 1986). Since then, the country has experienced
breathtaking economic and social change that has affected people’s perspectives on life.
Vision 2030
Vision 2030, announced on 25 April 2016, can be summed up in a few words
corresponding to the main axes of the vision: a thriving economy, a vibrant society, and an
ambitious homeland. Additionally, there have been changes in art since 2016. The plan included
the creation of the world’s largest Islamic Museum as part of the motivation for producing
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Islamic art. Moreover, there are transformative relations between the state and its citizens,
politically, economically, and socially. In Vision 2030, the Saudi government indicates a degree
of social liberalization to permit the growth of the entertainment and tourism activities, as well as
comprehensive reforms to the education system, and a huge emphasis on education reform,
theaters, museums, concerts, and art exhibitions. According to Kinninmont (2016), “Vision 2030
envisages a Saudi Arabia made up of citizens who are more active and independent: better
educated, more capable of critical thinking, more entrepreneurial, many working in the private
sector” (p. 41). All of these social contract austerity measures, transformations, and changes
require engagement from the Saudi community to achieve their goals and overcome obstacles.
Changes Related to Arts Education
The Saudi arts can be categorized into eight areas: archeological heritage, architecture,
calligraphy, cultural institutions, folk music and dancing, poetry, heritage and culture, and
traditional dress and jewelry. Art education in Saudi Arabia has been affected by several factors,
including religion, tradition, culture, politics, and previous civilizations’ art. Islam is the
government’s official religion and is the foundation of the country's laws. The vast majority of
Saudi citizens are Muslim. Saudi Arabia may be the most conservative country in the Middle
East. Saudi Arabian art education (as reflected by national curriculum documents), the adopted
art textbooks, and the teaching practices of classroom teachers, all reflect these factors.
Fifty years ago, art was relatively neglected and ignored. There was only one type of art
in the community and schools, visual art. Other kinds of art were banned. Because of
conservative groups, there was a minimalist view of artists, arts, and art disciplines despite the
long and powerful history of the arts in Islam. Even though art was limited fifty years ago in the
areas of both art and art education in Saudi Arabia, today the situation has become different
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because of the new Vision 2030. All bans against forms of art have been removed and canceled.
While in the past art was undervalued, considered boring, and restricted, art education today is
important and has become an important class in schools (Almuraie, 2019). Furthermore, other
forms of art have also been taught in schools, such as music education.
Responding to the new vision, billions have been invested in the culture and in
encouraging art activity, for example, through the government leaders’ announcement of a
projected $64 billion investment, in connection with the private sector, into cultural development
over the next decade (Mohammad, 2018). Indeed, under the comprehensive reforms, Saudi
Arabia is changing—rapidly. For example, the first cinemas have been opened. An opera house
is already underway. Furthermore, entertainment cities, music festivals, graffiti, and public art
installations have popped up. Visual art and art centers are supported, which is a central
development in this complete cultural transformation. The Crown Prince purchased Leonardo da
Vinci’s Salvator Mundi. Recently, he has announced the creation of the Misk Art Institute, an
artist-led organization promoted by the Misk Foundation and funded by the state.
Research Question 2
What is the history of art education in Saudi Arabia?
The Historical Roots of Art Education in Saudi Arabia
One difficulty in surveying the historical roots of art education in Saudi Arabia is that,
according to Al-Risais (2010), there is limited research about the Saudi art situation and history
as compared with the nation’s political, social, and geographical development; thus, he wrote
The History of Fine Art in Saudi Arabia in order to explore the history of Saudi art and the
development of the art field in the country. Saudi Arabian art falls under two categories: visual
art and plastic art. In various artistic fields, artists produce work using a variety of techniques,
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tools, and materials including sculpture, drawing, pottery, ceramics, murals, graphics, engraving,
and porcelain, in addition to caricature, Arabic calligraphy, design, fashion, advertising, and
photography.
In the history of Saudi art education, the teaching of painting faced strong opposition
from some conservative scholars who protested against its endorsement in the public education
program. Their point of view was that drawing is photography and that photography (i.e.
simulating images of God's creation) is prohibited in Islam. However, people gradually
understood that drawing is not just like photography; instead, it is a means of expression of taste
relating to aesthetic values in things and in nature, and these aesthetic values are reflected in the
behavior and actions of the learner. King Abdul Aziz (1876 -1953) took a decisive position
towards not accepting the opinion of those who advanced the practice of drawing. The effort to
prevent the teaching of drawing continued and extended to opposition against some other kinds
of art such as music, drama, and portraiture.
The Phases of Growth and Development
According to Al-Risais (2010), art has been developed in four phases in Saudi Arabia: the
first from 1908 to 1970, the second from 1971 to 1980, the third from 1981 to 2002, and the
fourth from 2003 to 2010. Modernity has arrived in the Kingdom, with its intellectual and
technical effects. Also, art has influenced other fields which can be identified with negative
effects such as cultural weakness in the Ottoman era, Western colonialism, and the role of the
media. Arab culture had a negative view of formalism, but other influences have been seen as
positive.
The kingdom did not undergo any kind of western colonialism. However, the kingdom,
like other countries, still made use of the foreign and Arab expertise necessary to promote
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growth and development, in line with its vision and position within the Arab Islamic world. The
teaching and learning of art education went through different stages in Saudi schools and
communities in the history of the Kingdom. In this section, I will discuss the most important
events that took place in the development of art education in Saudi Arabia.
The First Phase (1908-1970)
The area of the modern-day Kingdom of Saudi Arabia consists primarily of four different
regions: Hejaz, Najd, and the areas of Eastern and Southern Arabia. The Kingdom was founded
in 1932 by Ibn Saud. He combined the four regions into a single state through a series of
successful campaigns starting in 1902 with the capture of Riyadh. School education in Saudi
Arabia began during this stage. This phase also saw the beginning of art in Saudi Arabia. The
current configuration of art education in the nation also began during this phase.
Al-Risais (2010) stated that drawing materials should be included in the study plan at the
charity school in Makkah in 1908. This was followed by the teaching of traditional crafts in the
schools of Islamic sciences in Medina in 1925 when drawing was taught to students in the third
and fourth grades in one class each week. In 1936, the ministry of education, named Almaref,
was established, and the teaching of drawing in weekly classes in high schools was approved.
Furthermore, the documents confirm that the beginning of art education in the Kingdom came
after the first curriculum plan was approved in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1947 (Ministry
of Education, n.d.).
Furthermore, in 1952, the department of cultural affairs at the general presidency for
youth care directed attention at the affairs and talents of young people in the Kingdom and at the
planning and implementation of programs and technical activities, which are approved annually
by the department of cultural affairs. Among the basic materials in education, drawing materials
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(the phrase was also used as the old name of art education) were used at all stages or plan. In
1953, the Ministry of Education supervised the first exhibition of school activities. The Ministry
also provided group educational training courses in the classroom, aiming to raise the level of
science teaching in all fields of study for K-12 teachers, including the art field for drawing and
crafting artworks (Al-Risais, 2010).
Al-Zahrani (1988) confirmed the first approved curricula for art education in the various
elementary, intermediate, and secondary educational grades, which were established in 1957.
Then, in 1958, art education started for grades K -12 in Saudi Arabia. Then, in 1959, King Saud
bin Abdul Aziz opened the first art exhibition in the Kingdom's schools in Riyadh. In the same
year, art was adopted as part of public education for girls. Art education was called arts and
crafts. The aim was to train the students in manual skills in the use and formation of raw
materials in order to familiarize the students with patience, perseverance, and self-confidence.
In 1962, formal accreditation was adopted for art education instead of arts and crafts. The
aim was to educate students and modify their behavior aesthetically and technically through
drawing lessons and the production of works of art through automatic expression, painting, and
drawing from memory. School art exhibitions started in 1969. From that date until now, art
exhibitions in schools have become a familiar phenomenon to educational professionals, parents,
and followers of art education and its activities. In this phase, the ministry of education provided
scholarships to study abroad in Egypt, Italy, and Romania to prepare educational experts in the
field (Al-Risais, 2010).
Also, in this phase, the Institute of art education for teachers was established to prepare
the art teachers that were needed at that time. Even though the goal was educational and
academic, its establishment can be described as the cornerstone or foundation of the artistic
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background of a large number of artists of the Kingdom. At the end of this phase, as a result of
what happened earlier, personal and collective art exhibitions were begun. This led to the
existence of an active group of Arab artists in other countries and also in the Kingdom, in
Riyadh, Jeddah, and Dammam. Finally, in 1968, the Center of Fine Arts in Jeddah was
established by the Ministry of Education. Its aim was to develop the art of asceticism by focusing
on the knowledge of nature through the "creative" artistic process and its practice and on the
veracity of the process (Al-Risais, 2010).
The Second Phase (1971-1980)
This phase saw the implementation of the fifth State's development plans for the first
time in 1970, implementation of the first two plans, and more attention than before paid to
develop arts and cultural affairs in the Kingdom. In this phase, continuing external scholarships
were provided for 80 teachers to study art education and plastic art in the U.S., Egypt, and Italy.
Furthermore, beautification projects were started in the form of artworks and the implementation
of works of art at a variety of scales. It was stipulated that the work should be carried out using
strong materials and should be solid and strong enough to withstand various weather and climate
factors, employing materials such as local stone, marble, iron, copper alloys, cement, steel, glass,
and tiles and ceramic molds. These works were placed in important locations in cities and in
places within the vision of people during their day-to-day movements, such as street
intersections, large squares, other squares, and coastal streets, as well public parks (Al-Risais,
2010).
In addition, in 1973, the Saudi Arabian Society for Culture and Arts was established. The
General Directorate for Youth Welfare became an institution of the government with an
independent personality and budget that is administratively linked to the Supreme Council for
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Youth Welfare. This phase included continuing exhibitions at different levels and places and
with different goals, including the Saudi contemporary art exhibition, The General Exhibition of
the Kingdom's Regions, and General Exhibition of Atelier. In 1974, the Ministry of Education
abolished the teaching of art education from the school curricula because it was not considered
important and mandated that the time be used for teaching other subjects. This led to the lack of
a suitable technical culture in accordance with what is presented to students in other subjects and
in comparison to what is presented to their peers around the world (Al-Risais, 2010).
The year after, art education returned to schools again, and art education departments
were established in universities to prepare art teachers and to increase the awareness of art
expression and attention to research in the art field. Since 1975, the General Presidency for Girls'
Education has published books on art and feminism for girls in what were termed home
economics classes for various grades in girls’ schools (Al-Risais, 2010). In middle and high
schools, students could choose between art education and home economics class.
The Third Phase (1981-2002)
This phase saw the beginning and spreading of plastic art internally as well as its
externalization because of the many public and private institutions that influenced the artistic
movement. In 1992, the Ministry of Education issued a new curriculum for art education in
primary and middle schools. It emerged in the form of a general framework that contained the
general objectives of art education and the specific objectives for each class. It also included
instructions to the teacher about preparing the plan and choosing the subjects that the teacher
should determine himself, whether in the area of drawing or in that of handicrafts (Al-Risais,
2010).
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During this period, plastic art became fiercely competitive in finding a suitable place in
the cultural arena, despite the many obstacles and difficulties. A large part of the activities of this
phase was a product of what had been done in the previous two phases. In this phase, external
scholarships for postgraduate studies were provided for art education faculty and teachers to
study abroad in Egypt and the U.K. This phase also saw the establishment of more programs of
art education for around 25 art education departments in different cities in the country.
Furthermore, in 1984, the Ministry of Education set guidelines for the teachers of art education at
the primary and intermediate levels (Ministry of Education, n.d.).
In this phase, beautification of buildings and government institutions with works of art
was implemented. Another effort in urban beautification was expressed through works of art, this
time inside the buildings of public government institutions. Government art galleries are an
important patron and a strong supporter of all plastic artists in developing countries. The number
of these locations, the quality of their establishment and their processing, and the diversity of
activities in them reflects a large extent the extent of the attention of the officials and their care
for this area of artistic production and what goes with it (Al-Risais, 2010).
Also, there was a contribution from other governmental institutions to the promotion of
plastic art through support for the establishment of a number of exhibitions and artistic
competitions for Saudi artists, including also nonresident artists. Furthermore, the private sector
contributed to the promotion of plastic art in four ways: cultural artistic contribution, commercial
artistic contribution, artistic media contribution, and purely commercial contribution (Al-Risais,
2010). The composition of artistic groups was one channel that was initiated and supported by
artists and private institutions. Fine art presses offered articles and news about the field of
national and international artists. Finally, the literature on fine art fell under two types, which are
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general works of literature on art and scientific studies of art (i.e., at the Master and Ph.D.
levels).
The Fourth Phase (2003-2010)
In this stage, the Ministry of Culture and Information Agency for Cultural Affairs and
The Saudi Society for Plastic Arts were established to sponsor artists and exhibitions.
Additionally, the Ministry of Culture sponsored a number of activities, including exhibitions and
collaboration in international cultural relations with other Arab and Islamic countries that are
connected to the movement’s cultural, social, and other dimensions (Al-Risais, 2010).
Research Question 3
What is the current status of art education in Saudi Arabia, and what changes are needed in light of recent socio-political changes in Saudi Arabia?
The Current Status of Saudi Art Learning and Teaching
Today, students in public elementary schools have two visual art classes weekly. Art
textbooks are provided at the beginning of every semester as electronic eBooks and as hard
copies. Teachers use art textbooks as a guide for the techniques and skills that students will learn
and practice; however, they can use any concept and idea that they wish to use. Every grade has
two textbooks for the two semesters (first and second). Also, the teacher has the teacher’s guide
art textbooks. Today, art education is one of the core classes in all general education in Saudi
classrooms from elementary to high school.
In Saudi art education, according to Al-Risais (2010), there are three main topics: (1)
sources of inspiration, (2) areas of artistic expression, and (3) artistic trends. The first subject
reflects general humanitarian issues and social issues, Islamic heritage, Arab heritage, and local
nature and heritage. The areas of general humanitarian issues and social issues include many
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issues that concern humans at any place or time and reflect the subtle interaction of artists with
them. Examples include childhood, motherhood, aging, wars and Makah, the poor, the wretched,
famine spread throughout the world, refugee problems owing to reasons of oppression, and
oppression from the relationship between the human heart and one’s fellow man. This also
includes addressing human environments or communities (Al-Risais, 2010).
Today the arts have become very different, and there has been a huge change in the
country. Recent scholars and the current king have viewed past teachings as a part and a
requirement of the past, but also as something which continues today. The current religious
authorities have become less powerful and less severe than previous conservative proponents
who viewed things the same way 50 years ago. In the new Saudi Vision 2030, the current king
confirmed not only the possibility of accepting participation in the arts but also support for
participation in this field. Many carnivals, displays, and shows are supported in the country
today. According to Dercon (2018), today, large amounts of money are flowing through the
kingdom for the purpose of increasing contemporary art and culture.
Saudi art teachers must pay attention to the emotional, social, behavioral, and academic
progress made by students, sometimes intervening and soliciting the support of colleagues when
appropriate. If necessary, they may need to change their instructional approach and provide
students with additional support to make their learning and growth as efficient as possible.
Teachers need to keep confidential and accurate records about individual students’
attendance as well as their performance and conduct in the classroom. They must enforce and
uphold the policies of their companies and school boards, as well as administrative procedures
and the rules and regulations of their school (Alamoud, 1991; Alharbi, 2017; Alheezan, 2009;
AlSaud & Qurban, 2016; Alshehri, 2005). Finally, they must participate in professional learning
22
and development at the independent, school, district, and regional levels in order to further
improve their professional skills, knowledge, and abilities.
Saudi Art Education and/or Social Studies
In general, social research includes everything produced through the work of social
experts to “tell about society” (Becker, 2007). The relationship between art and social studies
makes it possible to implement both of them through a cooperative pairing in a combined
curriculum. Education of both arts and social studies may be improved sequentially and
cumulatively (Manifold, 1995). While the field of social studies presents knowledge regarding
human practices, art has the power to produce an informal understanding of human practices that
occur during personal contacts and that generate ideas, values, attitudes, and insights. Art is a
way of knowing and studying the past, present, and potentially also the future. It may reflect time
as history, geography as a place, and politics and citizenship as issues of concern to people. For
example, the teaching of visual art is one of the effective teaching methods that promote visual
and critical thinking to imagine a series of historical events or geographical places as having
interconnected basic designs of form and purpose.
In many countries such as the United States, social issues like racism, terrorism, and
social responsibility are explored in terms of citizenship education (Enslin & Ramírez-Hurtado,
2013; Swaine, 2012). However, in Saudi Arabia, as is also the case for other Arab countries,
social issues continue to be seen in terms of t traditional conception. Faour (2013), who analyzed
the status of citizenship education in Arab countries, described the promotion of “official”
religious and political views and noted limits on students’ ability to engage in discussion or to
express ideas.
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Alharbi (2017) presented a detailed description of citizenship education in Saudi Arabia,
where the emphasis is on “citizens’ responsibilities, duties, identity formation, and obedience
towards the system and how one can achieve them,” not on such values as “freedom, equality,
fairness, freedom of expression, and participation in the decision making the process” (p. 82).
Teachers are expected to keep to the official curriculum. Even the forward-looking Mission 2030
emphasizes morality over engagement.
The content of social studies appears under Islamic studies, history, geography, and
citizenship education classes. Thus, the current study considers social studies as one of these
subjects. Al-Jaber (1990) stated that the goal for teaching social education is to address and
increase the knowledge of the surrounding environment, particularly the geography of the
country and the world, the natural surroundings, and the social, political, and economic
institutions of the country. Also, Saudi social education focuses on the responsibilities and roles
of the individual in assisting the society and the important relationships between the Arabic and
Islamic world, as well as countries of the Middle East and the rest of the world. Additionally,
social education should emphasize studying with regard to the problems of the rest of the world,
such as drought, the effects of war, and the efficient and wise use of natural resources.
Needed Developments in Light of Recent Socio-Political Changes in Saudi Arabia
In Saudi social education, according to AlSaud and Qurban (2016) and Alshehri (2005),
even though art is one of the common important contemporary social sciences in its promotion of
the power of desired citizenship values for their significant role in improving an artistic function
and powerful artistic sensitivity, there is a weak relationship between the social studies and the
art education curriculum. They confirm that the role of art education is major in achieving
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societal development efforts. Thus, using art in the social studies curriculum will be of aid in
obtaining these goals.
Educators have stressed that art education could be related to issues studied in social
studies classes such as citizenship education in support of knowledge about the societal-cultural
identity, heritage, and history (Atwah, 1995). However, when it comes to art education in
schools in Saudi Arabia, social issues are often left out of most of the curricula. However, they
appear more prominently in artistic works, which can be found in some areas such as museums
in historic places in the country and in the geography or history classes. Also, artistic works can
be seen in some extracurricular activities at schools such as those involved in national day, Eid
celebration, tree day, and teacher day.
Teaching art in schools has allowed people to create aesthetically pleasing and beautiful
artwork and show their artworks at exhibitions, but it has not led to helping students to
understand themselves (Alheezan, 2009; Alshehri, 2005), or increase their knowledge about
social issues or global issues. Saudi art education merely aimed at the production of art for art’s
sake, which became a central concept for art learning in Saudi art education classes. Alamoud
(1991) studied how visual art is recognized, valued, and appreciated in Saudi culture. He found
Saudi art education was limited to studio art, with little concern for social issues. Even though art
is the mirror and window for society and can reflect society’s issues, it is obvious there is a
limited relationship between art education and society.
Focusing on the teaching and learning of social issues in art education and after reading
and analyzing all viewpoints about the teaching and learning of social issues through art
education in Saudi Arabia, I believe in the power of art education in this country. Also, I believe
that the Saudi schools can serve as a promoter of social progress; however, some important
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landmarks of progress have yet to be achieved. I believe art teachers' strong concerns can
generate ideas for art active learning that can lead to social betterment in society because I
believe we are teaching to change the world and build the community.
Research Question 4
What is issues-based art education (IBAE)?
The History of the IBAE (IBAE) Approach
Art is a vital part of the practice of social life. In Art and Citizenship: The History of a
Divorce, Wiles (2016) argued that the primary purpose of art is to create society and citizenship
as activities of the community. According to Elliott, Silverman, and Bowman (2016), art can
make a positive transformation for humankind all over the world. People have a possibility of
learning about life through art. Dewey (1934) stressed the need to integrate art with personal and
community life and connect it with the everyday experience of life. Freedman and Stuhr (2004)
believe that the aim of art education must be not only to train students to become professionals
having high-quality skills and producing quality artworks but also to increase the relevance and
meaning of those artworks, praxis, and values in people’s lives. This aim, if met, will enrich the
social production of art.
Prior to the 18th century, the idea of arts as primarily a social phenomenon was owing to
the European idea of “art for art's sake,” which meant that art was divorced from any
educational, moral, or utilitarian purpose. Théophile Gautier (1811–1872) was the first person to
use the phrase as a slogan in the introduction of Mademoiselle de Maupin’s book in 1835. Elliott,
Silverman, and Bowman (2016) confirmed the idea that art is only for “internal or aesthetic
properties of entities considered to be ‘works of art’” (p. 3). Sadly, this aspect reduces the
importance of art as a powerful expression of social, political, ethical, and moral values. As
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artists, scholars, art educators, and art researchers, we need to find evidence to support the idea
that art's true worth is its benefit for communities of actual people. The artwork is created so
humankind can live and experience their conflicts and challenges. The arts reflect also and
invariably expressions of ideological faiths, knowledge, perception, and values.
Hence, artistic attempts prove to be a type of political responsibility to consider issues
and are involved in social themes. The function of the arts must be increased ethical
responsibilities. Art reflects humankind’s praxis, sharing, expression, and critical perspective,
and it reflects the critical perspective on the artist’s community, time, and place. There are many
examples of the relationship of art to social issues, including arts such as music, crafts, or visual
art. Some of them are at the local or international level, and they deal with contemporary or old
issues (Gaudelius & Speirs, 2002). For example, many current artists have created artworks
reflecting on issues such as the Holocaust, the terrorist acts of 9/11, and the Arab spring.
Bowman (2016) explained the relationships between citizenship and responsibility
through the examination of artistic participation and its importance in association with
responsibility extended to community need. The idea of using arts for community social issues
and citizenship involves many direct and essential assumptions for the methods of education in
the arts. The essential function of the arts' praxis is helping students to recognize and face local,
national, and world dilemmas through their artworks. The aims of art are not only to teach
technical skills, aesthetics, and expression, but also to encourage a generation to recognize and
understand primary community difficulties and participate in artworks in forms that are
beneficial for humankind. Grossberg (1994) confirmed that children “gain some understanding
of their own involvement in the world and in the making of their own future” (p. 18).
In Art as Experience, Dewey (1934) claimed that art has an ethical responsibility to the
27
community and that art arises from and is connected with people’s practice during their lives.
Also, if people want to make art separate from life, the value of this art will be reduced for the
sake of aesthetic benefit. Arts must be grounded in social practices and experiences. Elliott,
Silverman, and Bowman (2016) stated that “if the arts are inherently social practices, they should
be viewed, studied, and practiced as forms of ethically guided citizenship” (p. 6).
Instructional Strategy of the IBAE (IBAE) Approach
Bowman and Frega (2012) stated that in school, art teachers concentrate on the training
of art skills more than on education about the intersection between ideas and art and on personal
satisfaction more than on dilemmas and issues faced by students in their everyday lives.
However, in order for pupils to make meaning from their various contacts, they must be
encouraged to integrate knowledge into their own life. They have observed efforts to bring an
interdisciplinary approach to the schools. These efforts aim to show how the arts are linked in
substantive ways to other topic areas (Stewart & Walker, 2005).
Several art scholars such as Albers (1999), Elliott, Silverman, and Bowman (2016), and
Wiles (2016) agreed with them that the methods used for teaching and learning art today are not
adequately educative. Art educators ignore the importance of the moral dimension that
characterizes human practices. They attempt to drive pupils from merely putting their effort into
artistic production skills to working for a broad range of social ethical issues. As part of a
knowledge community, artists, art educators, researchers, and teachers should be working more
purposefully to assist pupils to understand how the arts could create and produce a meaningful
difference in people's lives to make the world a better place to live in. Elliott, Silverman, and
Bowman (2016) said that art education should consider the “form of apprenticeships through
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which students learn to approach art in ways that are socially responsible, responsive, and
constructive” (p. 11).
Dewey claims that authentic art should not merely provide aesthetic values but should
also have a target of assisting in the betterment of the individual and the community. Bowman
(2016) believed that “Because art has tremendous power both to effect social good and to subvert
it—to shape healthy vibrant modes of human collectivity and to undermine them—I submit that
artistic citizenship involves both remarkable privilege and tremendous responsibility” (p. 59).
Finally, art should aim to build fundamental beliefs that help citizens rotate around responsibility
and to enhance the strengths and ideas that include the individual’s aesthetics and the
advancement of citizenship goals.
Definition and the Procedures of Using IBAE (IBAE)
IBAE is an approach that connects art to the everyday lives of students through
exploration of real-world circumstances and gives each learner the chance to be an individual in
the classroom as well as experience different personal views and be more forgiving of others
(Gaudelius & Speirs, 2002; Gude, 2009). Social issues such as identity, culture, class, ability,
religion, beliefs, environment, morality, or community can be explored creatively during issue-
based art education lessons.
Helguera (2011) introduced four components for doing art social curriculum, which
include a comprehensive understanding of the methodical approaches, the possibility of
reconstructing and reconfiguring itself, an experiential approach toward art, and a refunctioned
curriculum of art history and art technique. Furthermore, Guay (2002) recommended seven steps
to use with IBAE: 1. Recognize the need for social action in art education curriculum; 2. Search
for resources; 3. Brainstorm and plan together and sharing resources; 4. Present “what if” idea
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possibilities; 5. Organize and develop a time line; 6. Follow the planned art learning experience;
and 7. Students and teachers in the end reflect and critique their accomplishments.
To plan an IBAE lesson, Guay (2002) suggested starting discussions about important
contemporary social issues by helping students brainstorm with mind mapping to discuss issues
in their community, which is an important and sensitive stage of the instructional lesson. He
suggested that the teacher could use teamwork and provide a list of issues such as “relating to
people of different ages, races, genders, and socioeconomic classes; biases and prejudices;
homelessness; family and belonging, the first peoples; the needs for community of diverse
peoples; conservation of natural environments, rain forests, ecology, interdependence, recycling
and cooperation; war, the depression, and industrial expansion (agriculture to industry); the
human body, drugs, alcohol, tobacco, and AIDS” (p. 306); then teachers must be involved in
planning for integrative learning and ask why the issues occur and assist each other to more fully
understand their practices and experiences of these issues, the students' s practice of these issues,
and the chance for positive interconnected education. First everyone chose the issue, asking
“What do you want your artwork to say?” Then students chose the type of art that they use to
express these issues. Discussing social issues is fundamental to provide students with a safe
environment and welcoming space, help students to symbolism ideas, and practice analyzing and
interpreting artwork to share and express their ideas. Emphasizing the individual differences and
experience will provide different results.
To assessment this method, in understanding the importance of joining knowledge
construction to authentic, real-world action, educators have seen that evaluation methods must
also be connected to the lives of learners. Stewart and Walker (2005) stated that "students are
helped to apply their new understandings to life situations, to demonstrate their achievement
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through performance tasks and projects, often in contexts other than those strictly associated
within the school” (p. 13). In addition, Laney (1996) suggested carrying out social action as the
last step in using DBAE and IBAE so that the students would be able to come up with a
reasonable/viable social action plan and a way of assessing the impact of that plan.
Research Question 5
What are the theoretical, philosophical, and/ or conceptual frameworks underlying IBAE?
Humanistic and Social Reconstruction Concept Foundation with IBAE: Why?
IBAE combines the two elemental conceptions and connects social reconstructionist and
humanistic curriculum conceptions. The humanistic evidence offers insights and stresses the
good in human behavior to focus on ways to promote the development of an individual’s self-
actualization (DeCarvalho, 1991; Firdaus & Mariyat, 2017; Valett, 1977; Weinstein & Fantini,
1970), while at the same time the Saudi 2030 Vision (2016) focused on “the fundamental values
of initiative, persistence, and leadership, as well as social skills, cultural knowledge and self-
awareness” (p. 28).
On the other hand, social reconstructionism is a philosophy centered on achieving social
change. As a practice, it aims to achieve social equity by developing the various social systems
upon which society rests. Its conceptions are dominant because they are being used to
reconstruct a new democratic society and values in Saudi Arabia. The approach seeks to equip
students with knowledge and skills to promote human rights, peace, morality, and social issues.
This kind of concept is a vehicle for social improvement, and it focuses on the intrinsic value and
equality of all humanity (Brameld, 1977; Martin, 1994; Stuhr, 1994).
The social agenda of art education can be a foundation that the community will work
through, of which Anderson (2003) indicates examples such as “personal, group-centered, and
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cross-cultural understandings approached through art” (p. 58). This understanding of social art-
motived issues is the basis for IBAE. Thus, the next section examines the educational concepts
and philosophies that appear to underlie the methods that I chose, covering the expressed and
implied principles and learning objectives concerning the actions and processes involved in using
IBAE is in Saudi Arabia.
Conceptual Foundations of the IBAE Approach
The Humanistic Conceptual Foundation of the IBAE Approach
The humanistic idea became universal in 1970. The humanistic concept contends that in
attempting to be scientific and rational, teachers and students can miss the personal and social
aspects of the curriculum and instruction, as well as ignore the artistic, physical, and cultural
aspects of subject matter (Hunkins & Ornstein, 2016). The key defenders of humanism include
Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers. A primary goal of humanism is the development of self-
actualized, independent people (Hunkins & Ornstein, 2016; Rogers & Freiberg, 1994).
In school, Firdaus and Mariyat (2017) stressed that the teachers’ function is to promote
learners to think critically and act according to the values of humanity. When the humanistic
approach is connected in education, the result will be a good student who is critical of reality.
Humanism focuses on human freedom, honor, and potential. According to Huitt (2009),
humanism is essential to examine the person as a whole, as a child grows and progresses over the
course of a life. It reflects the fact that the study of the self, motivation, and goals are areas of
particular interest (Hunkins & Ornstein, 2016).
In humanism, education is student-centered and personalized, and the educator’s role is
that of a facilitator. Affective and cognitive requirements are fundamental, and the goal is to
develop self-actualized people in a cooperative, supportive environment (DeCarvalho, 1991).
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There are five basic principles of humanistic education, which are being self-directed; producing
students who want and know how to learn; self-evaluation; the idea that feelings, as well as
knowledge, are essential in the learning process; and the conviction that learning is best in a non-
threatening environment. The creation of artworks and poems is conceptualized by this theory.
Thus, this philosophy matches and has a strong connection with art education (DeCarvalho,
1991). Therefore, art education should incorporate this concept to provide equal billing and
emphasize behavioral and cognitive philosophy. Humanistic thought confirms that art is as
essential as science. This idea reflects the relationship between this theory and social art in the
curriculum (Weinstein & Fantini, 1970).
This approach is a good fit for the Saudi art education curriculum context because the
Saudi art education curriculum uses academic subject matter and systemic concepts (Albakri,
2010). In addition, the curriculum is characterized by a traditional style even though there is a
new Vision for 2030 that must have new concept curriculum. Vision 2030 emphasizes three
themes, a vibrant society, a thriving economy, and an ambitious nation. My idea will work with a
vibrant society with strong foundations that aims to promote and reinvigorate social development
in order to build a strong and productive society and strengthen caring for families and
developing of children’s character. In addition, the vision emphasizes commitments to measure
how effectively schools are engaging parents in their children’s education. We will establish
parent-led boards in schools to open discussion forums and further engage with parents. Teachers
will receive training to raise their awareness of the importance of communicating with parents
and to equip them with effective methods to do so successfully (Gaudelius & Spiers, 2002).
However, the current Saudi art education curriculum is limited and weak regarding the
areas of helping students be self-directed, emphasizing self-evaluation, encouraging expressed
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feelings, and avoiding a threatening environment in teaching and learning art education. Many
students study for the reward of receiving high scores only (Albakri, 2010; Alheezan, 2009;
Almuraie, 2019). This framework will assist teachers to consider the importance of Saudi student
engagement, social life adjustment, and the strong imperative of family and community because
of the strong requirement to emphasize this concept in working for positive change in the
community.
According to Firdaus and Mariyat (2017), the primary purpose of the humanistic
approach in education is furthering the education process that was begun and is seen as existing
for the benefit of humanizing humankind. To humanize humans is to help them attain self-
actualization, self-understanding, and self-realization so that students can learn optimally.
Unfortunately, the curriculum is failing to help all students achieve self-actualization, self-
understanding, and self-realization so that they can learn optimally (Albakri, 2010).
Thus, the use of IBAE will help to achieve this objective to encourage social
development. This kind of approach will be appropriate for the Saudi art curriculum because of
the need for new developments of this kind in the global education world. This approach will
provide the kind of education that builds children’s fundamental characters successfully and
accomplishes the empowering of children’s education. These effective methods will create
discussion forums and further engagement with parents and teachers to raise their awareness of
social issues as they communicate with parents and equip them with effective methods to do so.
When Saudi students study within the humanistic art curriculum, they focus not only on
understanding the knowledge but also on emotional expression, especially with artworks. Thus,
learners develop the two sides of the brain because they think while they are gaining knowledge
and express their feelings (Valett, 1977). Therefore, this kind of curriculum is required because
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of the traditional methods that have been used and that depend on low-level thinking (Albakri,
2010). Also, with relation to key humanist concepts, the curriculum documents outline a role for
teachers as facilitators and mediators of the learning process (Combs, 1974). The humanistic
emphasis in the art curriculum provides learners with experiences that contribute to their
liberation and development. Self-actualization is crucial for the art curriculum given the past
years of dehumanization of learners, especially Saudi students.
The humanistic curriculum emphasis should include the uncovering of the self and
achieving the ability to respond to issues as a total person, both cognitively and effectively. It
aims to enable students to become self-confident, self-governing, and contributing members of
society (Weinstein & Fantini, 1970). To provide students with good experiences, the art
education curriculum should allow students to explore various themes through artwork and to
have self-confidence and help classmates in their art education. The connection between learners
and instructors becomes more significant and meaningful.
The Saudi art curriculum should work to further the Saudi Vision 2030 and to increase
the student’s ability to respond to issues as a total child, both cognitively and effectively. Saudi
art education should aim to enable the generation to become self-sufficient, self-directing, and
contributing members of society. For example, the art education curriculum might allow them to
investigate different issues through artwork in order to have self-confidence and help classmates
grow through their art education. The relationship between students and teachers must be
friendly and have meaning. Indeed, while the use of these approaches may make some
developments easier to implement, other goals for social dynamics may be difficult to achieve in
the culture, but not impossible.
Through the humanistic concept, Saudi students will learn to empathize and engage in
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critical analysis of social movements. Regarding this humanistic idea, learning becomes holistic,
focusing not only on the intellect but on the affective domain as well. This will increase
awareness and improve students’ skills in relation to social issues in order to solve these issues
positively and effectively (Alheezan, 2009). Also, this will allow for critical processing or
dialectical learning for all of society. The Saudi art education curriculum should outline the role
of the teacher as the facilitator, the mediator of the learning process, the resource gatherer, and
the motivator of student participation, who should value the individuality and worth of learners,
which is a key attribute of a humanistic curriculum.
The Social Reconstructionist Conceptual Foundations of the IBAE Approach
In the art curriculum, social reconstructionism is apparent in the history and cultural
heritage curriculum as the focus is on issues of identity. Theodore Brameld (1904-1987) founded
social reconstructionism as a way of reacting against certain realities that had been created by
World War II. The social reconstructionist movement became most influential in the 1930s. The
concepts it promotes are concentrated on art for life and social expression, on social art, and less
on art for art’s sake art. Furthermore, this new concept curriculum emphasizes technical skills to
prepare students for future careers, and an array of subjects are offered at the high school level,
namely, building, metalwork, professional graphics, and woodwork. This curriculum
concentrates the moral issues of education in society (Brameld, 1977).
IBAE humanistic approaches are better situated to see wider use in Saudi art education,
but social reconstruction is less common and limited in its use in countries such as Saudi Arabia,
in particular given the kingdom’s royalty government. Therefore, this concept will concentrate
on addressing social issues (e.g., poverty, war, health concerns, and the environment), but it will
not address issues such as democracy or social justice (participating in or establishing a political
36
organization or calling for government accountability). These social issues are the kinds of issues
that Saudi Arabia is facing right now.
The ideal curriculum is one that is based on social issues. A reconstruction approach
critically tests the civilization, studies controversial issues, considers reality, and serves learners
and teachers in their efforts to promote culture (Hunkins & Ornstein, 2016). In My Pedagogic
Creed, Dewey (1897) provides five articles about the social reconstruction concept, describing
different aspects of school through his reports on education, school, the subject-matter of
education, the nature of the method, and the school and social progress. Dewey (1915) stresses
that society is an organic union of individuals, and the school is precisely the form of community
life. He believes that the child is a human being and his/her social life is the basis of his/her
growth; he considers the student as human and emphasizes his/her relationships with social life
and community.
Additionally, Brameld (1977) believed that “students and teachers must not only take
positions; they must also become change agents to improve society” (p. 70). He focused on
understanding teacher responsibilities to discuss social issues in their lessons. Reconstructionist
instructors concentrate on a curriculum that highlights social improvement and positive changes
as the purpose of education. McNeil (2009) stated the social reconstructionist desire as that the
learners would “improve the real world” (p. 31). Regarding the Saudi Vision 2030, which the
country is working to achieve, the social reconstruction concept will be helpful for achieving
important social aims.
For example, one of the Saudi 2030 Vision’s (2016) objectives is to “endeavor to
strengthen, preserve, and highlight our national identity so that it can guide the lives of future
generations. We will do so by keeping true to our national values and principles, as well as by
37
encouraging social development and upholding the Arabic language” (p. 17). In line with this
concept in the art curriculum, art teachers should provide lessons on identity and national values
and principles. Also, they should create experiences for students that promote social values and
support improvement and create positive changes in line with the purpose of this vision.
The focus is on finding ways to deal with issues of controversy, especially in literature
and social studies. The focus is on dialogue, inquiry, and multiple perspectives. The
reconstructionist curriculum is a postmodern, conscious, open system of action that is interactive
and focuses on communal conversion. This curriculum should include political, economic,
social, cultural, and artistic aspects which impact the nature of the curriculum. For social
reconstructionists and critical theorists, the curriculum focuses on student experience and
stresses. Furthermore, Hunkins and Ornstein (2016) discussed social action in relation to real-
world problems, such as hunger, violence, terrorism, inequality, and inflation.
Community- based learning and bringing the world into the classroom are also strategies.
In the Saudi context, there is no need for social justice because it is required as a result of the
Islamic Sharia law which is the basis for the government; however, there is a need for continued
modernization; as Saudi 2030 Vision (2016) stated, changes are needed for the “social welfare
system to make it more efficient, empowering and just” (p. 29). Therefore, art lessons should
further the vision goals that promote and reinvigorate social development to build an active and
productive society and strengthen Saudi families, provide an education that develops children’s
fundamental characters, and empower social support systems.
Additionally, according to Anderson (2003), through critically examining “artworks,
students may gain access to attitudes, mores, and cultural understandings of themselves as
cultural beings in their own culture and concerning the cultures of others, thus fostering the sense
38
of global community. Understanding others humanizes them in our eyes” (p. 65). In summary,
the social reconstruction art education curriculum focuses on the organization of art as a
discipline that encourages students to become good citizens. In fact, the art education curriculum
wants the students to do what artists do.
Art education plays a vital role in assisting all of us – teachers and students alike – to
improve relationships through which we come to understand ourselves and others: relationships
that form the society, not only of personal beings, one with another, but also the community in
the more meaningful knowledge of understanding our station our life. This understanding agrees
with the Saudi 2030 Vision (2016), which aims to embed positive moral beliefs in children’s
characters from an early age by reshaping our academic and educational system. Schools,
working with families, will reinforce the fabric of society by providing students with the
compassion, knowledge, and behaviors necessary for resilient and independent characters to
emerge. According to Gaudelius and Speirs (2002), the focus will be on the fundamental values
of initiative, persistence, and leadership, as well as social skills, cultural knowledge, and self-
awareness. It will also promote cultural, social, volunteering, and athletic activities by
empowering our educational, cultural, and entertainment institutions. Therefore, through
focusing on art education and social reconstruction, art educators can apply all of these values
and directions in the art education class (Gaudelius & Speirs, 2002).
Regarding art education, Chung (2004) pointed out that social reconstructionist aims to
enable human beings to understand and change inequitable social relationships through aesthetic
practice. She believed in empowering learners to examine contemporary issues and become
apprised of and able to face unfair social relations. However, to support art education for social
improvement, art instructors should re-conceptualize art education and progress beyond
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understanding art as a form of artistic construction.
Indeed, with social reconstruction, the Saudi art teachers and educators must identify
social issues that have influenced students, which are part of their society, and as artists who can
consequently influence society by creating works that raise awareness of poverty, war, health
concerns, and the environment. This will promote knowledge and skills relating to human rights,
identity, and social issues and provide insights about class, gender, and ethnicity in the
community. In the process of art education, teachers should open a dialogue on topics such as
poverty so that students can engage in conversation and then express their values and their
understanding of poverty (Gaudelius & Speirs, 2002). Finally, humanistic and social
reconstructionism concepts in the art education curriculum are concentrated on social
improvement and increase the awareness of the social issues for the society.
Philosophies for Humanism and Social Reconstructionism in Light of the IBAE in Saudi Arabia
The epistemological structure of a curriculum conception concentrates on the nature of
knowledge and how we come to understand. Four major educational philosophies can be adopted
in classrooms; these are Perennialism, Essentialism, Progressivism, and Reconstructionism.
These educational philosophies differ in their conceptions of what should be taught. This section
examines the educational philosophies that underlie the methods and concepts that I have chosen
in relation to using IBAE in Saudi Arabia. There are various development theories for these
concepts. I have applied progressivism and reconstructionism as main philosophies, in addition
to the related theory of learning, humanism. The next section presents the educational
philosophies that underlie the methods that I have chosen.
Progressivist Philosophy
In my search for which concepts would be appropriate for the methods that I will use in
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art Saudi context, I found Dewey to be the closest as his work concentrates on students as
humane and individual. For Dewey, it is important for the human to participate in the community
to understand himself and society. John Dewey (1859-1952) was a psychologist, a philosopher, a
social critic, and perhaps a political activist as well. Indeed, Dewey considered human life,
experience, knowledge, empowerment, and goals as central, but to what? How did he use these
concepts? Dewey (1902) saw the school as an organization which could bring about humane
reform (a humanistic view of the curriculum), and social reform (a reconstructionist view of the
curriculum) for students; as a progressivist, he stressed learning by doing as opposed to rote
learning. Students were to learn how to live, not only to learn the content. As a pragmatist,
Dewey (1915) believed that reality must be experienced.
Progressivism believes that education should focus on helping learners develop into
enlightened and intelligent citizens; students should learn by doing (Dewey, 1915). He stressed
that learners should live entirely instead of preparing for adult life. Also, teachers in this school
of educational philosophy used experimental methods in teaching that encouraged the learners to
gain knowledge from experience and to let the students interact with nature and society.
Progressivists emphasize that students should test ideas by active experimentation and grow
while experiencing the world to make meaning through practice in the physical and cultural
context.
Dewey’s ideas are expounded upon in his books and essays (e.g. My Pedagogic Creed,
1897); The School and Society (1915); The Child and the Curriculum (1902); Democracy and
Education (1916)), which significantly impacted curriculum improvement. His ideas led to the
avoidance of a curriculum that was centered on the subject matter (Dewey, 1902); rather, he
41
designed a curriculum that was responsive to the needs and experiences of the individual and
society. He is connected to progressivist, humanistic, and social reconstruction concepts.
Humanist Philosophy
The roots of humanism are in the thought of Erasmus (1466-1536), who believed in five
fundamental principles for the goodness of children, that humans have free will, moral
conscience, the ability to reason, aesthetic sensibility, and religious instinct. He promoted the
idea that students should be treated politely and humanely and that education should not be
oppressive and tough (Scimecca, 2007).
In addition, this philosophy was developed as an educational philosophy by Rousseau
(1712-1778), who stressed the essential goodness of humans, understanding through the senses,
and education as a progressive and unhurried process in which the improvement of human
character would take place through the unfolding of life. It is also rooted in progressive theory as
Dewey promoted the child-centered movement in the 1920s. The humanist philosophy, which is
the center of the curriculum, reflects the aim of assisting understanding of schools, curricula, the
person, and the community. Regarding the humanistic curriculum, choice of what is to be
learned is critical and motivational; the learners should also be exposed to experiences which are
beneficial not only to themselves but also to the good of humanity as each learner is an
individual within a group of individuals (Weinstein & Fantini, 1970).
To Dewey (1915), the school as a social institution was to be a vehicle of social change
and therefore should equip learners with knowledge as humans and skills to enable them to be
agents of social change. As Dewey (1902) expressed, students were both individual human
beings and members of the community. I find humanism and social reconstruction to be the best
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matches for IBAE approaches in the Saudi context. Thus, the following section will discuss
humanistic and reconstructionist concepts and philosophies in light of the IBAE approach.
Dewey’s ideas had a profound influence on curriculum improvement. Dewey (1902) gave
birth to a curriculum that is child-centered, peer-centered, growth-centered, action centered,
process, society-centered, change centered, and equality-centered (Hunkins & Ornstein, 2016;
Webb, Metha, & Jordan, 2003). In The Later Works of John Dewey, which expressed a
humanistic concept, Boydston, (2008) stated “what humanism means to me is an expansion, not
a contraction, of human life, an expansion in which nature and the science of nature are made the
willing servants of human good” (p. 266).
Reconstructionist Philosophy
Regarding social reconstruction philosophy, the reconstructionist theory is related to
socialist ideas in the 19th century. Several scholars, such as Counts, Dewey, Lippmann, and
others, advocate social issues in education. Social reconstructionism is a philosophy that stresses
the addressing of social issues and a search to create and build a better society and a global
democracy. Social Reconstructionists were rooted in humanistic movement and social activism;
examples include Count and Rugg, whose theories rethink, reconsider, and conceptualize the
curricula. The curriculum theorists in that movement were preoccupied with discovering how the
curriculum might affect the social, political, and economic development of society (McNeil,
2009).
One of the leading theorists of the social reconstructionist model of the curriculum was
Paulo Freire (1993). Paulo Freire believed that Third World Countries should adopt his cultural
action ideas for concretization. This concretization awareness is realized just when the
participants are engaged and achieve in-depth knowledge of the real lives and can transform that
43
reality. Freire confirms that the policy creators should be aware of curriculum restrictions in
order to prevent them.
Both social reconstructionists and critical theorists held the belief that to improve human
conditions and overcome oppression, it was necessary to change systems. Paulo Freire (1921-
1997) was from Brazil. He had lived in poverty, an experience which led him to promote
literacy and education as a way of achieving change in society. He felt that it was necessary for
humans to learn to fight against oppression, neither oppressing others nor becoming victims of
oppression. Critical understanding and dialog are necessary to achieve this, and awareness must
be developed in order to defeat oppression and domination. Freire rejected the idea of “teaching
as banking,” in which education is deposited into the students’ heads by the teacher, seeing
education instead as an inquiry process in which the world is invented and reinvented by the
child (Freire, 1993).
Participation in social life is the primary objective. Moreover, Freire (1993) agreed that
knowledge helps to create perfect citizens and students should learn many aspects of life, such as
different languages, drawing, cooking, and sewing, in order to have new experiences.
Additionally, he stressed the preparation for activities or education processes by making sure the
teachers are educated and the environment is fully equipped for the activities.
My Positions and Examples
In humanistic and social reconstruction, the primary aim for IBAE approaches to art
education is to assist learners to understand issues about themselves and others through art.
Using this approach in the Saudi context will help in the discovery of the nature, values, and
strategies of Saudi traditional art and culture. Toward achieving a more moderate Saudi
transformation, IBAE will contribute to seeing modernist art as a reaction to the traditionalism of
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the Saudi community. Moreover, this kind of art will support postmodernism as a response to the
modernism of Saudi art, making possible changes to what we see today. According to Danforth
(2016), the country seems to be oriented “anew toward its past with a willingness to move
beyond the inertia and the conservatism of certain religious figures. This effort is worthy of
praise and is part of an attempt to construct a more moderate Saudi identity” (p. 166).
The main features of the teaching and learning of art education using IBAE are directed
at engaged learners in the higher stages of thinking and cognitive ability; these features will help
to improve the critical thinking for Saudi students because of the traditional methods that are
used at schools. Also, this method will open dialogue and communication, promoting support for
Saudi society, and developing ideas for integrated learning beyond the art classroom. In the
Saudi context, I will not emphasize social justice or social change because of the imperial system
and government.
However, I have addressed some of the basic features of social issues. Due to the special
features of the Saudi context, some features cannot be applied to the art education curriculum in
Saudi Arabia. I will be able to cover the main aspects of Issues Based-Art Education along with
the discipline-based art education (DBAE) ideas about community in the light of humanistic and
social reconstruction.
Research Question 6
What other instructional critical approaches are there, and why was IBAE chosen for this study?
Art Education Approaches in Light of Social Issues
For purposes of education, various local and global art instructors have started to shift
away from stress on traditional fine arts disciplines toward a wider variety of art and social issue
education. For example, Albers (1999); Lindström (2014); and Roman (1968) concentrated on
45
art as an agent for social change and art production in a community. However, Anderson and
Milbrandt (2004) focused on art for life. Ballengee, Morris, and Stuhr (2001) were concerned
with multicultural art and visual culture education. Also, Carpenter and Tavin (2009) focused on
visual culture, community, and public pedagogy. On the other hand, Bethel and Foels (2016)
addressed social work education using the arts. Below, I discuss these approaches to issues-based
art education.
Early in the century, professionals in education had considerable influence on policy
debates about the school as a civil organization, including the balance between its roles in social
transmission and art education. There are several types of IBAE throughout the world, some of
which are discussed in this section. It is beyond the scope of this study to review each issue-
based kind of art education, and I limit this treatment to the history of learning theory in relation
to social aspects of IBAE. These approaches represent the primary areas of social art
reconstruction, including art for life, visual culture, and multicultural approaches.
The Art Education for Life Approach/Socially Engaged Art/IBAE/Issues-Centered Art Education According to Whitehead (1967), there is only one subject matter for education, and that is
life in all its manifestations” (p. 6). This perspective guides the idea of art education for life and
relates to how students understand themselves and others from the home to the whole world. It
aims to assist students in understanding themselves and others through art and preparing them for
success in school and life. Anderson and Milbrandt (2004) believe that art education must be a
social tool for developing people’s lives by using social reconstructionism; also, artworks are
both windows and mirrors of people lives. It is this kind of art’s concern to provide a sense of
identity, value, and worth contexts that change the social issues within a community (Anderson,
2003). Teachers need to implement programs that allow discourse on morality and social
46
criticism and give their students the choice to understand and participate in contemporary issues
in their community.
Community and social growth are the goals of art for life. Art educators argue that the
effect of combining the artwork into social issues will be to create a deeper dialogue by
influencing students’ lives (Wagner-Ott, 2002) as well as their critical thinking ability as they
encounter the critiques and perspectives of their classmates who have chosen the same issues
with a diversity of consequences (Lampert, 2006). There are three components to the four
disciplines besides art education (production, aesthetic, criticism, and history), which are visual
culture, personal creativity, and new technology for art for life (Anderson & Milbrandt, 2004).
The practicing of IBAE has been transformed into new avenues for teaching and learning that
require crossing an array of bridges, creating new approaches and settings for art teaching and
learning.
The curriculum of IBAE includes closed-ended instructional aims and open-ended
instructional outcomes that lead to and complement each other. Closed-ended goals are intended
to teach skills and concepts. Open-ended meaningful outcomes are intended to empower students
to practice the skills and learn to express themselves meaningfully. According to Anderson and
Milbrandt (2004), in the context of using art for life, IBAE teaching and learning require a
natural connection between the skills and concepts gained through closed-ended goals and the
creative self-expression reached in terms of open-ended results. These skills need to be taught
and studied.
Art education should address how community life can be constructed and organized to
create a positive lifestyle and enable individuals to benefit from the strength arising from diverse
47
cultural traditions. With this realization of diversity, students will be better prepared to change
prevailing connections of power and strength within their lives (Anderson, 2003).
This understanding of art will help teachers to provide programs that open dialogue on
morality and social critique that engages instructors and pupils in the most critical present issues
and possibilities. Anderson and Milbrandt (2004) discussed four advantages of teaching and
learning the art for life, which are participating in a higher level of thinking, leading the
conversation about issues, enhance social support for students’ performance, and promoting
combined learning beyond the art classroom. Art is not merely aesthetically pleasing but also
necessary for our life and the quality of our life. There are seven strategies of IBAE, which are
the thematic inquiry, dialogue and cooperative exploration, critical analysis of art in authentic
contexts, historical contextual research, development of skills in making art, creative expression,
and critical reflection on personal and social meaning (Anderson & Milbrandt, 2004).
The Visual Cultural Approach
Visual culture is related to the changing nature of the art object, which plays an important
role in social construction; it is a form of social production. Early scholars on visual culture were
John Berger and Laura Mulvey. Martin Heidegger (1977), who referred to visual culture, pointed
out that “a world picture . . . does not mean a picture of the world but the world conceived and
grasped as a picture. . .” (p. 130). Visual culture is the aspect of culture represented in visual
pictures; it is the relationship between visual perception and knowledge.
Mirzoeff (1998) defined visual culture in general as “the visualization of things that are
not in themselves visual” (p. 6). One of the main tasks of visual culture is to know how these
complex images come together. Visual culture “does not depend on pictures but on this modern
tendency to picture or visualize existence” (p. 6).
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Freedman (1994) provided an outline of the relationship between gender identity and
curriculum through focusing on three phases of teaching visual culture, including understanding
females as forms of visual culture, responding to visual culture, and recognizing the gendered
characteristics of culture. Art education requires a deep understanding of the scope of diversity
issues by all those concerned with education. She advocated the teaching visual culture, as well
as understanding and analyzing the related social issues. Duncum (2009) confirmed that the
importance of visual culture is “to consider the relationship between imagery and the student
viewer” (p. 71). It combines the symbolic forms through which we look at the linearity of human
life and its development.
Furthermore, Kalin (2008) stated that the visual culture under discussion is different from
the real visual practice associated with a culture. In addition, Jameson (1984) argued that we are
living our lives through visual symbolism in “a whole new culture of the image” (p. 534). This
rethinking of art education requires an effort to theorize visualization as a method of
communication that is relevant to education and social conditions rather than merely
concentrating on esthetic expression. Duncum (2002) described two phenomena related to visual
culture, which are “a whole way of life, or ways of life, that is lived through imagery, and a
particular kind of image culture” (p. 15). Visual culture should be practiced within a Saudi
dialogical pedagogy (Alshaie, 2017). Students often know more and learn more quickly than
their teachers. Thus, the dialogue should be opened between student knowledge and teacher and
seen as one way to address visual culture. While adapting to students’ lived experiences, learning
requires a reframing of that practice in light of historical models and theory.
The Multicultural Approach
Multiculturalism has its roots in the late 1800s. Globalization is building an ever more
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diverse world. Thus, there is a need for multicultural education in the curriculum. Based on prior
studies, using social issues in art education will increase students’ awareness of different national
and global issues that are important for the community and the whole world in empowering
school culture and social structure. In the multicultural nation, learners have significant
opportunities to investigate another ethnicity, that of their classmate. Consequently, art
instructors have responsibilities to address; for example, Li (2018) advocated introducing "racial
issues and racism in class with students to foster a more accepting attitude" (p. 2) and assisting
them to reflect as they express their ideas visually.
Additionally, Dorn (2006) stresses that art education researchers must change their
research tradition to include social issues. Most of the current teaching of researchers in art
advocates and is engaged with social issues through art activities to investigate other cultures.
Furthermore, there are now domains in which students study social or environmental issues
through the art education curriculum because students will learn how to communicate concepts
about themselves or others in the world. Chalmers (1974) stressed that students need to see art as
having a communicative purpose through which it supports and maintains continuity and change
in cultures. Art educators should understand the social foundations of the multicultural arts and
promote the idea of the arts as a fundamental movement by confirming their function, value, and
necessity (artistic and non-artistic) in the enhancement of human activities. Therefore, students
can practice arts to better “maintain, perpetuate, and change their own culture as well as to
decorate and enhance their environment" (p. 25) as they increase their awareness of other
cultures.
Moreover, Chin (2016) advocated moving beyond a human relations approach in
multicultural art, which is the approach most heavily critiqued by theorists. He agreed with
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Cohen-Evron (2005), Mason (1999), and Milbrandt (2002) that there is a need to show how a
multicultural approach in art education classes has been practiced and performed in the
classroom as it is transformed from multicultural theory to practice. Furthermore, Chin (2013)
worked to promote the integration of multicultural curricula; he suggested five dimensions for
accomplishing the social construction of multicultural education through art education, which is
“content integration, equity pedagogy, knowledge construction, and transformation, empowering
school culture and social structure, and prejudice reduction” (p. 5). He suggested these
dimensions to assist art teachers in integrating social reconstruction of multicultural art into their
art curricula and practices in the classroom.
McFee (1996) believes in the necessity for art teachers to be aware of their cultural
values as they attempt to understand their students' cultural backgrounds and develop them so
that they can more successfully live in an evolving multicultural society because art is the basic
language of this diversity in their visually symbolic information age. There is a need for more
research to carry out multicultural and cross-cultural visual art education today. She states, "the
main goal of multicultural art education is to help students live in changing multicultural
societies, respecting their own background culture and its art as they learn to respect others'
culture and others' art” (p. 17). Art teachers and researchers who promote them are among the
quiet advance guard in these days of cultural diversity and change.
Why was IBAE Chosen for this Study?
What is the role of the curriculum? What is the role of the school? Is it a part of the
community? Should the school change the learner and separate her/him from societal
experiences? In what ways should the school collaborate with society? Should the school change
society? What happens if students choose topics in their curriculum from issues in their own
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society? All of these questions come to mind when one considers curricula related to society.
Schools, which are formal institutions that are related to more complex organizations, exist
within the social context. The social foundations of the curriculum should be recognized in
schools as well as in the home, the family, and the community. Because schools impact the
culture of the people that schools serve, at the same time as culture shapes the schools and the
curriculum, the school curriculum should consider a community’s needs and requirements. Thus,
using issues-based education can assist schools to impact the culture and society strongly
(Anderson & Milbrandt, 2004; Dewey, 1915; Martin, 1994).
In the art education field, the goal of the IBAE approach is to prepare students to
discover, examine, and participate in the power of art to increase social awareness about other
cultures through art education classes. Therefore, using IBAE will assist students to learn about
different cultures and to improve their understanding of themselves and others. Under this
curriculum, learners can discover how art is a reflection of cultural ideas, beliefs, and social
conditions as they negotiate life experience with art and make comparisons and contrasts
(Gaudelius & Speirs, 2002).
I recommend using IBAE for the Saudi art curriculum because it represents a
comprehensive approach through which students can understand themselves and others and
develop real-life skills for expressing meaning. The most effective approaches will be those that
are appropriate for the quality and characteristics of students, the educational environment, and
the possibility of application. Students can use art as a means to participate and express their
information in a way that can be healing and effective. AlSaud and Qurban (2016) recommend
using artistic practices for the improvement of social values and issues. According to Alshehri
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(2005), Saudi students should engage in social activities in relation to different common
responsibilities in the art education class.
It is important for the art education curriculum and art education systems to engage the
community in projects that are socially constructive and incorporate collaborative practices.
There is a need for research to be conducted in a context that leads to analysis from different
perspectives. Teachers and researchers need to become more ethical and self-critical by debating
among themselves as cultural participants working to help others along the path to art knowledge
(Stokrocki, 2004). In the context of the social IBAE approach in Saudi Arabia, there will be new
approaches to learning about issues that can more effectively deal with issues in society.
Research Question 7
What is discipline-based art education (DBAE)?
Discipline- based art education (DBAE), which integrates the art disciplines of art
history, art criticism, aesthetics, and art production, provides a curriculum development model.
DBAE, pioneered by J. Paul Getty in the 1980s, is one important educational program. It aims to
make art education more aligned with other academic disciplines and to build a standardized
structure for assessment. It not only was designed for grades K-12 but also has been established
at other educational levels. DBAE supports the idea that art education is for every student, not
only for those who have talent in creating art. Greer (1997) confirmed that the reason to promote
DBAE was to encourage the improvement of art education, shifting it from having an external
role in the curriculum to having a fundamental position in primary pedagogy.
DBAE is an important approach to art education, and Dewey may further be credited as
the godfather of DBAE because of his focus on interdisciplinary teaching and cooperative
learning. Dewey brought the outside world of work into the art curriculum and stressed the need
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for doing and for relating knowledge to learner experiences in art education. Currently, DBAE is
in vogue and has become an innovative way of teaching social issues. John Dewey’s ideas in
School and Society (1915) influenced the reconstructionist model of curriculum. DBAE is part of
art education for life and includes three additional foci, which are visual culture, community, and
technology.
Dewey (1915) stressed the importance of considering society when developing the
curriculum. Furthermore, he believed in social reconstruction through education and democracy.
He emphasized and employed these ideas to criticize unwanted characteristics and to recommend
improvement and change. He preferred to perform in schools and presented a model that society
should strive to achieve for the purpose of forming minds in understanding as well as modifying
the more stubborn characteristics of adult society.
Research Question 8
How can DBAE be used alongside IBAE?
The DBAE approach is connected to social issues from two sides. First, it is connected to
the four disciplines in the arts. From the other side, art criticism works perfectly because it can
represent social issues and incorporate criticism of these issues. It can move the student critic to
a position on personal and social issues that can be described only through works of art.
Emphasizing this point, Risatti (1987) stated that in “the rationale for teaching art criticism, it
might be useful first to discuss the art-critical process itself and the concepts and skills that
contribute to it” (p. 220). The function of social art often mirrors a specific society’s current
agenda or aims. Art educators throughout history have used many methods to educate learners.
Regarding the use of DBAE alongside IBAE, according to Laney (1996), DBAE can be
easily adapted for the objective of including other non-art disciplines. He recommended seven
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specific procedures to incorporate art-social lessons in employing the DBAE paradigm to assist
art education teachers to design their curricula. These steps are
(1) choosing a social studies concept, (2) locating a work of art, (3) researching the content and context of the image, (4) developing guided discussion questions, (5) developing an art production activity, (6) developing an activity to reinforce the social studies concept, and (7) planning a variety of assessments. Explanations and helpful tips are provided by the author for each step (p. 89).
When teachers merge DBAE with IBAE, the main aim is to reinforce pupils' learning by
enhancing the connections between the new knowledge and pupils' own background experience
and knowledge. Social action plays a strong part in developing students’ knowledge/skills; thus,
this stage provides examples of practical ideas and activities to help build a social action that
inspires students' own original ideas on how to be involved in activities that have the potential to
benefit their community. As they carry out social action with their art work, social action will
assist in helping the pupils 'live' the concept(s) in the classroom by giving them real-life
experiences with the concept(s). By using DBAE and IBAE, the students are more able to come
up with a reasonable/viable social action plan and with a way of assessing the impact of that plan
(Laney, 1996).
The teacher could lead a discussion or brainstorming session on how to translate what
they have learned into social action and how to evaluate the success/impact of their efforts. For
example, in an art-social lesson on the appreciation of cultural diversity, the teacher could ask
pupils to prepare to plan one of the social actions below and to implement the social action plan,
including. Examples of social actions are the following:
1. Pupils can turn the artwork into a poster with a caption/ message for display in the school hall.
2. People can sign their names to indicate agreement or appreciation of cultural diversity or the message on the poster.
3. Pupils can conduct a survey to get their classmates’ reactions to the artwork or poster.
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4. Pupils can organize a school fashion show of traditional costumes and invite the community.
5. Pupils, on a special declared day, can wear traditional costumes to school to represent different regions of Saudi Arabia.
Research Question 9
What prior research has been done regarding teaching about social issues with and through the arts?
Evans, Newmann, and Saxe (1996) defined Issues-Centered Education as a concentration
on “problematic questions that need to be addressed and answered, at least provisionally” (p. 2).
The main differences between traditional curricular approaches to social studies and the issues-
centered curriculum is that traditional social studies curricula measure success by the students’
having learned the facts presented in textbooks and teacher presentations, whereas the issues-
centered curriculum measures their progress toward achievements reflecting an intellectual
ability to discuss controversial issues which will prompt students to engage in the development
of the community actively (Evans, Newmann, & Saxe,1996). It aims to help students learn about
reality rather than merely learning traditional knowledge.
From the late 1940s to the present, controversial social issues have been incorporated into
education. Pedersen and Totten (2013) pointed out that Gross was a clear voice arguing for the
insertion of controversial problems and approaches into the education system. Robinson and
Nelson (2007) noted that “Apparently, without a systematic approach in mind, but with a keen
sensitivity to the needs of young people and the aims of a democratic society in the midst of
theory’s second Red Scare, Gross felt his way toward a progressive pedagogy of problem-
solving and dealing with social issues” (p. 225).
Additionally, OchoaBecker (2006) questioned how well we are preparing our citizens.
She concluded we were doing “not very well” (p. 141). Social studies curricula are responsible
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for citizenship education. She complained that these curricula have depended on the lecture,
textbook, and memorization that students tend to see as uninteresting, an approach which has
been reflected in the low levels of citizen cooperation and participation with regard to the issues
that face their communities and to global issues. A survey of this topic reveals that there are
different terms used to refer to a pedagogical approach that incorporates social issues into a
curriculum, including issues-centered education, social issues for a change, art education for life
approach, socially engaged art, issues-based art education, integration of social and art education,
and social practices in the disciplines.
The Importance of Issues-Centered Education
When school systems adopt a social issues-centered curriculum, that will increase the
benefit to the community which arises from critical thinking, investigating, creativity, evaluating
of evidence, and decision making. Thus, an issues-centered curriculum does not merely focus on
content; it also improves students’ rational abilities. Here, I review prior studies of the
importance of teaching social issues as part of the school’s pedagogical practice. Evans and Saxe
(1996) confirmed that practicing this kind of education will assist students to take part in projects
that will have a clear influence on real social issues. The issues-centered curriculum represents a
significant commitment to increasing assistance to citizens and the quality of community life.
Social studies and issues-centered education developed from the earliest human practices
and experiences. Charles Beard, a progressive historian, began working to improve social studies
education and discussed the complex challenges that social studies presented to educators in the
1920s. The fundamental roots of the issues-centered curriculum are grounded in studies of social
issues that inform the human situation and help students to build the personal knowledge
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necessary to find resolutions. Also, Beard (1929) argued that human issues were of central
importance in social studies.
The issues-centered curriculum directly empowers students. Ahlquist (1990) concluded
that one purpose of social studies was to aid students in solving everyday dilemmas in their lives
and to support their development of a moral ground on which individual and social connections
can be built. He believed that the issues-centered curriculum must aim not only for argument or
rational thought but also for effecting positive change for the community. From another
perspective, Hanvey (1982) claimed that issues-centered education could improve students’
abilities in perspective awareness, helping them gain the skills to diagnose, analyze, assess, and
value various views on the particular problem. Art teachers should use social issues not only as
the subject or for critical thinking but as pedagogical creeds.
The Imperative to Make Issues-Centered Education Part of the School Curriculum
Many scholars (Evans & Pang, 1992; Engle & Ochoa, 1988; Lee, 1974; Oliver & Shaver,
1966; and OchoaBecker, Morton, Autry, Johnstad, & Merrill, 2001) have stressed the importance
of making the study of social issues part of the school curriculum and concentrating on social
issues as a part of curriculum disciplines. Furthermore, Evans, Newmann, and Saxe (1996)
agreed that teachers should understand and apply the main aspects of issues-centered education,
along with its indications for curriculum, instruction, method, and evaluation. Engle (1989)
directed most of his work toward supporting a curriculum centered on decision making about
social issues.
Furthermore, Robinson and Nelson (2007) studied the historical and intellectual
frameworks of various perspectives of social studies education. Using issues-centered instruction
in the curriculum will be beneficial in improving students’ understanding of the subject matter;
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further, it will result in more positive attitudes and deeper knowledge on the part of students
regarding how to represent their views. Also, Hahn (1996) agreed that knowledge is gained and
attitudinal consequences occur when teachers include issues in their curricula and have
themselves internalized those beliefs and reflected them in their instruction methods. Moreover,
when the curriculum includes issues- centered education, students might engage more in class
conversations, engage in more deep thinking, and become more knowledgeable; they also will
enjoy thinking and doing research about social issue considerations that will be reflected more in
their understanding of their community’s issues.
In sum, it is fair to describe the issues-centered study as a focus recommended and
supported by progressive curriculum research. Also, the education system should confirm the
importance of and continue to make efforts to implement issues-centered practices (Wraga,
1999). If the community, teachers, and educators want future generations of students to be
successful, they must prepare them to take on the responsibilities involved in participatory
citizenship; therefore, their education should include a curriculum that is issues-centered.
The Global Movement to Integrate Issues-Centered Education Within the Art Curriculum
Art can be used as a means of exploring the basic values relevant to social issues for the
community. Some scholars (Albers, 1999; Atkinson & Dash, 2005; Bethel & Foels, 2016;
Berman, 2009; Beauregard, Gunter, & Paquette, 2017; Chang, Lim, & Kim, 2012; Carvalho,
2014) have pointed to the potential of art to improve education through providing lessons on
social issues. Art is unique in its ability to lead us in the direction of social change, and it,
therefore, has a significant role to play in the community.
Several scholars have provided recommendations for pedagogy. For example, Chang,
Lim, and Kim (2012) have suggested three strategies to teach art education, one of which is an
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issues-centered approach. They emphasize using social and cultural issues as a foundation for art
courses. In a similar recommendation, Taylor, Carpenter, Ballengee-Morris, and Sessions (2006)
suggested that “rather than basing curriculum on learning a medium or technique, we
recommend that art teachers base their units of instruction on a problem, issue, or question
gleaned from works of art and visual culture” (p. 39). This method enables students and art
teachers to be more reflective when framing societal issues and enacting solutions.
How Issues-Centered Education Informs Art Education
Dewey’s (1909) book, Moral Principles in Education, confirmed that art was the main
discipline that reflects and is centered on social issues and the transformative power of
art. Students can create simpler forms and images in their minds regarding social issues within
the community as they experience art, as is evident in the art from Greece and Rome, which
represents those prior societies even though "the civilizations are themselves relatively complex"
(p. 37). That art reflects the different aspects of agricultural life and hunting and shows great
power of individual expression. The arts can also give us clear insight into persistent issues
pertinent to society.
Dewey (1909/1985) argued that the art curriculum help to improve students' experience
and skills to deal with social issues because of the power art gives students to express
themselves, as well as providing a reference to a special viewpoint on community issues, and a
particular perspective on contemporary issues. To Dewey, real education is always socially
engaged in the community.
Over the years, artists have used their tools and artwork to reflect on the social issues of
their time. Examples of this reflection include many artistic social movements, such as that
extending from the time of Dada through post-World War I. Dadaism was an early 20th-century
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European avant-garde art movement which began in 1915, in New York; later, in 1920, Dada
became famous in Paris. Furthermore, in the 1950s and 1960s, pop art became expressly
concerned with social criticism as its primary purpose. Famous works of art such as Goya's The
Third of May (1808), David's The Death of Marat (1793), Copley's Portrait of Paul Revere
(1768), Innes' Lackawanna Valley (1855), and Picasso's Guernica (1937) offered unique views
on a variety of political or social issues.
In the 21st century, there has been a significant increase worldwide in interest in art
educational programs aimed at producing art that incorporates or comments on social issues.
Artists have often had central roles in the world’s social movements; the issues they have
addressed include violence, terrorism, racism, and moral decomposition. Paintings, photographs,
and poetry are used to question and challenge, with an aim to change and affect situations of
inequity. Through our expression as artists and students with talent, artists can change and
challenge cultural narratives. Many artists today are faithful in their efforts to make work that
addresses urgent social issues and changes the way we see the world (Anderson & Milbrandt,
2004; Darts, 2006; Gaudelius & Speirs, 2002; Milbrandt, 2002). Most artists continue to work in
traditional styles, but other artists, as well as art educators, explore new purposes for art such as
working for social engagement and change in their art, interacting in a dialogue with society.
A review of prior studies of the use of art to affect social issues shows that it is important
for the art education curriculum and the art education system to encourage the community to
become engaged in projects that involve collaborative and socially constructive practices. All of
the kinds of arts (music, visual art, performing art, craft, sculpture, design, photography, dance,
and drama) have features that lead to their having a very positive impact on social issues; in
addition, they have enjoyed a long tradition of addressing social issues. Therefore, art is an
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optimal medium through which students can be helped to understand contemporary social issues.
To increase education’s influence on society, issues-centered instruction should be added to and
addressed in the different disciplines, and particularly in art education, taking into consideration
the implications of artistic mediums for the social issues in the local society or nationally.
Even though many studies have confirmed the importance of integrating social issues into
different disciplines’ curricula, and although art education is one of the major curricula at
schools, few studies have focused on applying these ideas to art. Beard (1929) stressed that
“human beings live not by election statistics and battle alone, but also by industry, by
housekeeping, by co-operation with their fellows, by all the arts of love, joy, and admiration ...
the schools simply cannot ignore the demands of life, keep aloof from its pressing problems of
choice and conduct” (p. 369). Students should study world conflicts and difficulties in their lives
through what they learn at schools. Evans, Newmann, and Saxe (1996) said that “the study of
issues if it is to lead to the development of in-depth understanding, must also include content
from historical cases, literature, art and music” (p. 3). Thus, the practice of Issues-Centered
Education could be assisted and complemented through the teaching of art and other disciplines
(Onosho & Swenson, 1996).
Hahn (1996) presented an overall view of the researchers who have encouraged an
issues-centered curriculum, concluding that art and the other majors such as law, religion,
education, literature, the sciences, and philosophy should provide fundamental knowledge about
the causes and effects of providing social issues-centered education. Teachers should create a
connection between social issues and the students' own personal lives as much as possible
through an interdisciplinary approach. Shaver (1992) stressed that issues-centered education
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should include not only the social sciences but also arts and that it should focus on the
knowledge produced by related research.
In addition, Kniep (1986) and Levak, Merryfield, and Wilson (1993) concluded that even
though the most significant data relevant to issues-centered education come from history,
political science, economics, geography, anthropology, sociology, and psychology, social studies
educators should incorporate the insights from literature, music, art, sciences, and mathematics in
order to view issues from various aspects. OchoaBecker (2006) believed that there was “no end
to the availability of such literature, art, and music that can heighten the significance of
controversial issues and challenges to the human condition” (p. 51). He confirmed that teachers
should know the conditions related to issues of interest and should learn how to teach, find
evidence, and apply the results.
Furthermore, Ballengee-Morris, Carpenter, Sessions, and Taylor (2006) suggested that
“rather than basing curriculum on learning a medium or technique, we recommend that art
teachers base their units of instruction on a problem, issue, or question gleaned from works of art
and visual culture” (p. 39). Rather than concentrating only on medium or technique in the art
curriculum, art teachers must raise instruction to a new level by presenting to their students a
problem, issue, or question to be resolved and trying to solve it, employing artworks. The focus
is on giving a voice to students and helping them to understand the community and to create
positive change in society. Therefore, the carrying out of art curriculum content analysis and a
survey of art by teachers and educators as a tool for examining social issues and citizenship
education is vital to art education.
Carpenter and Tavin (2009) stated that the reconceptualization of art education is causing
a change in the focus from traditional art forms to a “critical, historical, political, and self-
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reflexive understanding of visual culture and social responsibility” (p. 245). Also, they shared the
idea of Blumenfeld-Jones (2004/2006) and Pinar et al. (2004) in describing the art education
curriculum as being oriented to experiences such that “the curriculum comes to form as art does,
as a complex mediation and Reconstruction of experience. In this regard, the curriculum can be
likened to an art form” (pp. 567-568).
Among scholars studying the reconceptualization of the art education curriculum field,
one of the most prominent is Stephen Carpenter. He argued for understanding the theory of art
as related to works of art, projects, and practice in both the academic world and the community
in 2012. Carpenter (2014); Carpenter, Cornelius, and Sherow (2010); Carpenter, Cornelius,
Muñoz, and Sherow (2011); Carpenter and Taylor (2013); Arcak, Boulanger, Carpenter,
Cornelius, Muñoz, and Muñoz (2011); and Carpenter (2010) advocated for a shift from the
traditional model to a model that recognizes the critical, political, and social context.
In “Art Education beyond Reconceptualization: Enacting Curriculum through/with/
by/for/of/in/beyond Visual Culture, Community, and Public Pedagogy,” Carpenter and Tavin
(2009) argued that “these simultaneous areas of curriculum discourse support our premise that
art education is in a current state of struggle; a state that we interpret here as a
reconceptualization of art education” (p. 247). The contemporary and recently developed shift in
the reconceptualization entailed performance “in the process of positive personal and social
change” (p. 250). Art has been reconceived as responding to the “ideas of self, world, and art
worlds brought on by the postmodern condition and postmodern theorizing” (p. 251). Those who
make and those who enjoy art live in the real world, of which conflict is a part; in addition, arts
are always expressions of people's ideological and political ideas, values, and understandings,
both collective and personal.
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Furthermore, Carpenter and Tavin (2009) argued that art lessons should be designed as
directives on problem issues and that students should be taught about contemporary culture
critically, through both digital and hypermediated means. The teaching focuses on areas
including democratic attitudes regarding social issues and the study of issues of social justice.
According to Carpenter, it is important for art educators to understand the curriculum as
symbolic performing; they should not focus merely on what teachers can teach the students to
do.
All of these scholars have confirmed that research must be conducted in the same context
while resulting in analysis from various viewpoints. Researchers must become more self-critical
and more ethical by engaging in debates with each other as cultural participants working to help
others along the path to art knowledge (Stokrocki, 2004). Also, there is strong advocacy for an
increase in research that discusses and tests the use of issues-centered education in art education
at schools today. All the related literature that was found offered a platform for the use of
contemporary art as a means by which the perceptions of individuals and all of humanity can be
altered.
Through art education, educators can change the way ideas are represented and also
inspire new developments in their community. The general benefits of social art are well known.
Helguera (2011) confirmed socially involved art can ignite the dissatisfaction and disquiet that
are necessary for change; furthermore, social art helps people reflect, collaborate, and create with
regard to issues that society must face. Social art can lead to the beginning of conversation at the
citizen level as well as with participants around the world. As culture changes, the world can also
change (Darts, 2006). Furthermore, our identity is constructed via culture and art. Therefore,
artists and art educators must begin their efforts to change the world with schools and education.
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Eisner (2001) wrote that “the arts in the plural and the visual arts, in particular, are enhancements
of life, but what a teacher as a human being contributes to his or her students' lives exceeds the
scope of art, even when the arts are conceptualized in their widest form” (p. 10).
Totten (2014) believed that what everyone involved in education employs in the schools
is the prime and most powerful tool of social development and change. He asserted that
education, considered this way, is concerned with the most unique and perfect combination of art
and societal concern that is possible in the students’ social experiences. Benedict et al. (2015)
espoused a more practice- centered method in which issues are applied to art pedagogy and real-
life teaching situations or art-making contexts. Finally, it seems clear that the art teacher is not
simply involved in training individual students, but also is engaged in shaping the development
of the right kinds of attitudes about social life and understanding of issues (Helguera, 2011).
Artists and artistic works often produce great developments in terms of social and
personal experience, and they can also provide insights into social problems and situations
(Newhall, 1978) which can be applied to supporting involvement in issues and to increasing the
insight and knowledge we can have into important issues in society (Lesy, 1982). Thus, today in
classes in art education, the work of students can be applied to representing artistic expressions’
social purposes. Beyond the art curriculum, teachers of art can support and increase the
awareness of particular issues and current problems under discussion and debate in the
community.
Applying Issues-Centered Education in the Art Curriculum
Based on prior studies, to prepare effective citizens, it is important to come to terms with
issues of controversy in school classrooms. Art is one of the disciplines that give us a way to
respond to social issues, to comment on social issues, to begin to think about these problems in
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new ways, and perhaps even to devise approaches and solutions with regard to these social
issues. Social practice art, art for social issues, or issues-centered education is an emerging,
interdisciplinary field of study and practical education that rotates between the humanities and
the arts. Even though many scholars and much research advocate for the use of issues-centered
education within the curriculum, many challenges are met in the actual implementation of this
model.
According to Dana (1996), the teaching of issues-centered education depends on who is
teaching. Thus, some who are attempting to implement issues-centered education might fail due
to a weak curriculum. She recommended certain programs for following and discussing subjects
of social concern. She also recommended participating with other arts and sciences teachers to
lead massive lecture courses that focus on significant social dilemmas in greater depth. She
believed the current situation will not change until the teachers for those courses are committed
to issues-centered education. She believed that “it is in such actions that the promise of issues-
centered teacher education lies” (p. 304).
Jelich (1996) suggested several supervisory policies that would aid reflective, issues-
centered teachers, observing behavior, forming up policies, framing goals, and setting a timeline.
The most important sign of progress in the issues-centered method involves the building of an
environment which is helpful to the development of a relationship between directors, issues-
centered teachers, and students. The second sign is supporting reflective, issues-centered teachers
in defining concerns clearly in a proper discussion before they enter the classroom. The final sign
is the supporting of self-analysis on the part of thoughtful teachers concerned with issues through
the use of objective observational data and also an evaluation of their attention being paid to
addressing these concerns (Jelich, 1996).
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On the other hand, Blair (1996) claimed that art teachers have made difficult
determinations about choosing art class content that is compatible with parents’ concerns about
issues that are facing society. He suggested several ideas to deal with these challenges, some of
which are inviting community and parents, celebrating with others, and empowering students to
understand societal issues. By increasing issues-centered education knowledge such as
knowledge of censorship, teachers can determine art class content and a curriculum that satisfies
the requirements of students and leads to the greatest benefits for them (Gaudelius & Speirs,
2002).
Repa (1990) advised art teachers to not self-censor, to not avoid issues considered to be
controversial and to not attempt to imagine what might seem aggressive to someone else. In
addition, teachers should be able to discuss taboos, and the cultural issues that surround these
topics should be thoughtfully considered with pupils to improve awareness, sensitively. Evans,
Newmann, and Saxe (1996) advocated for the design of programs and projects that are useful in
dealing with issues of controversy for advocates of the curriculum that is issues-centered.
Furthermore, Engle and Ochoa (1988) called for combining study and investigation of an
extensive variety of views on the topic or issue that is under discussion, including more
conservative views, to support pupils in their efforts to make up their own minds. They
recommended using investigating questions as a link for creating models and supplies and
addressing problems from an extensive range of perspectives.
Also, Evans and Avery (1999) confirmed that art teachers’ roles in supporting issues-
centered education in class should include promoting caring and useful methods for controlling
learner behavior and building open, safe, comfortable, and supportive environments to assist
learners in free expression about the issues. Art teachers must concentrate on ideas, not
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personalities. Jones (1993) asked schools to endorse a specific procedure for supporting free
expression.
Example of Informing Students about Social Issues in Art Education
One of the challenges that face applying the ideas of social issues art education and
practice at schools is that there are not many models and examples that teachers can apply in
education. Thus, some examples that might help art teachers and artists to work in light of these
ideas are presented here. One famous example of art as social practice is Picasso’s Guernica, an
oil on canvas painting created by Pablo Picasso in 1937. The large painting portrays people and
animals suffering as they are distorted by chaos and violence. A gored horse, a cow, and fires
figure prominently in the composition. Picasso created the painting in reply to the attack by
Italian and Nazi German airplanes on the Basque Country village of Guernica in northern Spain,
an attack requested by Spanish Nationalists. However, the aim of including social issues today in
art education is not only to make art that represents occurrences of social injustice as was done
with art from the past, but also to apply the various forms proposed by the growing field of
contemporary art as part of a collaborative, cooperative, and participatory social purpose to
change reality in terms of progressive rights, community structure and law, and transformation.
In Art as Social Action, Sholette and Bass (2018) provided examples and lessons for art
teachers to help them with their engagement and practices in the classrooms. They provided very
helpful ideas thematically and addressed several issues of social concern. They confirmed there
are several programs and scholarly workers in this field who have contributed to the
development of the artistic and pedagogical commitment to the practice and study of socially
engaged art. They are concerned with different areas including pedagogy focused on feminism
and social justice, politics, critical practice, responsibility, and social engagement. They provide
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the names of many contemporary artists’ and researchers’ names, some of whom are experts in
the field, including Ted Purves, Paul Ramirez Jonas, Claire Bishop, Mariam Ghani, Adeola
Enigbokan, the Yes Men, Chemi Rosado-Seijo, Alicia Grullón, Tomie Arai, Deanna Bowen,
Nato Thompson, Krzysztof Wodiczko, Pepon Osorio, Sarah Fritchy, Liz Park, Fran Ilich
Morales, Amin Husain, Alfredo Jaar, Dread Scott, Larry Bogad, Sean Starowitz, Yevgeniy Fiks,
Marco Baravalle, Stephen Wright, and Saul Ostrow.
In Participatory Art and Social Action, Sholette and Bass (2018) stated that Ted Purves
and Tim Rollins are dedicated contemporary artists who advocate for socially engaged art
education. This project aims to increase the number of artists and theories and overall
participation in this art field. They provide description and examples from their extensive
experience to apply to the teaching of social issues in art education, and they present examples
for the lessons and activities that help art teachers and educators to use art to address social
issues.
Dewey (1897) believed that “the only true education comes through the stimulation of the
child’s powers by the demands of the social situations in which he finds himself. Through these
demands, he is stimulated to act as a member of a unity, to emerge from his original narrowness
of action and feeling, and to conceive of himself from the standpoint of the welfare of the group
to which he belongs” (p. 232). To be socially involved and to foster change, community art
practice must transfer art from the practice of art for the classroom to the practice of art for the
community.
After reading and analyzing all viewpoints about teaching and learning social issues, I
have an increased belief in the power of education. I believe that the school can serve as an
impulse toward social progress; however, sometimes this goal is not reached. In the context of
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educating and being educated about social issues in art education, I believe art teachers with
strong concerns can generate ideas for active art learning that lead to social betterment. Hamilton
(2008) emphasized that the methods of learning about social issues can and should vary, but the
goals ought to be clear. Thus, art teachers should teach social issues in their curriculum so that
they can help their students understand their lives and themselves. I hope every teacher becomes
concerned about teaching social issues as a means of developing the community.
Each approach has its own collection of challenges, and those challenges make it more
difficult for educators to achieve the goals of any content area addressed. Thus, art researchers in
the field must discuss and understand these difficulties to help teachers apply this model to art
education. Also, to develop skills in communicating and interacting with others, students must
understand social issues at the local and global levels. Through using issues-centered education,
students will learn skills and a variety of cultural knowledge that will help them to understand
social issues in various contexts and cooperate with others to address these issues and resolve
them (Gaudelius & Speirs, 2002; Gude, 2009).
To conclude, art is a crucial part of human development and is at the base of effective
education. Nevertheless, based on the research in the field, there is a need for issues-centered art
education practices and experiences because few organizations are invested in art research. The
purpose of the Art Education Journal is to share experiences and research on artistic engagement
in learning and to create and support collaborative organizations. In the 21st century, the
Journal’s trend is toward “Giving Voice to Art Education”; it focuses on advocacy, which has the
potential to affect political, economic, and social landscapes at the local and national levels.
Thus, the journal tries to promote art education beyond the educational system and in the broader
social context. As social practice art education grows in demand and becomes global, educators
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should continue to discover and develop themselves and their students. I believe we are teaching
with a goal to change the world and build the community.
IBAE: Example of a Particular Educator
Various issues-based art educators have used several types of social art approaches. June
King McFee (1917-2008) was one of the early advocates of joining art education to real life and
social issues. Her idea stressed the citizen's responsibility to assess the condition of art
participation in society. She believed that learning was behavioral organization, and the learning
that society needed was that which would produce a direct change in behavior. She addressed
multicultural approaches to art and teaching, environmental design, and ways in which
psychology can be of aid to demonstrate the way we see, understand, and know art and the world
in general. She understood the need for artists, teachers, and art educators to become engaged in
addressing societal dilemmas, and she recognized the power of art as a primary form of
expression and communication (Congdon, 2008).
Her most famous works are Society, Art, and Education in 1966 and Art, Culture and
Environment, authored with Rogena Degge in 1977. McFee is best known for promoting cultural
understanding through the arts. She believed in teaching art according to a child’s needs.
According to her “perception delineation” theory, learning was a behavioral adjustment, and the
education that society needed was guided change in behavior. She called on teachers to be
sensitive to the use of art as a communication medium and to provide students of different
cultural backgrounds with ways to cope in the mainstream of society without causing them to
devalue their cultural background. From that basic assumption come several ideas that have
some importance not only to art and art education but also to the overall cultural and global
world.
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Several contemporary social art education teachers and educators have followed her
theory; an example is Laura Chapman (2000), who believes in there are possibilities for arts
education to concentrate on civic competence in the arts, with adequate attention to critical,
historical, and contemporary studies of the overt and the covert use of artistic influences in
education, “political life, entertainment, advertising, the built environment, and consumer goods”
(p. 28). One of the best known of her books is Approaches to Art in Education (1978). Her
scholarly work considers in considerable depth some of the most important foundations for art
education, children's artistic improvement, suggested activities in different media, and program
planning and evaluation.
Another educator, Graeme Chalmers, is Professor Emeritus of Art Education and the
author for several books, the best known of which is Celebrating Pluralism: Art, Education, and
Cultural Diversity (1996). As an art educator, Graeme worked with others to move art education
into diverse areas and use the arts to address issues of social justice. Another art educator
concerned with social issues was Paul Duncum, who focused on visual culture. He published
Visual Culture: Developments, Definitions, and Directions for Art Education in 2001. He
outlined the shift from studying art to studying visual culture in contemporary cultural life and
provided suggestions about a curriculum for visual culture. He believed that visual culture is now
an art educational paradigm that should be practiced in the visual culture art education
classroom. He strongly focused on student-based research built upon critical thinking and
inquiry, each of which reflects a different understanding of the definition of studio practice in the
classroom.
Kerry Freedman, a professor of art and design education, focuses on questions
concerning the relationship of the curriculum to art and culture and on inquiries into student
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engagement with visual culture, creativity, and community. Among her publications are
Teaching Visual Culture: Curriculum, Aesthetics, and the Social Life of Art (2003) and Social
Perspectives on Art Education in the U.S.: Teaching Visual Culture in a Democracy (2002). She
suggested employing a conceptual structure for teaching the visual culture in a democracy and
recent changes in the field of art history. She believed that there are connections between art,
student development, and cognition. She proposed an understanding of art inside and outside of
school and argued for the role of arts in the curriculum and in relation to social issues. She
believed that art should be seen as socially constructed and as a meaningful expression.
Another scholar, Kristin Congdon, focuses on folk art, art education, art history, and
feminism. She writes on the topics of art in a democracy, community-based art education, and
community art in action. She published Multicultural Approaches to Art Criticism in 1989. She
argued in favor of a diversity of worldviews in art critique. The incorporation of multi-cultural
methods in art critique can help us to improve the lives of members of our society. Also, she
authored several works on feminist art education in various communities such as Feminist
Approaches to Art Criticism and Teaching Art Where Art Should Not Exist: Women’s
Empowerment in Saudi Arabia.
Research Question 10
What prior research has been done that most directly relates to the current study and its Saudi Arabia context?
To better understand Saudi social art education methods, Alheezan (2009) examined
teaching approaches that are used by Saudi art education teachers in schools. Since the teaching
of art education was not provided detailed guidance for in the curriculum as is the case with
other subjects, teachers were expected to vary their strategy for teaching the subject. Many
teachers (31%) got their techniques of teaching from advanced-planned approaches. He
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recommended that the teachers and the Ministry of Education consider applying the community
and IBAE theory in the art education class and deal with contemporary issues. He believed that
community-based instruction could impact the status of art education in Saudi Arabia. The
Ministry offers research and development linked to the improvement of the curriculum and
instruction approaches, and in doing so, it creates connections between art and society as part of
this improvement (Al-Salloum, 1995).
Alamoud (1991) argued that the Saudi Arabian Art Education Association should play a
significant role in closing the gap between art education and society. Many social and
educational problems should be addressed through the teaching of social art education. He found
that Saudi Arabian culture affects the nature of students’ acknowledgment of art objects; besides,
social and educational constituents were seen to form the contents of students' active discussions.
The teaching of social art using IBAE should take into consideration the art education class in
Saudi schools.
Finally, Alamoud (1991) and Alheezan (2009) mentioned the importance of addressing
social issues in the Saudi art education curriculum. There is still a need for different approaches
and ways to apply IBAE in the curriculum. The Saudi art educational system should base the
study of art education on its own social foundations as it pursues an art education teaching
strategy that will facilitate social understanding by creating an environment that is socially
reassuring and meaningfully stimulating.
Research Question 11
How will the current study extend the existing research literature?
Recommendations for Using IBAE
The National Art Education Association Journal, a famous journal in the art education
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field, this year called for addressing responsibilities in both the production of awareness and in
acknowledgment of the need for of change by social, political, and cultural transformations of
reimagined roles, forms, values, and faiths connected with art education. There is an active and
strong call for work that reflects positively on the community. Moreover, all evidence and
studies confirm that IBAE is an important format through which Saudi art education can make
connections among art curriculum, art, and social issues. Thus, many art educators have
suggested that the field of art education should transition from traditional art to postmodern art
that incorporates contemporary reality, lifestyles, and social issues. The current global
transformation of art education aims not only to widen the curriculum content but also to employ
new pedagogical approaches in making connections between the art curriculum and social issues.
Similarly, Taylor, Carpenter, Ballengee-Morris, and Sessions (2006) suggested that
“rather than basing curriculum on learning a medium or technique, we recommend that art
teachers base their units of instruction on a problem, issue, or question gleaned from works of art
and visual culture” (p. 39). Rather than concentrating only on medium or technique in the art
curriculum, art teachers must raise instruction to a new level by presenting to their students
problems, issues, or questions that can then be resolved through the practice of art. The focus is
to give voice to students and help them to understand themselves and the community in order to
create positive change in society on a broader scale. Art educators should develop and present an
art curriculum that considers the culture but lets the students promote the purposes of their
thinking about what might be probable, positive, or negative in their shifting cultural context.
Possibilities and Limitations Offered by Various Approaches
According to Kattan (2015), Saudi society continues to move away from the traditional
mode of expression regarding “social relations and cultural values and has replaced these
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principles with more contemporary themes: consumerism, mass production, rapid construction,
and self-expression” (p. 1). Thus, all the approaches discussed above have a significant potential
for integration with IBAE that will support the students’ efforts to analyze the importance of
social issues critically. When art teachers use one of these methods in combination with IBAE,
that will increase the strength of these strategies.
However, one of the weaknesses of IBAE with regard to engaging with social issues is
that it is not easy for teachers to choose the issues or combine them with art education methods;
thus, art educators and researchers must be cooperative in their efforts to present samples and
methods, perhaps by adopting ideas such as those in Alshehri (2005) and Anderson and
Milbrandt (2004), who proposed artistic activities for the development of social issues.
Furthermore, one other limitation of Saudi art education is that even though there are
elements of modernity and progress in art outside the schools, art is separate from other activities
outside of schools. Lutfi (2018) argued that educational institutions are focused on traditional art.
As contemporary art is not a part of curriculums in schools and colleges, she points out that there
is a disconnect between how art education is structured and recognized within institutional
systems and how learners learn and perceive art. The art education system in Saudi Arabia is
influenced by what is culturally acceptable. The older practices relating to arts and crafts are
supposed to mirror ideal and acceptable art forms. Social dynamics are at play, which limits the
progress of art educational systems (Lutfi, 2018). She suggests several changes to improve the
goals for art education, one of which is assuring that art teachers possess proper qualifications to
teach different forms of art and examining students’ raising of the value of art in Saudi society.
However, I agree with Aarts and Roelants (2015) that there is a significant opportunity to
use art education as a means to contribute to positive change in society. Thus, there is great
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potential for using IBAE as an important approach within Saudi art education. I believe social
IBAE to be a powerful means of creating transformational learning experiences for learners that
will align well with changes in the country. Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 for the future and IBAE
will be of aid in the achievement of the target through the art education curriculum as a subject
that is taught at schools.
Thus, using IBAE in a Saudi context may significantly bring Saudi society together and
raise its citizens’ awareness of the meanings of social concerns, encouraging them in
organizational struggles and promoting the development of social participation as against mere
passive perception in art. Kalin (2014) confirmed that educational art projects show core
contradictions and exclusions within the constellation of education, art, and politics that should
be a central concern for those currently engaged in art education. Discussing social issues can be
uncomfortable, but doing so is necessary to provide a safe space for students to express
themselves.
IBAE in the Saudi Context
In addition to Saudi art education, researchers and Vision 2030 planners are also
concerned with addressing social issues; thus, using a social IBAE approach in the Saudi Arabia
curriculum will assist to achieve the goal. From my experience involving my own community
experiences and studying the curriculum deeply, I think there are many ways to apply an IBAE
approach to the art education curriculum to address the society’s issues and other cultures. The
Saudi government, while aiming to reduce its engagement in the economic domain, seems
hopeful of raising it in the cultural and social area through the creation of its civil society
division.
Many circumstances influence society, and we all have strong feelings and individual
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reflections. The art classroom is the perfect place to allow students to find answers to
contemporary issues and express opinions about the local, national, or global social issues
through the use of art for life. Thus, Saudi art education should engage in more efforts aimed
toward addressing how community life can be formed and should promote a positive lifestyle
and strength in diverse Islamic, Arab, and Western cultural traditions. Using this approach will
shift the understanding from the idea that art is beautiful to the idea that art is necessary for our
life and the quality and issues of Saudi community life.
This understanding of art will help Saudi art education teachers to create art curricula that
open the dialogue on morality and social critique in relation to social issues. When the socially
engaged art approach is used, Saudi students will achieve a higher level of thinking, and this will
lead to conversations about Saudi social issues. Also, a social IBAE approach in the Saudi
society will enhance social support for students’ performance, as well as improve the themes of
promoting combined learning beyond the art classroom. Based on the certain specific social
issues for IBAE discussed in prior studies, the IBAE approach might be used to deal with certain
specific social issues such as cultural diversity, environmental issues, morality issues, violence,
abuse, war, racism, homelessness, poverty, hunger, gender issues, the effects of mass media,
censorship, unemployment, terrorism, and the rights of women and workers in Saudi Arabia.
For example, teachers can introduce students to the idea of the effects of mass media
issues. Teachers might be surprised when they are able to find out more about students’ feelings
and opinions. Teachers should remember that they are working just as facilitators of the
dialogue. Then they should open the time for students to engage in symbolism and visual
metaphor exploration about mass media issues. They can then again open the dialogue to
practice analyzing and interpreting artworks. The social IBAE approach will be a good practical
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approach for the Saudi context because it will assist the generation to understand and imagine the
context from other perspectives and help them to share their opinions with others. Discussing
these issues in the art classroom will confer powerful advantages even though most of these
issues are discussed in religious and social studies classes. Thus, I recommend methods related to
social issues. IBAE as a method effectively includes social issues in the Saudi Arabian context.
This perspective will guide the idea of Saudi art education in studying how Saudi students
understand themselves and others from the Saudi community and from all over the world.
Based on the positive impact of this method according to prior studies, this kind of
artwork can be used to provide a sense of Saudi identity, value, and worth in contexts that may
positively change the social issues within this community and create a more in-depth dialogue by
influencing students’ lives and their critical thinking ability. That will be important for Saudi
society at this time of global change affecting the country. Also, it will increase the critical
understanding of social issues relevant to Saudi society. Using issue-based art education will be
necessary for Saudi society as it can serve as a powerful channel for learning. This approach can
aid in developing rational analysis as well as creativity, engage students’ hearts in society, help
them understand contemporary issues of culture, and teach them to draw meaningful connections
across the curriculum and social life. These art skills will prepare Saudi students to engage in
sustainable development and demand more corporate social responsibility. The approach also
enables students to critically engage with social issues by understanding the world and to be
ready to participate critically and creatively in it through their chosen fields of work and study.
Gender roles in Saudi society come from local culture. However, with the new vision,
there is a new interpretation of women’s issues in Saudi society in support of equal rights rooted
in the truth and right interpretation of Islamic Sharia law. Through the 2030 vision, women are
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taking their place in military leadership and senior government positions, working to support
gender equality and women’s rights under the law, seeing greater participation in the civil
service sector, benefitting from mechanisms to improve women’s employability, and being
encouraged to take up a number of job opportunities at work. Using a social IBAE approach in a
Saudi Arabian context will support these transformations. This means not only taking more
effective approaches in the art education curriculum but also developing a greater focus on
including growth and creating a social safety community.
To Achieve the 2030 Vision in the Art Education Curriculum
Because the Saudi 2030 Vision (2016) aims to “promote cultural, social, volunteering and
athletic activities through empowering our educational, cultural and entertainment institutions”
(p. 28), this research aimed to contribute to this development to achieve these goals through
teaching art education at schools including the discussion of community issues. It is clear that
there must be a focus on art and social responsibilities and development in order to build a strong
and productive society. In addition, the new focus will “seek to offer a variety of cultural venues
– such as libraries, arts, and museums – as well as entertainment possibilities to suit tastes and
preferences” (p. 22). Therefore, this research will be helpful for work in humanistic and social
reconstruction philosophy in art education classes through the use of IBAE approaches.
Because of Vision 2030, Saudi art teachers are required to work in collaboration,
organizing, planning, implementing, and evaluating classroom instruction on a daily basis in
order to help learners from a diverse population achieve success. Further, art teachers must
maintain good professional relationships with students, colleagues, and parents in such a way as
to benefit the whole learning community educationally. In doing their job, teachers are
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supervised by school principals, and they also occasionally work together with paraprofessionals,
parent volunteers, and other educators.
Art teachers are responsible for working collaboratively to plan and carry out rigorous,
effective, and developmentally appropriate instruction and interventions in line with the SAES
curriculum. They must establish clear objectives for learning and communicate them to students
and their parents. They must require students to meet high citizenship, academic achievement,
and personal growth standards. They must create a safe, positive, and interesting environment for
learning in the classroom and help to establish a positive professional climate and culture in the
school. They are responsible for the use of a variety of assessment methods to evaluate and
assess the learning progress of their students and provide regular and effective feedback
regarding their students’ progress.
The curriculum stipulates that the Saudi art teacher should be a guide, facilitator,
motivator, and mediator of the learning process. The Saudi art teacher should create a rich
learning environment by providing resources to be used to ensure that participatory learning and
teaching is dialogical and not a monologue (Almuraie, 2019; ALSaud & Qurban, 2016; Alshaie,
2017; Alshehri, 2001; Alshehri, 2005). For example, Saudi art teachers may share in decision
making by planning the social art lessons for art education classes, planning the interactions
between teachers and students, and focusing on student-selected social issues and topics, all of
which are aspects of this approach. Students are to engage with sources of art, extracting
information, interpreting it, and arguing and debating. This kind of art curriculum should
encourage multiple perspectives on teaching and learning about art. This kind of method should
expose students to a multiplicity of interpretations and meaningful content.
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CHAPTER 3
METHOD OF THE STUDY
This mixed-method research utilizes a sequential research design that consists of two
periods in which researchers first collect quantitative data and then collect qualitative data, using
multiple methods (Creswell, 2007). The rationale for this design is that it explains and clarifies
the collective results that emerge from both quantitative and qualitative data. The quantitative
research part of the study incorporates an experimental design to find the effect of an IBAE
workshop on in-service Saudi Arabian art education teachers’ philosophy of teaching.
The qualitative part incorporates descriptive research that explores beliefs and
perceptions of in-service Saudi Arabian art education teachers after participating in a
professional development workshop on social IBAE. Furthermore, this qualitative part discovers
the status of in-service Saudi Arabian art education teachers’ perceptions of social IBAE,
especially within the context of Saudi Arabian society after the generation of teaching lesson
plans involving social issues.
Statement of the Problem
Despite the positive impacts of IBAE on students, teachers, and entire communities
(Albers, 1999; Atkinson & Dash, 2005; Bethel & Foels, 2016; Berman, 2009; Beauregard,
Gunter, & Paquette, 2017; Chang, Lim, & Kim, 2012; Carvalho, 2014), minimal research has
dealt with Saudi Arabia’s application of IBAE and its connection to social issues within the
community.
In addition, a review of art education textbooks in Saudi Arabia revealed little or no
issues-based content and very few lessons that dealt directly or indirectly with social issues
within the local community or country. In summary, there have been many studies outside of
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Saudi Arabia about teaching contemporary social issues through art education; however, there
are limited studies inside Saudi Arabia.
However, the new “Vision 2030” of the country aims to reform the educational system
and include greater attention to art, entertainment, and social aspects. The aim of the current
study is to describe in-service Saudi Arabian art education teachers’ (a) philosophies of
education (before and after a workshop intervention), (b) perceptions of a professional
development workshop on IBAE, (c) perceptions about the relative importance of social IBAE
and various items associated with IBAE, and (d) perceptions of social IBAE, especially within
the Saudi Arabian context.
Research Questions
This mixed-method study is about art education teaching and learning of social issues in
art education classes in Saudi Arabia. I am arguing for social issues in the art education
curriculum as a means of building a bridge between art education and social issues. To raise
critical consciousness and awareness of these practices for art education teachers, my study
sought answers to the following questions:
Q1: What is the effect of an IBAE workshop on in-service Saudi Arabian art education teachers’ philosophy of teaching?
Q2: After participating in an IBAE professional development workshop on social IBAE, what is the status of in-service Saudi Arabian art education teachers’ perceptions of the workshop and lesson plan generation activity?
Q3: After participating in an IBAE professional development workshop on social IBAE, what is the status of in-service Saudi Arabian art education teachers’ perceptions about the relative importance of (a) the IBAE approach,(b) reasons for using IBAE, (c) various potential social issues topics in IBAE, and (d) various potential challenges in addressing social issues by using IBAE?
Q4: After participating in a professional development workshop on social IBAE and after implementing an original IBAE lesson plan, what is the status of in-service Saudi
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Arabian art education teachers’ perceptions of social IBAE, especially within the context of Saudi Arabian society?
To answer these questions, specific instruments were employed to collect data, as shown
in Table 3.1.
Table 3.1
List of Instruments to Collect Data
Questions Instruments Type of research
Question 1 (A) Pretest and posttest Kauchak and Eggen (2014) Questionnaire Experimental/Quantitative
Question 2 (B) Reflective Essay and Post-Workshop Questionnaire Descriptive/Qualitative
Question 3 (C) Modified Milbrandt (2002) Questionnaire Descriptive/Quantitative (Descriptive Statistics)
Question 4 (D) Personal Teaching Journal Protocol and Focus Group Suggested Questions Protocol Descriptive/Qualitative
Research Sites and Participants
The participants consisted of a convenience sample of in-service Saudi Arabian art
education female teachers who were teaching in the 2019 Fall semester. The study took place in
the city of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The expected number of participants in this study was 35-50 in-
service Saudi Arabian art education teachers at public schools for the three questionnaires and
the reflective essay, and 12-20 in-service Saudi Arabian art education teachers at public schools
for the teaching journal on lesson implementation and focus group discussion. The research sites
were selected based on convenience within my home country and the researcher’s understanding
and familiarity with the place and society, which is important for this research study.
The number of participants in the sample was 35-50 in-service Saudi Arabian art
education teachers, all were females. The sampling method was non-random and purposive due
to the goal of the current study to discover the impact of and teachers’ reactions to teaching
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social issues through art in public. In addition, unlike other subjects’ teachers, the number of art
teachers in public schools is limited because each school may have, at most, one art teacher, and
sometimes different schools share the same art teacher.
Instruments
Kauchak and Eggen (2014) Questionnaire
In the first phase of the current study, the questionnaire designed by Kauchak and Eggen
(2014, pp. 169-170) was used to examining the in-service Saudi Arabian art education teachers’
philosophy of teaching. This questionnaire has 16 questions that are measured according to a 5-
point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 = neutral, 4 = agree, 5 = strongly
agree). I added demographics questions appropriate for the population and sample of the current
study to discover participants’ situations (see Appendix A.2). Additionally, I’m interested to
know about their knowledge and background regarding teaching art education, such as grade
level(s) taught, number of years teaching art, prior attendance at related workshops, current
average time spent teaching social issues, and age, etc. This instrument was used to answer the
questions, “What is the effect of an IBAE workshop on in-service Saudi Arabian art education
teachers’ philosophy of teaching?”
Reflective Essay and Post-Workshop Questionnaire
In the qualitative part of the study, I used a reflective essay (see Appendix A.4) post-
workshop questionnaire and (see Appendix A.5) that had nine questions for evaluating the IBAE
workshop. This instrument was used to answer the question, “After participating in an IBAE
professional development workshop on social IBAE, what is the status of in-service Saudi
Arabian art education teachers’ perceptions of the workshop and lesson plan generation
activity?”
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Modified Milbrandt (2002) Questionnaire
In the descriptive/ quantitative part of the study, this questionnaire was used for rating the
relative importance of the IBAE approach, possible rationales, possible topics, and possible
challenges. I contacted the researchers and got their permission to modify the questionnaire to be
compatible with the research questions of the current study. Questions in the Milbrandt (2002)
questionnaire were originally designed to measure the status of contemporary social issues in an
art education class in Georgia, U.S.A. I used this instrument to answer the question, “After
participating in an IBAE professional development workshop on social IBAE, what is the status
of in-service Saudi Arabian art education teachers’ perceptions about the relative importance of
(a) the IBAE approach, (b) reasons for using IBAE, (c) various potential social issues topics in
IBAE, and (d) various potential challenges in addressing social issues by using IBAE?”
Personal Teaching Journal Protocol and Focus Group Suggested Questions Protocol
The last instruments used in the qualitative part of the study were the personal teaching
journaled protocol (see Appendix A.6) and focus group discussion (see Appendix A.7) to explore
social IBAE, especially within the context of Saudi Arabian society. The personal teaching
journal protocol and the focus group discussion were made up of several questions. These
instruments were used to answer the question “After participating in a professional development
workshop on social IBAE and after implementing an original IBAE lesson plan, what is the
status of in-service Saudi Arabian art education teachers’ perceptions of social IBAE especially
within the context of Saudi Arabian society?”
Finally, I translated all instruments and workshop materials into the participants’ native
language, Arabic. The entire workshop itself was given in Arabic. According to Hofstede (2001),
“Language and translation of research instruments are crucial, as is the matching of samples
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from the different cultures for functional equivalence” (p. 1). Awareness of every culture’s
various unique values, organizational systems, and environments are vital for a deeper
understanding and respect of the culture. This awareness allows for a more accurate translation
and stronger cross-cultural research. Beauford, Nagashima, and Wu (2009) state that “the
differences in value structures and social mores can dramatically affect how a sample responds to
a survey, questionnaire, or other research instrument even with the best translations possible” (p.
77). From my experience as an international student, I study within a second language and using
translation a lot is essential to have the perfect and whole meaning for my work. Thus, I
understand how it is important to spend a long time and effort to translate and translate clearly
and carefully with help from my friends in the curriculum field. I understand how subtle
differences in translation might impact how Saudi participants, for example, would respond to a
questionnaire asking for an opinion, perception, or preference because of the language and
cultural differences between east and west.
Mixed-Method the Research Design
This study used a mixed-methods design in order to avoid the disadvantages of each pure
method and deepen our understanding of how art education curriculum promotes social issues
and the extent to which taking art class enhances students’ awareness of social issues. In
addition, using balanced and integrated mixed methods strengthened this study. The current
mixed-method study consisted of two parts, (a) an experimental, one-group pre-posttest (i.e. the
impact of an IBAE workshop on in-service Saudi Arabian art education teachers’ philosophies of
education) and (b) a more qualitative descriptive exploration of these same teachers’ perceptions
about their IBAE workshop experience and the use of IBAE in their art classrooms, especially
within the context of Saudi Arabian society.
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The mixed method design has different forms, which include triangulation design,
embedded design, explanatory design, exploratory design, and sequential embedded design. In
this research, the embedded design was used first with pre-test data and results, then qualitative
process intervention, and finally, with quantitative post-test data and results and interpretation
(Creswell & Clark, 2017).
Through triangulation of data, the results from one research method/ strategy can be
cross-checked against the results of another such as those in Hughes, et al.’s (1997) by using
focus group discussion and questionnaires. This current research study used three questionnaires,
a reflective essay, a personal teaching journal protocol, and a focus group discussion. These
instruments gave use to both quantitative and qualitative data that allowed cross-checking of
results across different instruments and different types of data. For the experimental part, of this
study, the independent variable was the IBAE professional development workshop on teaching
about social issues and the dependent variable was the philosophy of education score or type.
Table 3.2 presents the research timeline of the research.
Table 3.2
The Research Timeline
Dates Actions
Spring 2019
Submit all six instrments to UNT IRB for approval
Submit all six instrments to PNU IRB for approval
Administer/ distribute prepare the professional development workshop for IBAE approach
Administer/ distribute informed using IBAE prior workshop and teaching in classrooms
Administer/ distribute demographics characteristics protocol prior workshop and teaching in classrooms
(table continues
Fall 2019 September
Administer/ distribute the Kauchak and Eggen (2014) pre-questionnaire for examining art teachers’ philosophy of teaching prior workshop and teaching in classrooms
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Dates Actions
Collect Demographics Characteristics Protocol and Kauchak & Eggen (2014) Pre-Questionnaire responses
Conduct the professional development workshop for five days
Administer/ distribute reflective essay template (workshop day: 4)
Collect the Reflective Essay responses (workshop day: 5)
Fall 2019 December
Administer/ distribute the post-workshop questionnaire for evaluating the IBAE workshop (workshop day: 5)
Collect the Post-Workshop Questionnaire responses (workshop day: 5)
Administer/ distribute the Modified Milbrandt (2002) Questionnaire for rating the relative importance of the IBAE approach, possible rationales, possible topics, and possible challenges (workshop day: 5)
Collect Modified Milbrandt (2002) questionnaire responses (workshop day: 5)
Administer/ distribute the Kauchak and Eggen (2014) Post-Questionnaire for examining art teacher’s philosophy of teaching after the workshop. (workshop day: 5)
Collect responses of Kauchak and Eggen (2014) post-questionnaire responses (workshop day: 5).
Administer/ distribute the personal teaching journal protocol template (workshop day: 5)
Oversee teacher implication of the original IBAE lessons
Collect the personal teaching journal protocol responses during focus group discussion
Conduct focus group discussion with 12-20 volunteers from different school
Spring 2020
Compile and analyze all data
Interpret data. State findings. State implications and conclusions
Procedures for Answering Questions
In the beginning, before using the questionnaire, I prepared a letter explaining the
purpose of my study and describing the requirements for art teachers and educators who were
participating in it (see Appendix A.1). I requested permission from the school district and my
scholarship ermission This required much time and effort on my part. Next, I contacted the
principals and provided them with the study’s informed consent form along with the IRB letter
and asked them to distribute the letter to art teachers. After they selected the week, I travealed to
Saudi Arabia to apply the workshop.
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I administered/ distributed the demographics characteristics protocol (see Appendix A.2)
and the pretest and posttest Kauchak and Eggen (2014) questionnaire to check the status of in-
service Saudi Arabian art education teachers’ philosophy before (and also after) professional
development and IBAE workshop on teaching about social issues with and through art. After I
collected the pretest data, I conducted five sessions of the professional development workshop on
teaching about social issues (see Appendix A.3); each session was four hours in duration. The
workshop was designed to offer sufficient information about the IBAE approach to addressing
social issues in art education classrooms.
For the first day of workshop on teaching about social issues, the main goal was to
introduce Issues Based-Art Education, discuss applications, and brainstorm appropriate social
issues and related works of art. I started with an instruction on using art to teach social issues, a
definition of Issues Based-Art Education, historical background, types of arts, why we use this
approach, how we can use art as opportunities for social issues, and how we can use art as
content vehicles for teaching about social issues. Then, I provided a comparison between DBAE
and IBAE.
To be able to develop combined social concepts in the art classroom, art teachers may use
DBAE and IBAE approaches to help students better understand social issues and discover
meaning in artworks. Using DBAE approach, which unites the art disciplines of art history, art
criticism, aesthetics, and art production, a teacher can implement a curriculum improvement
model which can be efficiently modified to include other non-art subjects. Issue-based art
education IBAE can effectively function in tandem with DBAE because IBAE is an approach
that connects art to the everyday lives of students through exploration of real-world
circumstances and gives each learner the chance to be an individual in the classroom as well as
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experience different personal views and practice empathy for others (Gaudelius & Speirs, 2002;
Gude, 2009). Thus, for this lesson, I presented Laney’s (1996) steps by implementing seven
procedural actions and the IBAE approach of Guay (2002) by using planning process. I also used
a combination of DBAE and the IBAE approaches to promote combined art-social studies as an
aid for art teachers’ curricular design applications.
The main goals of the second-day session were to provide a sample lesson and start
researching the social issue, artwork, artist, and historical content. Participants analyzed issues,
artwork, social issues, and historical content by using the two worksheets (one for analyzing the
artwork and other DBAE) from my sample lesson. Thus, I provided my full example lesson. The
class discussed how to plan IBAE lessons using the steps of IBAE and DBAE. Based on my
model, the participants began working in small groups to build a lesson for their classroom using
a social issue and artwork of their own choosing. They generated an IBAE lesson based on
instructional ideas (activities, guided discussion questions), and brainstormed using DBAE
principles. Lessons were completed as homework.
For the third day, planning in-class presentations to be made in front of the whole class
was the main goal of the session. In the beginning, individuals showed their lesson plans for art
education classroom and presented part of the lesson for 15 minutes to the small group. Members
of the group provided feedback to each lesson author. In each small group, participants analyzed/
critiqued their model lessons based on the DBAE and IBAE approaches. In the end, participants
chose, from within the group, the best model lesson to present on the fourth day to the rest of the
class.
For the fourth day, each small group of participants provided a practicum presentation to
the whole class. They described their model lesson and did part of it for 20-30minutes in front of
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the other groups. There were 6 groups, with 4-6 participants each. After teaching, the group
received feedback from their classrooms and instructor for 7-10 minutes. I encouraged them to
discuss and critique each other’s lessons based on the use of the IBAE and DBAE principles.
They had smart, professional ideas, and subjects. I was so thunderstruck with their ideas. Finally,
participants wrote a reflective essay discussing their experience and finished it for homework as
needed.
At the beginning of the fifth day, I collected the reflective essays discussing the
experience and provided some summary comments and reflections on the IBAE approach
lessons. Afterwards, participants attending this workshop for five days, took the post-workshop
questionnaire, which included nine post-workshop questions (see Appendix A.5) to discover the
status of in-service Saudi Arabian art education teachers’ perceptions of the workshop and lesson
plan generation and activity. This questionnaire allowed for communication about how
participants felt about the workshop they attended. This questionnaire was personal and
subjective for all participants.
Then, I administered the modified questionnaire from Milbrandt (2002) to discover the
status of in-service Saudi Arabian art education teachers’ perceptions about the relative
importance of (a) the IBAE approach, (b) various possible reasons for using IBAE, (c) various
potential social issues topics in IBAE, and (d) various potential challenges in addressing social
issues by using IBAE. Next I used the posttest Kauchak and Eggen (2014) questionnaire to
discover the effect of an IBAE workshop on in-service Saudi Arabian art education teachers’
philosophy of teaching before and after a professional development IBAE workshop on teaching
about social issues with and through art.
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On the last day, plans were discussed for implementing the original lessons and writing a
personal teaching journal protocol to record participants’ reactions to the lesson implementation
experience. I asked for volunteers who could attend the focus group discussion. Around twenty
participants signed up for the focus group after applying their lesson for around month at their art
education classroom. We maintained contacted daily and I answered their questions through the
group function in the WhatsApp app. I offered all material and guides to apply the lesson in their
art classroom and the contact information to answer their questions. The following month, lesson
plans were taught by participants in their art classrooms. Also, they wrote the personal teaching
journal protocol. They contacted me and I continued to help them apply the lesson. They were so
exciting. Of the twenty participants who signed up early in the last day of the workshop, 18
participants applied their lesson and brought their jornal protocoal and attend focus group.
Before the focus group discussion, I collected the personal teaching journal protocol
responses so that I could use the information from them to refine the focus group discussion as
needed. However, some of them provided it at the focus group dicussion meeting.
In a focus group discussion, after teaching their lesson plans to discover how the lessons
were received and the status of in-service Saudi Arabian art education teachers’ perceptions of
social IBAE, especially within the context of Saudi Arabian society (see Appendix A.6 & A.7).
This was a diverse pool of perspectives including 18 Saudi Arabian female art teachers’
volunteers from different schools, in North Riyadh city, and different grade levels; 90% from
them from middle schools.
Focus groups have many common features, as they are group discussions on a particular
topic organized for research purposes. They are used for marketing, but today a focus group can
be used in academic research as a stand-alone method, for research relating to group norms.
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Bloor (2001), Krueger (1997), Stewart & Shamdasani (2014), Morgan, Krueger, & King (1998),
and Morgan & Scannell (1998) state that composition and size are important when conducting a
focus group since great care is necessary to encourage the best quality of discussion impact on
the data by many factors such as the age and the social professional statuses of the participants.
The interaction between the participants was key to a successful focus group. Group size
was an important consideration in focus group research. A small group potentially limits the
discussion, while a large group can (a) be hard to manage for the moderator and (b) frustrating
for participants who are feeling they have few opportunities to participate. Thus, I organized two
focus group discussions. There were 10 participants in the first group in the morning and 8
participants in the second group in the afternoon. I recorded the focus group discussion for
transcription and analysis. Also, I administered the discussion with assistents. After collecting
the qualitative data, I used thematic analysis to find results.
Data Collection and Analysis
To collect data for this research, three questionnaires, a reflective essay, a personal
teaching journal protocol, and a focus group interview were used. The questionnaire is a set of
questions applied in conducting a survey, which is the process of gathering, sampling, analyzing,
and interpreting data from participants to elaborate on their thoughts. Usually, it is a combination
of close-ended and open-ended questions (Breyman, 2016). However, in this research, there are
two questionnaires with close-ended questions and one questionnaire with open-ended questions.
Pretest and Posttest Kauchak and Eggen (2014) Questionnaire
In this research, I measure the in-service Saudi Arabian art education teachers’
philosophy of teaching before and after a professional development IBAE workshop on teaching
about social issues with and through the arts. I used pretest and posttest Kauchak and Eggen
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(2014) questionnaire to get insight into in-service Saudi Arabian art education teachers’
philosophy for using social issues in the classroom. This questionnaire uses Likert-scale
questions to evaluate whether or not a participant agrees/ disagree with views statements of the
philosophy of education that they have used, as well as the extent to which they agree or
disagree. These questions offer five possible responses with choices ranging from strongly
disagree to strongly agree, to measure respondents' agreement with a variety of statements.
I compared the pretest and posttest Kauchak and Eggen (2014) questionnaire results to
determine whether the differences between two means was significant at a probability level of p
≤ .05. To analyze the data for pretest and posttest Kauchak and Eggen (2014) questionnaire, this
study used a repeated-measures design. Paired-samples t-tests compare the means of data before-
and-after intervention on the same participants (Szafran, 2011). I used a dependent sample t-test
(paired sample t-test), which is a statistical procedure used to determine whether the mean
difference between two sets of observations is zero. In this kind of t-test, each subject is
measured twice, produced in pairs of observations. Common applications of the paired sample t-
test include case-control studies or repeated-measures designs (Szafran, 2011). I used SPSS to
find the outcome. Simple descriptive statistics were also reported-means and standard deviations
for each item and across all items. The number and percentage of individuals choosing each
response alternative was also reported.
Reflective Essay and Post-Workshop Questionnaire
In order to answer the second research question, the reflective essay (see Appendix A.4)
and post-workshop questionnaire (see Appendix A.5) used a variety of open-ended questions.
They both aimed to discover the status of in-service Saudi Arabian art education teachers’
perceptions of the workshop and lesson plan generation activity after participating in a
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professional development workshop on IBAE. The questions were open-ended, which means
that the respondents could reply to them in whatever way they wished. I put the questions in
order from general to specific.
Then, I collected the responses for the post-workshop questionnaire so that I can use the
information from them to refine/ modify the focus group discussion questions. I grouped the
answers to the post-workshop questionnaires open-ended questions into different categories.
Finally, I verified the content of the questions. This qualitative data was coded using I did
thematic analysis using Atlas.ti.8 analyeses software.
Modified Milbrandt (2002) Questionnaire
In order to answer the third research question, I have collected data through the modified
Milbrandt (2002) questionnaire for addressing contemporary social issues in art education
classrooms. Milbrandt used three types of questions, which were in the form of a Likert scale,
rating scale, and open-ended questions. Thus, this questionnaire had seven question sets that
were in different styles. The first question set was meant to measure the participants’ views about
the importance of addressing contemporary social issues within the art curriculum. It used the
Likert scale format, which offered five responses, with choices ranging from strongly disagree to
strongly agree.
The second question set was meant to measure the participants’ views about important
reasons for addressing social issues by ranking the reasons from most important to least. The
third question set was written to measure the types of social issues that participants used in their
teaching which they addressed through the art curriculum from a list of possible topics. The
fourth question set measured the participants’ opinions about the most important social issues to
address through the art curriculum by ranking the social issues list according to their perceived
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value and their presence in the curriculum. The fifth question set measured the participants’
views about the challenges for teaching social issues in the art curriculum by ranking the
concerns or problems that they encountered when addressing social concerns in the art
curriculum in their classroom. For the sixth and seventh questions sets, open-ended questions
were used to encourage participants to write freely to expand on their experiences and
recommendations about (a) teaching social issues and (b) preparing for preservice teachers for
using social issues in art education.
For this research, I modified the Milbrandt (2002) questionnaire to Likert scales for easy
analysis to examine the status of in-service Saudi Arabian art education teachers’ perceptions
about the relative importance of the IBAE approach, possible reasons, potential topics, and
potential challenges. These questions offered five responses, with alternative responses ranging
from not at all important to extremely important to measure teachers’ perceptions about the
relative importance of a variety of statements about the IBAE approach.
I grouped and organized the questions into four main question sets, including the
importance of IBAE approach, possible reasons, potential topics, and potential challenges. The
total number of questions was 23 sets. Furthermore, I added three “other” items/ questions to
discover the importance of these social issues topics because the current research focused on
addressing social issues in art education practices in Saudi Arabia. I also added an “other” option
to three additional questions in order to better apply the questions to the Saudi Arabian context of
the current study. Also, I delayed the use of Milbrandt’s sixth and seventh open-ended questions
for the focus group discussion following the workshop and teaching of the lesson.
To analyze the data above, descriptive statistics were applied to provide useful
quantitative information. For each of the scaled items, I reported tallies, percentages, means, and
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standard deviations for each item; thus, examining the status of in-service Saudi Arabian art
education teachers’ perceptions about the relative importance of (a) IBAE approaches including
one question set, (b) reasons for using IBAE including five question sets, (c) various potential
social issues topics in IBAE including 11 question sets, and (d) various potential challenges
including six question sets addressing social issues by using IBAE after participating in a
professional development workshop on IBAE.
Personal Teaching Journal Protocol and Focus Group Discussion
To answer the fourth research question, I used a personal teaching journal protocol and
the focus group discussion about art education teachers’ perceptions of IBAE within the context
of Saudi Arabian society. I collected the personal teaching journal protocol (see Appendix A.6).
In this qualitative analysis of this protocol, I used a thematic analysis framework protocol (see
Appendix A.7). Next, I met 12-20 volunteer participants, selected to represent (a) different
schools in different areas of the city and (b) different grade levels to do a focus group discussion
by using the suggested protocol. The discussion protocol included 14 questions (see Appendix
A.7). I recorded the focus group discussion because this made it easy to transcribe data after I
had permission from the participants. I selected the focus group discussion format because it
enabled me to follow up on the prior questionnaire and personal teaching journal protocol
responses in more depth.
A focus group discussion is a useful method to investigate and discover how different
sub-groups (from different schools and grade levels) think and feel about using social issues in
art education and why they hold certain opinions. Besides, it helped to provide additional data to
verify or clarify the results from prior questionnaires and protocols, identified/ suggested
potential solutions to using social issues in art education, specifically in the Saudi Arabian
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context. It assisted in adding a group or human dimension to impersonal data, thus deepening
understanding and helping to explain some of the quantitative statistical data.
Using stratified random sampling by schools and grade levels, 12-20 volunteer and
willing participants from those who had completed all questionnaires, attended the workshop,
written a reflective essay, taught their original lessons at their own classrooms, and written the
personal teaching journal protocol to be participants in the focus group discussion session. I met
them as a group. The questions were presented to art teachers to answer and discuss,
concentrating especially on a delivering/ debriefing of lesson implementation and IBAE in the
context of Saudi Arabian society. I asked the questions and gave group members an opportunity
to describe and express their experiences and their viewpoints. The focus group discussion was
audio recorded and transcribed. In this qualitative part, I did thematic analysis using Atlas. ti. 8
analyeses software.
Inductive Approach
For the qualitative part of this research study, I tried to discover new themes from the
context and qualitative data. The primary purpose of using an inductive approach is to allow
findings to "emerge from the frequent, dominant or significant themes inherent in raw data,
without the restraints imposed by structured methodologies" (Thomas, 2006, p. 2). To do an
inductive analysis of qualitative data, there is a specific procedure, including preparation of data,
close reading, the creation of themes, overlapping coding, encoded text, and continuing revision
and refinement of data.
Thomas (2006) states that to start inductive approach, the researcher should identify text
segments that contain meaning units and create a label for a new category into which the text
segment is assigned. Thus, one does inductive coding and identifies emerging themes by
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studying recordings, and data. Inductive coding and themes start with close readings of the data
and consideration of the multiple meanings that are inherent in the data. The thematic approach
is inductive, depending on the emergence of themes and codes from the data. Therefore, for this
study, I coded based on themes that emerged. There was no prior categories or coding system
developed.
Thematic Analysis Approach
To analyze the qualitative data strands by using an inductive approach, thematic analysis
was used for this study because it creates codes that are analytic and theoretical, not just
descriptive (Guest, MacQueen, & Namey, 2012). Thematic analysis was selected as a way to
move from description to analysis, comparison, and line-by-line coding. It helped this beginning
researcher to understand and find relevant themes.
The demands and requirements of this study determined the procedure and process of
data generation and analysis. I depended heavily on Saldaña’s (2016) coding process, techniques,
and thematic analysis for the qualitative data in the reflective essay, post-workshop
questionnaire, personal teaching journal protocol, and focus group discussion session. After
coding, thematic analysis is accepted as a major stage in qualitative research, especially in social
research involving answers to queries in post-workshop questionnaires and in focus group
discussions. This kind of analysis has two main stages, which include categorizing the materials
and coding (Bryman, 2016). To analyze the data, I employed a thematic analysis method for all
qualitative instruments. Analysis of the three prior questionnaires (i.e. the Kauchak & Eggen
(2014) questionnaire, reflective essay & post-workshop questionnaire, and modified Milbrandt
(2002) questionnaire) helped me refine the focus group discussion questions.
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To start qualitative data analysis procedures in this research, coding was an important
step in the operation of identifying themes. Coding is a crucial stage in qualitative research and
was especially so in this research project (Bryman, 2016; Grbich, 2013). Coding was used to
analyze in-service Saudi Arabian art education teachers’ perceptions about the IBAE workshop,
workshop products, and the use of IBAE in the Saudi Arabian context. I grouped codes into
categories that shared commonality or the same characteristics. My categories were compared
and unified to develop themes. My themes were the products of labeling, sorting, and analytical
reflection.
Thus, I started by searching for codes related to social issues, IBAE, and repeated
perceptions. I developed a scheme for coding, including classification rules for assigning coding
units to particular categories or concepts. After I received the reflective essay and post-workshop
questionnaire back from the participants, I transcribed and analyzed the data using a traditional
approach by reading the reflective essays and post-workshop questionnaires line by line to code
and find the themes. Because this study uses the inductive research method, I searched and coded
in terms of content/ ideas/ themes that emerged naturally from the data. No prior categories were
identified. Similar procedures were followed for the personal teaching journal protocols and
transcriptions of the recorded focus group discussion session.
First, I entered all qualitative data in the Atlas.ti.8 to be coded and put into themes. The
sample responses were greatly simplified to allow for easier discussion of coding principles.
Each phrase represented a dimension for coding.
The themes are written in the blank cells in the theme form. One form was used for each
teacher that was coded. Then, I transferred the codes to sub-categories through the first and
second cycle coding. For the third cycle coding, I combined the sub-categories to themes.
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In the Atlas.ti.8, there was a memo that continued to inform the coders and research
questions, and participants. Additionally, it included all the dimensions that were being used in
the process of coding, guidance for coders, and the lists of categories that were relevant for every
dimension. As for my coding activity, I coded the reflective essay, post-workshop questionnaire,
personal teaching journal protocol, and the transcription of focus group discussion from 37 art
teachers who attended the workshop and from the 18 teachers in personal teaching journal
protocol and the focus group. Saldaña (2016) rightly asserts that coding is a “heuristic” or an
“exploratory problem-solving technique" and “not just labeling” (p. 9).
For the analysis, a transcript was read more than ten times. Each time I read, I tried to
grasp and concentrate on the repeated ideas, statements, semantics, or meanings. I created and
investigated new themes, topics, terms, phrases, ideas, concepts, keywords, and chunks of data. I
read and re-read the transcriptions to become familiar with the data. I used a framework protocol
to elaborate on the thematic analysis of the data and improved themes based off of the reflective
essay, post-workshop questionnaire, personal teaching journal protocol, and focus group data. I
concentrated on important words and repeated phrases about addressing social issues through
IBAE.
Fundamentally, to focus my coding, I put a summary of my theoretical framework, the
research questions, and the goal of the research in front of me. I documented my reflections,
observations, and thoughts on the coding process in my research journal. I recorded what was
going on in my mind during the coding process. More specifically, my reflections focused on
creating units, codes, categories, and themes (Saldaña, 2016). Finally, I dedicated a significant
amount of time to learn how to provide instructions on how to code.
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For thematic procedures, I determined the numbers for each category that had been
specified. I classified and grouped the codes under themes and subcategories. I collected all the
themes and categorized them into groups. I noted the themes that appeared in the participants-
generated documents and transcriptions. For instance, if a teacher honestly said something about
the positive impact of using and discussing social issues in class with her students, I noted this as
a “positive effect.” Next, at the bottom of every page, I noted the main themes that were found in
the document or transcript.
Possible Threats and Complications
I eliminated subjects (and their data for those who do not complete the entire IBAE
workshop. Because this study employed a purposeful sample comprised primarily of art teachers
in a specific community, care should be observed in generalizing the results. In addition, I had to
be certain that I had provided clear instructions about the relevance of each dimension and the
considerations which must be borne in mind in the assignment of codes to categories, as well as
about how to allocate codes for units of analysis because it is easy for overlapping to occur. In
such a case, it may be advisable to divide that category into smaller ones so that greater
discrimination is possible among the items under analysis. Coding reliability is another
potentially challenging area. It is necessary for there to be inter-coder reliability, or consistent
coding decisions between coders, as well as intra-coder reliability, which involves consistency
over time for a single coder.
Credibility and Trustworthiness of the Study
Credibility, trustworthiness, and validity are essential for mixed-method research, even
though mixed-method studies are demonized for lack of rigor. Comparing the trustworthiness of
strictly qualitative research studies with that of quantitative studies is misleading. I subjected this
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study to several trustworthiness criteria. Also, the credibility of this study was ensured by my
reflexivity and positionality (Morrow, 2005). In addition, I checked my analysis for my codes,
categories, and themes 10 times. Furthermore, to ensure validity, I used a variety of methods,
sources, and data, including the variety of questionnaires, a reflective essay, a personal teaching
journal protocol, and a focus group discussion; these allowed for triangulation. To provide rigor,
the coding scheme strived to achieve exhaustive categorization; to facilitate this, all possible
categories were available to coders in each dimension.
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CHAPTER 4
RESULTS OF THE STUDY
The Demographic Characteristics of the Participants
This research investigated the impact of the issues-based art education (IBAE) workshop
on Saudi Arabian art education teachers’ perceptions. The data analyses were intended to answer
questions regarding the following: (1) teachers’ philosophy of teaching before and after a
professional development workshop on teaching about social issues with and through art, (2)
teachers’ perceptions of the workshop and lesson plan generation and activity, (3) teachers’
perception about the relative importance of the IBAE approach, possible rationales, possible
topics, and possible challenges, and (4) teachers’ perceptions of the lesson implementation
activity and of IBAE, especially within the context of Saudi Arabian society.
The quantitative part of the study consisted of a pretest and posttest using Kauchak and
Eggen’s (2014) questionnaire and a modified questionnaire from Milbrandt (2002). The
qualitative part of the study utilized a post-workshop questionnaire, reflective essay, journal
protocol, and a focus group discussion session. Data from 40 cases were screened, and three
participants had missing values. Thus, the final count of particapants was 37.
There were ten categorical socio-demographic information variables, pertaining to age,
years of teaching experience, teaching experience by subject, past and current grade level,
number of years teaching at those levels, prior addressed social issues, art type and topic of
lessons taught, and rating of knowledge and background in art education and social studies. No
missing data were detected for socio-demographic information variables. These demographic
data items were collected for the purpose of describing the study population.
Regarding the age of the participants, those 34 and older were 78.38% of the participants
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(n = 29), and those 33 years and under (n = 8) were 21.6% of the participants. All the
participants were females (n = 37). Sixty-eight percent of the participants had bachelor’s degrees,
and 20% had master’s degrees. Just over 97% of participants specialized in art education. Only
one participant (2.7 %) held a certification in a different area. None of the participants was
identified as teaching in an elementary grade. Twenty-seven participants, or 70.3% of the total,
were teaching middle school grades. See Tables 4.1 and 4.2 for more information.
Table 4.1
Frequencies and Percentages of Responses Regarding Demographic Variables: Age
Age in yrs Frequency %
25 or less 0 0
26-29 4 10.8
30-33 4 10.8
34 or more 29 78.4
Table 4.2 Frequencies and Percentages of Responses Regarding Demographic Variables: Highest Qualification (Degree) and Academic Major
Variable Frequency %
Highest Qualification (Degree)
Community College 4 10.8
Bachelor's degree 25 67.6
Master's Degree 8 21.6
Doctoral degree 0 0
Academic Major Art Education 36 97.3
Other 1 2.7
Just over 70% of the participants had more than 12 years of experience, while 29.7% of
the participants had between 3 years and 11 years of experience; 54% had from 6 to 10 years of
experience teaching at their current grade, while 27 % had from 11 to 15 years of experience
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teaching at their current grade level. Also, 10% had 16 or more years of experience teaching at
their current grade level. See Table 4.3 for more information.
Table 4.3 Frequencies and Percentages of Responses Regarding Years of Teaching Experience, Level Taught, Number of Years Teaching Current Grade Level, and Teaching Experience at Grade Level(s)
Measure Frequency %
Years of teaching experience
0-3 4 10.8
4-7 3 8.1
8-11 4 10.8
12- more 26 70.3
Level taught in the Past
High School Grade 10 27.0
Middle School Grade 27 73.0
Elementary School Grade 0 0
Number of years teaching current grade level(s)
0-5 3 8.1
6-10 20 54.1
11- 15 10 27.0
16 or more 4 10.8
Teaching experience at grade level(s)
1st Middle Grade 7 18.9
2nd Middle Grade 5 13.5
3rd Middle Grade 14 37.8
1st High School Grade 0 0.0
2nd High School Grade 1 2.7
3th High School Grade 8 21.06
Other (more than level) 2 5.4
About 94.5% of the participants had teaching experience only in art education, while
5.41% of the participants had experience teaching another subject. See Table 4.4 for more
information.
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Table 4.4
Frequencies and Percentages of Responses Regarding Teaching Experience by Subject
Subject Frequency %
Art 35 94.59
Math & Science 0 0
Religion 0 0
Social studies 0 0
Other 2 5.41
About 13.5% of participants had never addressed social issues in the art classroom. Almost
half of the participants had some experience with using social issues in the classroom; 54% of
participants were using social issues in the classroom once per semester. Seventy-five and five-
tenths percent of participants who used such issues were using painting and drawing lessons; 18%
were using photography, and 6.5% were using other types of lessons. Over half of the participants
(51.4%) were using environmental issues, and 35.1% were using appreciation of cultural diversity.
Also, 32.4% of the participants were addressing mass media, and 32.4% were dealing with gender
issues and identity values. Table 4.5 shows these results and more information.
Table 4.5 Frequencies and Percentages of Responses Regarding the Types of Art Lesson Used and Social Issues/Topics Addressed
Variable Frequency %
Type of art lesson used
Photography 9 24.3
Painting/ Drawing 32 86.5
Conceptual art 3 8.1
Ceramics 4 10.8
Sculpture 1 2.7
Other 5 13.5
(table continues)
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Variable Frequency %
Social issues/ topics addressed
Appreciation of cultural diversity 14 37.8
Environmental issues 22 59.5
Violence, abuse, war 10 27.0
Racism 5 13.5
Homelessness, poverty, hunger 7 18.9
Gender issues & Identity values 13 35.1
Effects of mass media 15 40.5
Morality & Censorship 9 24.3
Other 2 5.4 Figures 4.1 and 4.2 constitute percentage plots of the data above related to types of art
lessons used and social issues/topics addressed. In other words, they show the same information
described previously but in a bar graph format.
Figure 4.1. Percentage plots of types of art lesson used.
Figure 4.2. Percentage plots of social issues addressed
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Data about in-service art education teachers’ subject matter knowledge and backgrounds
in IBAE are presented in Table 4.6. The table shows that almost all the participants had strong
subject matter knowledge in art education, while just one responded that her/his knowledge was
weak; 16.22% said their knowledge was average, and 81.08% said their knowledge was strong.
In relation to their backgrounds in art education, the table shows that 97.30% (36 out of 37) of
the art education teachers had formal backgrounds in art education.
Table 4.6 Frequencies and Percentages of Responses Regarding Subject Matter Knowledge and Formal Backgrounds
Items Measure Frequency %
Subject Matter Knowledge
Art Education
Weak 1 2.70
Average 6 16.22
Strong 30 81.08
Social Studies
Weak 9 24.3
Average 24 64.9
Strong 4 10.8
Formal Background
Art Education
Weak 0 0
Average 1 2.70
Strong 36 97.30
Social Studies
Weak 11 29.7
Average 21 56.8
Strong 5 13.5
Background in IBAE Yes 3 8.11
No 34 91.89
Relating to the inclusion of social studies in their subject matter knowledge, 64.9% of
respondents evaluated their knowledge as average; 24.3% evaluated it as weak, and only 10.8%
evaluated it as strong. Regarding formal background in social studies, the data showed that the
highest percentage of art education teachers (21 out of 37 or 56.8%) considered their background
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in social studies to be average. The table shows that 34 out of 37 or 91.89% of art education
teachers had no previous knowledge about the IBAE approach before the workshop. Just 3
(8.11%) art education teachers indicated they had strong backgrounds in IBAE. See Table 4.6 for
more information.
Figures 4.3 and 4.4 constitute graphic representations, in line graph form, of subject
matter knowledge percentages and formal background percentages as described above.
Figure 4.3. Line graph based on % of responses to subject matter knowledge levels.
Figure 4.4. Line graph based on % of responses to formal background levels
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
Weak Average Strong Weak Average Strong
Art Education Social Studies
Subject Matter Knowledge
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
Weak Average Strong Weak Average Strong
Art Education Social Studies
Formal Background
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Figure 4.5provides a graphic representation of teachers’ prior backgrounds in IBAE.
Figure 4.5. Circle/pie graph of the teachers’ prior backgrounds in IBAE.
Quantitative Analysis and Findings
Research Question 1
To measure aspects of in-service Saudi Arabian art education teachers’ philosophy of
teaching before and after a professional development IBAE workshop, I pretested and posttested
teachers using a modified version of Kauchak and Eggen’s (2014) Likert-scale questionnaire. To
answer the first question of the study, a dependent sample t-test (a paired sample t-test) was
conducted to test the effectiveness of the professional development IBAE workshop on changing
in-service Saudi Arabian art education teachers’ philosophy of teaching with respect to four
dependent variables (the teaching philosophies of perennialism, essentialism, progressivism, and
social reconstructionism), with a probability level set at p < 0.05.
Stated more specifically, to analyze the data from the Kauchak and Eggen (2014) Likert-
scale questionnaire, a paired-sample t-test was conducted on pretest-posttest results; Table 4.6
displays a summary of the pretest-posttest descriptive statistics for all the measures used for
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examining the philosophy of teaching. It presents the number of participants along with the
means, standard deviations, and standard errors of the means for perennialism, essentialism,
progressivism, and social reconstructionism for examining the philosophy of teaching. Measures
for the 16 items on four teaching philosophy variables (four items each on perennialism,
essentialism, progressivism, and social reconstructionism) were administered twice using pre-
post questionnaires.
Table 4.7 Paired Sample Descriptive Statistics at Pretest and Posttest for Four Teaching Philosophies (N = 37)
Dependent Variables Mean Std. Deviation
Std. Error Mean
Pair 1 Perennialism Pre 11.86 3.622 .595
Perennialism Post 11.65 3.490 .575
Pair 2 Social Reconstructionism Pre 10.36 3.164 .520
Social Reconstructionism Post 13.16 3.484 .573
Pair 3 Progressivism Pre 10.24 3.022 .497
Progressivism Post 11.14 3.093 .508
Pair 4 Essentialism Pre 7.03 3.371 .554
Essentialism Post 6.73 3.739 .615
Results for these items were reported descriptively with means and standard deviations to
indicate the central tendency and the spread of ratings to allow for testing of the hypothesized
change in in-service Saudi Arabian art education teachers’ philosophies after participating in an
IBAE workshop. As stated previously, a summary of the mean ratings and standard deviations
for the modified pretest and posttest Kauchak and Eggen (2014) questionnaire using Likert-scale
items for art education teachers is found in Table 4.7. Means for progressivism and social
reconstructionism increased from pretest to posttest, while means for perennialism and
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essentialism decreased from pretest to posttest.
Figure 4.6 shows plots of the means for the four dependent variables of in-service Saudi
Arabian art education teachers’ philosophy of teaching before and after a professional
development IBAE workshop. It can be seen in this figure that social reconstructionism and
progressivism increased, while perennialism and essentialism decreased after the professional
development IBAE workshop (see the column of the means in Figure 4.6).
Figure 4.6. Mean plots of art education teachers’ philosophies before and after the IBAE workshop.
As Table 4.8 indicates, the mean pretest-posttest differences for perennialism (x̄
difference =-.216) and essentialism (x̄ difference = -.297) were negative, but the mean pretest-
posttest differences for progressivism (x̄ difference =.892) and social reconstructionism (x̄
difference =2.297) were positive. In other words, mean scores for perennialism and essentialism
decreased, while mean scores for progressivism and social reconstructionism increased after the
teachers participated in the IBAE Workshop. The results of the paired sample t-test, also given in
Table 4.8, show that two of the teaching philosophies, progressivism and social
reconstructionism, yielded significant differences from pretest to posttest. In contrast,
perennialism and essentialism yielded non-significant differences from pretest to posttest.
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Table 4.8 Paired Sample t-Test Results: Paired Differences for the Four Pretest-Posttest Teaching Philosophy Variables
Pair Mean Diff.
Std. Dev.
Std. Err.
Mean Lower Upper t df
Sig. (2-
tailed)
1 Perennialism Post & Perennialism Pre -.216 1.813 .298 -.821 .388 -.726 36 .473
2
Social Reconstructionism Post & Social Reconstructionism Pre
2.297 1.561 .257 1.777 2.818 8.952 36 .000
3 Progressivism Post & Progressivism Pre .892 2.283 .375 .131 1.653 2.377 36 .023
4 Essentialism Post & Essentialism Pre -.297 3.688 .606 -1.527 .932 -.490 36 .627
Stated more specifically, the paired sample t-test indicated that there was a non-
significant decrease in perennialism philosophy from x̄= 11.86, SD = 3.622 to x̄= 11.65, SD =
3.498 after teachers participated in the professional development IBAE workshop, with t(36) = -
.726, p > 0.05. Similarly, essentialism philosophy decreased non-significantly from x̄= 7.03, SD
= 3.371 to x̄=6.73, SD = 3.739 after teachers participated in the professional development IBAE
workshop, with t(36) = -.490, p > 0.05.
In contrast, the paired sample t-test for progressivism suggested there was a significant
increase in the progressivism philosophy from x̄= 10.24, SD = 3.022 to x̄= 11.14, SD = 3.93,
with t(36) = 2.377, p > 0.05, after participants participated in the professional development IBAE
workshop (see Tables 4.7 and 4.8). With respect to progressivism, the effect size for this
analysis was found to exceed Cohen’s (1988) convention for a small effect (i.e. d = 0.20), with
Cohen’s d = (10.24- 11.14)⁄3.022 = 0.298. That means 29.8% of the teachers scored higher on
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progressivism at posttest than at pretest. Cohen (1988, 1992) suggested that d = 0.2 be
considered a “small” effect size and that d = 0.5 be considered a “medium” effect size. This
means that if two means do not differ by 0.2 standard deviations or more, the difference is
weak/trivial, even if it is statistically significant. Thus, the effect size for progressivism was
between “small” and “medium.”
With respect to social reconstructionism, the paired-sample t-test also revealed
statistically significant differences between the pretest and posttest means. The social
reconstructionism posttest mean (x̄= 13.16, SD = 3.484) was significantly greater than the pretest
mean (x̄= 10.86, SD = 3.164), with t(36) = 8.952, p < 0.05 after participants participated in a
professional development IBAE workshop (see Tables 4.7 and 4.8). The effect size for this
analysis was found to exceed Cohen’s (1988, 1992) convention for a medium effect (i.e. d = .50).
with Cohen’s d = (10.86-13.16)⁄3.327849 = 0.691137 = 0.70. That means 70% of the teachers
scored higher on social reconstructionism at posttest than at pretest. Cohen suggested that 0.5
represents a “medium” effect size and 0.8 a “large” effect size. Thus, the effect size for social
reconstructionism falls between “medium” and “large.”
The paired sample t-test for social reconstructionism suggested there had been a
significant increase in the social reconstructionism philosophy from pretest to posttest. The
highest increases in perception/status all pertained to questions regarding the IBAE workshop on
teaching about social issues. This change seems to be in line with the intent underlining IBAE—
to teach about social issues and promote social change.
Table 4.9 presents disagreement percentages, from high to low, for the four teaching
philosophies at pretest and posttest administrations of Kauchak and Eggen’s questionnaire (2014,
pp. 169-170) for examining teachers’ philosophy of teaching. The pretest disagreement
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percentages ranged from 50% for essentialism at the highest to 15.54% for perennialism at the
lowest. Progressivism, at 23.64%, and social reconstructionism, at 17.57%, fell in the middle.
With respect to posttest disagreement percentages after the IBAE workshop, the percentages
ranged from 56.08% for Essentialism at the highest to 10.81% for social reconstructionism at the
lowest. Progressivism, at 18.24% and perennialism, at 17.57%, fell in the middle.
Table 4.9 also shows information on changes from pretest to posttest with respect to
disagreement percentages. Perennialism (with a pretest-posttest change from 15.54 to 17.57%)
and essentialism (with a pretest-posttest change from 50 to 56.08%) increased in disagreement
percentages. On the other hand, progressivism (with a pretest-posttest change from 23.64 to
18.24%) and social reconstructionism (with a pretest-posttest change from 17.57 to 10.81%)
decreased in disagreement percentages.
Table 4.9 Percentages of Art Education In-service Teachers’ Disagreement Responses at Pretest and Posttest on Kauchak & Eggen’s Questionnaire (2014), from High to Low
Dependent variables Pre-Disagreement % Dependent variables Post-Disagreement
%
Essentialism 50 Essentialism 56.08
Progressivism 23.64 Progressivism 18.24
Social Reconstructionism 17.57 Perennialism 17.57
Perennialism 15.54 Social Reconstructionism 10.81
Figure 4.7 graphically depicts art education teachers’ pre-post disagreement percentages
for the four teaching philosophies in bar graph form. It shows information on changes from
pretest to posttest with respect to disagreement percentages. Perennialism is the lowest ranked
philosophy, and essentialism is the highest ranked philosophy at pretest in terms of disagreement
percentages. On the other hand, social reconstructionism is the lowest ranked philosophy, and
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essentialism is the highest ranked philosophy at posttest in terms of disagreement percentages.
Figure 4.7. Percentage plots of art education teachers’ pretest-posttest disagreement responses Table 4.10 shows the agreement percentages, from high to low, for all four teaching
philosophies for pretest and posttest administrations of Kauchak & Eggen’s questionnaire (2014,
pp. 169-170) for examining teahers’ philosophy of teaching. The pretest agreement percentages
ranged from 77.7% for perennialism at the highest to 27.03% for essentialism at the lowest.
Progressivism, at 63.51%, and social reconstructionism, at 67.57%, fell in the middle.
After the IBAE workshop, the posttest agreement percentages ranged from 87.16% for
social reconstructionism at the highest to 22.97% for essentialism at the lowest. Progressivism, at
70.27%, and perennialism, at 38.51%, fell in the middle.
Table 4.10 also shows information on changes from pretest to posttest with respect to
agreement percentages. Perennialism (with a pretest-posttest change from 77.7 to 38.51%) and
essentialism (with a pretest-posttest change from 27.03 to 22.97%) decreased in agreement
percentages. On the other hand, progressivism (with a pretest-posttest change from 63.51 to
70.27%) and social reconstructionism (with a pretest-posttest change from 67.57 to 87.16%)
increased in agreement percentages.
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Table 4.10 Percentages of Art Education In-service Teachers’ Agreement Responses at Pretest and Posttest on Kauchak & Eggen’s Questionnaire (2014), from High to Low
Dependent variables Pre-Agreement % Dependent variables Post-Agreement
%
Perennialism 77.7 Social Reconstructionism 87.16
Social Reconstructionism 67.57 Progressivism 70.27
Progressivism 63.51 Perennialism 38.51
Essentialism 27.03 Essentialism 22.97 Figure 4.8 graphically depicts art education teachers’ pre-post disagreement percentages
for the four teaching philosophies in bar graph form. It shows information on changes from
pretest to posttest with respect to agreement percentages. Essentialism is the lowest ranked
philosophy, and perennialism is the highest ranked philosophy at pretest in terms of agreement
percentages. On the other hand, essentialism is the lowest ranked philosophy, and social
reconstructionism is the highest ranked philosophy at posttest in terms of agreement percentages.
Figure 4.8. Percentage plots of art education teachers’ pretest-posttest agreement responses.
In summary, all of the descriptive, quantitative statistics presented above show positive
gains from pretest to posttest for the teaching philosophies of Progressivism and Social
Reconstructionism. Mean scores for these two teaching philosophies increased from pretest to
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posttest, and these increases were statistically significant, with effect sizes ranging from small-
medium to medium-large, respectively. Similarly, agreement percentages increased, and
disagreement percentages decreased from pretest to posttest for these same two teaching
philosophies. In addition, for Social reconstructionism and Progressivism, agreement
dramatically increased from pretest to posttest. These results suggest that the teachers tended to
agree more with Progressivism and Social Reconstructionism after participating in the IBAE
workshop—a result that seems to align well with the content and stated purpose and objectives
of the workshop.
Research Question 3
To answer the third research question exploring the status of in-service Saudi Arabian art
education teachers’ post IBAE workshop perceptions about the relative importance of (a) the
IBAE approach, (b) reasons for using IBAE, (c) various potential social issue topics in IBAE,
and (d) various potential challenges), a modified version of Milbrandt’s (2002) questionnaire
was used. The researcher used simple descriptive statistics to provide useful quantitative
information. For each of the scaled items, the researcher reported tallies, percentages, means, and
standard deviations, thus describing the status of in-service Saudi Arabian art education teachers’
perceptions in a quantitative way.
Descriptive Statistic--Percentages
The participants agreed that it is important to address contemporary social issues within
the art curriculum, with 91.9% of the participants indicating it to be very important (21.6%) or
extremely important (70.3%). Table 4.11 shows more complete information on the percentage of
respondents choosing each possible response alternative, from not at all important to extremely
important.
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Table 4.11 Response Alternative Percentages Related to Addressing Contemporary Social Issues within the Art Curriculum
Unimportant %
Moderately Important
Important %
Not at All Important
Slightly Important
Very Important
Extremely Important
Addressing contemporary social issues within the art curriculum 0 2.7 5.4 21.6 70.3
Regarding Reasons 1-4 for using social issues in the art curriculum, between 48.6% and 76% of
the respondents indicated that each of the reasons was extremely important, and the rest rated
each of the reasons as moderately important or very important, except for one individual (2.7%),
who indicated that Reason 1 (“It develops personal and social responsibility”) was only slightly
important. No respondent indicated that any of the reasons was not at all important. With respect
to the extremely important ratings, Reason 4 (“It raises awareness of ‘real world’ problems”)
received the highest rating (73%). Reason 2 (“It develops art content and provides creative
problem-soling experiences”) received the lowest rating (48.6%). Reason 1 (“It develops
personal and social responsibility”) and Reason 3 (“It develops tolerance and appreciation of
cultural diversity and multiple viewpoints”) fell in-between. Other reasons were listed by
participants, such as the following. See Table 4.12 for more details.
• It increases appreciation and respect for effective artistic criticism.
• It links the curriculum to social problems.
• It is important for students to discuss topics.
• It is important for me to serve my community by treating community problems and by preserving the cultural heritage.
• It is a way to express needs and problems.
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• It promotes increased self-esteem.
• It increases community appreciation for the importance of art.
• It develops self-confidence and ability to offer feelings and opinions more freely.
• It develops confidence in engaging in discussion and dialogue.
• It develops solutions and ideas to solve the problems that students suffer from.
• It increases the student’s exposure to artistic culture.
Table 4.12 Response Alternative Percentages for the Importance of Addressing Contemporary Social Issues Within the Art Curriculum and for Underlying Reasons/Rationales
Unimportant %
Moderately Important
Important %
Not at All Important
Slightly Important
Very Important
Extremely Important
Reason 1: It develops personal and social responsibility 0 2.7 5.4 32.4 59.5
Reason 2: It develops art content and provides creative problem-solving experiences.
0 0 2.7 48.6 48.6
Reason 3: It develops tolerance and appreciation for cultural diversity and multiple viewpoints
0 0 2.7 43.2 54.1
Reason 4: It raises student awareness of "real world" problems.
0 0 2.7 24.3 73
With respect to the importance of various contemporary social issues/topics in the art
curriculum, extremely important ratings ranged from 62.2% to 89.2% across the eight listed
topics/issues. With respect to extremely important ratings, Topic 7, “effects of mass media,” was
ranked highest (89.2%). Topic 1 (“appreciation of cultural diversity”) and Topic 6 (“gender
issues”) were ranked lowest at 62.2% each. Topics 2-5 and 8 fell between those. Other possible
topics were mentioned by teacher participants as follows. See Table 4.13 for additional details.
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• Beneficial technology
• Depression and frustration
• Addiction to electronic devices
• Smoking
• Volunteering and serving the community
• Women's rights
Table 4.13 Response Alternative Percentages for the Importance of Various Contemporary Social Issues/Topics in the Art Curriculum
Unimportant %
Moderately Important
Important %
Not at All Important
Slightly Important
Very Important
Extremely Important
Topic 1: Appreciation of cultural diversity 0 0 5.4 32.4 62.2
Topic 2: Environmental issues 0 2.7 0 29.7 67.6
Topic 3: Violence, abuse, war 0 0 0 16.2 83.8
Topic 4: Racism 0 0 0 24.3 75.7
Topic 5: Homelessness, poverty, hunger 0 0 0 35.1 64.9
Topic 6: Gender issues 0 0 10.8 27.0 62.2
Topic 7: Effects of mass media 0 0 0 10.8 89.2
Topic 8: Censorship 0 0 2.7 16.2 81.1
With respect to the importance of various challenges in addressing contemporary social
issues within the art curriculum section, extremely important ratings across the three listed
challenges ranged from 16.2% to 37.8%, and very important ratings across the three listed
challenges ranged from 43.2% to 48.6%. Among extremely important ratings, the highest
percentage (37.8%) was for Challenge 3 (“lack of information about artists or good lesson plans
that explore significant social issues, and little time to sufficiently research these topics prior to
124
teaching”). The lowest percentage (16.2%) was for Challenge 2 (“fear of negative parental
reaction to discussions of social issues in the art classroom.”). Challenge 1 (“lack of time”) and
Challenge 4 (“lack of information”) fell in the middle. The other possible challenges that were
mentioned by teacher participants included the following. See Table 4.14 for more detailed
information.
• Teachers having limited resources
• Not all lessons being able to make use of it
• School administration not being accepting of the change
• Parents lacking awareness of the importance of the issue
• Approach/content being incompatible with the curricula
Table 4.14 Response Alternative Percentages for the Importance of Various Challenges in Addressing Contemporary Social Issues Within the Art Curriculum
Unimportant %
Moderately Important
Important %
Not at All Important
Slightly Important
Very Important
Extremely Important
Challenge 1: Lack of time for substantial discussion of issues in the art classroom due to other priorities
2.7 2.7 16.2 48.6 29.7
Challenge 2: Fear of negative parental reaction to discussions of social issues in the art classroom
5.4 10.8 24.3 43.2 16.2
Challenge 3: Lack of information about artists or good lesson plans that explore significant social issues, and little time to sufficiently research these topics prior to teaching
0 8.1 10.8 43.2 37.8
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Descriptive Statistics—Means and Standard Deviations
To further answer the third question of this study, I used additional descriptive statistics
based on the responses to the modified questionnaire by Milbrandt (2002, pp. 145-151). Table
4.15 provides descriptive statistics in the form of mean ratings and standard deviations related to
the importance of addressing contemporary social issues within the art curriculum. The mean
rating, on a 4-point scale, for the importance of addressing contemporary social issues within the
art curriculum (i.e. x̄ = 3.59, SD = .725) shows that most art education teachers agreed strongly
with the importance of addressing contemporary social issues as part of their approach to
teaching art after the IBAE workshop.
Table 4.15 Mean Ratings and Standard Deviations for the Importance of Addressing Contemporary Social Issues within the Art Curriculum (N = 37)
Items Minimum Maximum Mean SD
Addressing contemporary social issues within the art curriculum 1 4 3.59 .725
As can be seen in Table 4.15, the mean importance ratings across the various possible
reasons/rationales for addressing contemporary social issues with the art curriculum ranged from
3.46 to 3.70, which reflects a fairly consistent viewpoint about these listed reasons/rationales. Art
education teachers, after participating in the IBAE workshop, strongly agreed with Reason 4, “It
raises student awareness of ‘real world’ problems,” with mean = 3.70 and SD = .520. This mean
was higher than that of any other reason/rationale listed. The lowest mean, mean = 3.46 and SD
= .558, was for Reason 2, “It develops art content and provides creative problem-solving
experiences.” The means falling in the middle were for Reason 1 (“It develops personal and
social responsibility”) and Reason 3 (“It develops tolerance and appreciation…”); these means
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were 3.49 and 3.51, respectively. Participants mentioned several other reasons/rationales as
follows. See Table 4.16 for more details.
• It shows art goals run deeper than beauty alone.
• It shows art constitutes a language for dialogue/discussion.
• It shows artists are not isolated.
• It benefits communities and individuals.
• It changes individuals’ perspectives on art.
• It shows the connection of art with issues.
• It expresses freedom.
Table 4.16 Mean Ratings and Standard Deviations for Underlying Reasons/Rationales for Addressing Contemporary Social Issues within the Art Curriculum (N = 37)
Items Minimum Maximum Mean SD
Reason1: It develops personal and social responsibility 1 4 3.49 .731
Reason 2: It develops art content and provides creative problem-solving experiences 2 4 3.46 .558
Reason 3: It develops tolerance and appreciation for cultural diversity and multiple viewpoints 2 4 3.51 .559
Reason 4: It raises student awareness of "real world" problems 2 4 3.70 .520
Table 4.17 provides descriptive statistics of the means ratings and standard deviations
based on the perceived importance of addressing eight social issues/ topics in the arts curriculum.
As can be seen from the table, mean ratings for these eight issues/topics ranged from 3.51 to
3.89. The highest mean was for Topic 7 (“effects of mass media”), x̄ = 3.89, SD = .315. The
second highest mean was for Topic 3 (violence, abuse, war), x̄ = 3.84, SD = .374. The lowest
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mean was for Topic 6 (gender issues), x̄ = 3.51, SD = .692. The means falling in the middle were
for “racism,” “homelessness, poverty, hunger”, and “censorship.” Other possible topics/social
issues were listed by the teacher participants, as follows. See Table 4.17 for more details.
• Accepting others
• Beneficial technologies
• Bigotry
• Bullying
• Corruption
• Cyberbullying
• Depression and frustration
• Addiction to electronic devices
• Hooliganism
• Ignorance
• Isolation and loneliness
• Public health
• Teacher's Day
• Tree Week
• Racism
• Respect for public regulations
• Appreciating/treating kindly/helping older persons
• Sexual orientation
• Smoking
• Social phobias
• Protecting water resources
• Volunteering and serving the community
• Women's rights
Table 4.17 Mean Ratings and Standard Deviations for the Importance of Various Contemporary Social Issues/Topics in the Art Curriculum (N = 37)
Items Minimum Maximum Mean SD
Topic 1: Appreciation of cultural diversity 2 4 3.57 .603
Topic 2: Environmental issues 1 4 3.62 .639
Topic 3: Violence, abuse, war 3 4 3.84 .374
Topic 4: Racism 3 4 3.76 .435
(table continues)
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Items Minimum Maximum Mean SD
Topic 5: Homelessness, poverty, hunger 3 4 3.65 .484
Topic 6: Gender issues 2 4 3.51 .692
Topic 7: Effects of mass media 3 4 3.89 .315
Topic 8: Censorship 2 4 3.78 .479
With respect to the importance of varying challenges in addressing contemporary social
issues in the art curriculum, the mean importance ratings across the various possible challenges
ranged from 2.54 to 3.11. The mean rating for Challenge 3, “lack of information about artists or
good lesson plans that explore significant social issues,” with mean = 3.11 and SD = .906, was
higher than that of any other listed challenge after respondents had participated in the IBAE
workshop. The lowest mean, mean = 2.54 and SD = 1.070, was for Challenge 2, “fear of negative
parental reaction to discussions of social issues in the art classroom.” The mean falling in the
middle was for Challenge 1, “lack of time for substantial discussion of issues in the art classroom
due to other priorities,” with mean = 3.00 and SD = .913. A number of Other possible challenges
were listed by the teacher participants, as follows. See Table 4.18 for more details.
• Lack of financial resources
• Lack of community awareness
• Current curricula
• Student hesitation because of fear of confrontation
• Lack of appropriate art works by artists in the various fields of art
• Society does not like this idea and considers it unimportant, a waste of time
• No studio is available
• Lack of time to carry out the work
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• Lack of awareness in society of the importance of this art education approach and marginalization of it, especially by teachers of other subjects.
Table 4.18 Mean Ratings and Standard Deviations for the Importance of Various Challenges in Addressing Contemporary Social Issues in the Art Curriculum (N = 37)
Items Minimum Maximum Mean SD
Challenge 1: Lack of time for substantial discussion of issues in the art classroom due to other priorities
0 4 3.00 .913
Challenge 2: The fear of negative parental reaction to discussions of social issues in the art classroom
0 4 2.54 1.070
Challenge 3: A lack of information about artists or good lesson plans that explore significant social issues, and little time to sufficiently research these topics prior to teaching
1 4 3.11 .906
Qualitative Analysis and Findings
The current study used four instruments to collect qualitative data in two sections to
investigate in-service Saudi Arabian school art education teachers’ perceptions of the workshop
and lesson plan generation, as well as the perceptions of IBAE lesson implementation within the
context of Saudi Arabian society. To answer the second research question, a reflective essay and
a post-workshop questionnaire (with open-ended questions) were used. To answer the fourth
research question, a personal journal protocol and an art teacher focus group discussion were
employed. To provide more explanation and clarification of the quantitative data results, the
reflective essay, the post-workshop questionnaire, the personal journal protocol, and the art
teacher focus group discussion were used, and the additional resulting data were analyzed.
These qualitative instruments were used to achieve further explanation of the results. In
this research, it was important to use multiple linear event analysis in order to meet the research
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objective from all the methodological sides. Combining multiple methods also introduces several
benefits, such as stronger results, a broader approach to research questions, and a more holistic
phenomenological understanding of a topic (Davis, Golicic, & Boerstler, 2011).
I used the inductive approach by means of a coding process which was applied in several
phases, including in vivo and focused coding, because this procedure is considered highly
inductive as it permits themes to emerge from the data as opposed to themes being
predetermined by the researcher (Boyatzis, 1998). The inductive codes and themes came from 4
types of transcribed data (the reflective essay and post-workshop questionnaire, the personal
journal protocol, and the art teachers focus group discussion).
Coding is fundamentally a system of classification--the procedure of noticing what is of
importance or consequence, identifying different segments of the data, and labeling the data to
organize the information contained in the data. Codes are the names or identifiers that are
attached to chunks or segments of data that a researcher considers relevant to his/her research
(Bloomberg & Volpe, 2018). This qualitative analytic process in this study was cyclical, and first
step coding occurred during the initial coding of the data (Saldaña, 2016; Bloomberg & Volpe,
2018). ATLAS.ti.8 software was used to code the data in several cycles and generate tag clouds
and a visual network. Two main categories emerged from the study’s two qualitative questions.
These categories were "evaluation of IBAE" and "perceptions of IBAE lesson plan generation
and implementation." Identification of these two categories allowed for development of more
precise sub-categories. Table 4.19 shows the phases of the analytic process used in the current
study.
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Table 4.19
Qualitative Data Analysis Procedures
Step Actions
Phase 1: Prepare and explore data, identify big ideas and main categories
• Translation from Arabic to the English language. • Importation of data to ATLAS.ti.8 software. • Organization in two categories:
o Category 1: Evaluation of IBAE by reflective essay and post-workshop questionnaire.
o Category 2: Perception of IBAE lesson plan generation and implementation within the context of Saudi Arabian society by personal journal protocol and art teachers focus group discussion.
Phase 2A: Re-read, examine data, create coded data, place coded data in categories
Improved categories to sub-categories. Re-read and re-coded the data. The first step in the analytic process was to consider the "big ideas;" then the second step was to analyze and classify the data and place sections of material into categories, with increased codes and categories. Read data carefully; re-read and highlighted certain words, ideas, etc.
Phase 2B: Data summary, revise coding scheme
• Revised coding schema, reviewed, and re-reviewed each piece of information building on insights and expectations and ideas gained during data collection.
• Coded data using In Vivo codes and coding scheme. • Created, merged coding, polished, and added codes. • Added additional sub-categories from first cycle. • Reviewed using a second coder and editor.
Phase 3: Focus coding scheme and report findings
• Organization of data in two main categories. • Every category has several sub-categories, which total 12 sub-categories. • Every sub-category has several coding schemes. • Created a structure. • Provided participant quotations. • Summarized key findings by generating word clouds and visual networks.
Phase 4: Interpret findings
Analyzed and synthesized findings, linking to experience, insight, and literature to be discussed in Chapter 5.
Phase 1: Prepare and Explore Data, Identify Big Ideas
This phase’s goal was to prepare and explore data, then identify big ideas. After
translating responses from Arabic to the English language, the researcher arranged and organized
the data by naming and organizing files. In the beginning, I chose a logical and consistent way to
name and organize the files to allow me and another coder to easily locate and use them. Thus, I
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grouped files within folders so all the information on a particular topic was located in one place.
I labeled 2 files, which are Qualitative Part 1: Evaluation IBAE Workshop, and
Qualitative Part 2: Implementation IBAE Within Context of Saudi Society. Then every file had
several documents such as Journal Protocol, Focusgroup Voice, Focusgroup Writing, Reflective
Essay, Most Helpful & Why, Least Helpful & Why, How Improved & Change, Additional
Resources, Rate Quality Lesson, and How Confident & Why. I tried to avoid duplication and
ensure that data could be backed up, which took slightly more time than I expected for planning.
After I collected the data to manage, organize, and make sense of all separate pieces of
accumulated information, I started by carefully reading over all the various data collection
sources. I read until I felt confident about the data and gained an overall sense of the whole
before I broke it into its constituent parts. Then I read through each transcript again and tried to
identify the big ideas as I read. I made notes or highlighted relevant words and phrases that had
some relationship to the research questions. I attempted to make sense of the data as a whole. In
the beginning, I highlighted single words, phrases, sentences, or even whole paragraphs. Codes
were written in the margins alongside the appropriate segments of text in the ATLAS.ti 8.
When I started to read, I tried to keep an open mind and to be ready for the unexpected. I
accepted that the process in its totality would take time and avoided premature judgments and
decisions. I checked each piece of information and, building on insights and feelings expanded
during data collection, attempted to make sense of the data as a whole. According to Merriam
(1998), “qualitative analysis usually results in the identification of recurring patterns and themes
that cut through the data" (p. 11).
Phase 2 A: Re-read, Examine Data, Create Coded Data, Place Coded Data in Sub-Categories
The goal of the second phase was to classify the data and place sections of material into
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several sub-categories. I read the data carefully again, re-read and highlighted certain words and
ideas for examining data, and created coded data. After the data had been read carefully,
ATLAS.ti 8 was used to generate sub-categories. In addition, I aimed to place coded data in sub-
categories and revise the coding scheme. In accordance with Saldaña (2016), I divided the data
into several sub-categories and units. To achieve the goal, I concentrated on examining each
piece of information. I began by carefully reading and re-reading all the data provided by the
various data collections.
I selected any segment of data that captured my interest in answering my research
questions, and I saved these data segments as quotations. I selected as many appropriate
quotations as I could from 9 documents. Table 4.20 presents sub-categories, coding schemes,
quotations, and repetitions/ frequency (the number of times a response was repeated) from art
education teachers’ perception for evaluation of IBAE by means of the reflective essay and post-
workshop questionnaire, as well as lesson plan generation and implementation within the context
of Saudi Arabian society by means of the personal journal protocol and art teachers focus group
discussion. I highlighted each part of the text sections, marking and recording issues that seemed
important and relevant, along with thoughts, reflections, and comments that came to my mind.
I devised/structured several sub-categories by finding/identifying common meanings,
relationships, and concepts within the words and sentences comprising the qualitative data.
Every time I read the transcripts, I tried to grasp and concentrate on the repeated ideas,
statements, semantics, and/or meanings. I created and investigated new themes, topics, terms,
phrases, ideas, concepts, keywords, and chunks of data. I tried to cover as many responses as
possible. In addition, I tried to be generic enough to apply the code to multiple comments, but
specific enough to be useful in my analysis. I captured both positive and negative ideas. I
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identified and noted common patterns in the data.
I reviewed each code to ensure that it was logical and related to the research. I kept in
mind that analysis should involve more than random words that seem to occur with regular
frequency by asking myself: What is this about? What seems to be emerging? I checked these
ideas against the categories and descriptors of the conceptual framework. When I was deeper
into the analytics, I found that some of the responses and codes needed to be merged because
they had the same or similar meaning that held up throughout.
I attempted to connect the phrases and find differences and similarities among sub-
categories. I went back and forth identifying the coding scheme, subcategories, and categories.
Each time, I endeavored to read more deeply, and I found new coding schemes and sub-
categories by using Atlas.ti.8. All the time, I tried to take note of the coded data without trying to
fit them into a pre-existing coding scheme or to make them match my analytical assumptions.
My intention was that my readers would get a full understanding of the important issues
surrounding the changing of participants' opinions.
In the final product resulting from this cycle, the data were organized into fifteen sub-
categories: artists and kinds of artwork, benefits of IBAE, challenges in addressing IBAE, IBAE
within saudi society, implementation challenges, improvement and suggestions, lesson
implementation process, planning and generation of lessons using IBAE, quality of the IBAE
workshop, reasons for using IBAE, social actions, students' views based on teachers' perceptions,
teachers' perceptions of IBAE, teachers’ views of IBAE implementation, and topic generation in
IBAE. Table 4.20 shows the Phase 2A: Re-read, examine data, create code data, and place coded
data in categories.
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Table 4.20
Phase 2A: Re-Read, Examine Data, Create Code Data, Place Coded Data in Categories
# Sub-Categories Quotations and Repetitions
1 Artists & Kinds of Artwork
Abdul Wahab, Qatif Artist (1), Ahmed Al-Maghlouth Painting (2), Calligraphy (1), Caricature Art (1), Collage (8), Crafts (2), Design (4), Draw, Collage, And Multiple Combinations (6), Drawing in Pastel Colors (2), Include Social Issues in Digital Art (2), Painting: Scream Artist: Edvar Mont (1), Saknah Hassan Artwork (1), Saudi Artists (2), The Contour Line (1), Tragedy Van Gogh (1), Wall Banksy Panel (1), Watercolors (1).
2 Benefits of IBAE
Apply In Real Life (3), Communication Skills (14) Cooperation Groups (13), Creative Artwork With IBAE (18), Curiosity About The Subject (3), Develop All Aspects Of Life (9), Educational Through Art (10), Enjoy Dialogue With A Group (6), Exciting Experience (10), Express Issues That Affect Community (14), Great Exchange Experience (14), Greatly Beneficial (15) Help To Ease Of Criticism (3), Impact Is Stronger And Deeper (10), Important Issue Of Concern To Society (9), Increase Students Respect (6), Information Organized And Easy (8), Interesting Skills And Content (8), Invite To Reality (26), Lead Society Forward (3), Learn How To Read Artwork (17), Learned To Accept And Respect Opinions (4), Look At Things From Different Points Of View (5), Many Discussions And Views (3), Meaningful Message (7), Modify Youth Behavior (3), More Useful (7), New Ideas To Apply (8), Participation Of All Society (8), Positive Effects (18), Powerful Voice Embodied (5), Shifting Its Path From Negative To Positive (7), Solve Society Issues (47) Think, Research, And Investigated (2), Use Art As The Medium Of Social Expression (8).
3 Challenges in Addressing IBAE
Choose Artwork or Subject First (7), Difficult to Find a Painting (1), Distribute Some Papers (1), Least Helpful Writing in Paper (3), Long Preparation IBAE (2), Long Writing Surveys (1), Need One More Day (1), A Transition Phase in Our Society (1).
4 IBAE within Saudi Society
Addressing Current Issues (2), Adherence To The Values of The Nation (1), Always Use IBAE With Students (3), Criticizing Paintings (1), Defense Of The Nation’s Property (1), Fits With 2030 Vision (2), Fits With The Saudi National Curriculum (2), Freedom To Add 20% Of Curriculum (3), Learned An Inventory Of Saudi Society Issues (1), Preserving The National Identity (3), Pride in The National Values (3), Society Differ From Other Societies (1), Supports Principles (3), The Appropriate Possibilities For Its Implementation (1), Thinking, Awareness And Vision 2020 (2).
5 Implementation Challenges
A Blame for The Length of Preparation (2), Create Plan Challenge (1) Long Implementation Procedures (1), No, A Special Reference for Art (2), Not All Lesson Can Use IBAE (1), Part Of Art Class Or Library (2), School Administration Accepts Challenge (3), The Lack Of Capabilities Challenge (6), Time Challenge (13).
6 Improvement and Suggestions
A Visual Presentation Listing A Goal (3), Classification Of Issues Is Most Important (2), Curriculum Update Annually (4), Doing Workshop For Other Teachers (1), Draw Live (1), Inform The Principal And Colleagues (1), Leaving Teachers To Select Topics (1), Prefers Teacher Choice Of Curriculum (4), Present Individual (1), Provide Devices With Students (1), Reducing Duration (1), Suggest Repeat The Idea (3), Teacher Preparation Programs Adopt IBAE (3), Tell An Introductory Story (1), Theme Coincides With All Events (1), Training For Teacher (1).
7 Lesson Implementation Process
Analyze Artwork (21), Apply For Four Weeks (1), Artistic Social Production (2), Assist To Understand The Topic (1), Avoid Inappropriate Topic (3), Brainstorming Ideas (7), Collect More Than Ideas to Apply (1), Criticism, Analysis And Debate (18), DBAE Questions (2), Demonstration And Presentation (2), Discussion And Dialogue (15), Evaluation (4), Implement Social Action (5), Pictures and Movies Supported Theme (1), Religious Connection (2), Use Environmental Material (8), Using the Internet Through Research (1).
(table continues)
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# Sub-Categories Quotations and Repetitions
8 Planning and Generation of Lessons Using IBAE
Concern About Set Time (3), Difficult to Choose Topic (2), Divide the Artwork (6), Follow IBAE Steps (11), Freedom to Choose Subject (3), High Confidence for Implementing (26), Participate Selecting Appropriate Topics (3), Prepare Lessons Based on IBAE (10), Research Famous Artwork (3) Research for Social Action (4), Search for International Artists' Paintings (2), Set of Artworks and Artist (1), Transferred to My Students (8).
9 Quality of IBAE Workshop
Add A Goal in The Beginning (4), All Respect and Appreciation (19), Comprehensive Content (25), Easy Points and Explained in Detail (15), Effective Knowledge (4), Enjoy in IBAE With Group (21), Flexibility (3) High-Quality Workshop (23), Presenter Method (4), Questionnaires Are Striking (6), So, Helpful (22) Successful Experience (30), Title Caught Attention (7) Wonderful Encourage Smile (7), Wonderful Workshop (28), Workshop Clear (13).
10 Reasons for Using IBAE
Art Goal Deeper Than Beauty (16), Art Language of Dialogue (8), Artists Not Isolated (4), Beneficial for Individual (6), Benefited Community (13), Change Perspective on Art (1) Connect Art with Issues (18), Express Freedom (3)
11 Social Action An Exhibition (2), Folded (4) Heritage Show (2), Morning Line (3), Parent Meeting (1), Phobia in Lecture (1), Present Video Clips (1), School Podcasts (3), Silent Acting Scene (3), Surveys (6), Water Program (1).
12 Students' Views Based on Teachers' Perceptions
Choose Subjects From Community (7), Connect to Community (20), Critical Teenage Feeling (5), Criticism Skills (10), Deal With Issues (4), Discover Talents (2), Encourage Thinking (16), Enthusiasm (35), Express Freely (27), From Repetitive to Fun Lesson (4), Full of Experiences (9), Great Interaction (12), Increase Research And Produce (8), Increase Value and Information (11), Increased Awareness (22), Increases Self-Confidence (15), Influential Role of Students in Society (7), Interactive (4), Look for a Solution (4), Open Dialogue (3), Passion to Know Artists (5), Positive Emotions (10), Sensitivity to Social Responsibility (12), Share Experience (5), Some Student Imitated Other (1), Touched Feelings (11).
13 Teachers’ Perceptions of IBAE
Artist History Is Not Important (3), Asked for Almost 19 Years (1), Attend More IBAE Workshops (8), Become Close to Students (4), Current Curriculum Limited Creativity (8), Current Curriculum Repeated Topics (5), Educate Community (2), Enthusiasm to Apply (16), Find Students' Needs (11), Fun Workshop (4), Helpful Lesson Sample (2), Hope Apply in All Subjects (4), Knowing the Students’ Abilities (2), Learned New and Creative Ideas (6), Marginalization of Art (4), Modern And Nice Topics (12), Need More Practice (2), Needs More Time and Training (1), Negative About Current Curriculum (3), Optimistic to Apply (16), Reach Experience (13), So, Important (26), Suffering With Current Curriculum (22), Sure, Repeat (5).
14 Teachers’ Views of IBAE Implementation
Administration Accepted Positively (2), At The End Of The Semester (1), Directed Them to Develop (2), Explained Several Issues (3), Good and Beneficial Experience (2), Included In The Extra-Curriculum (4), Interesting Conversation With Students (3), Interesting Experience (19), Lesson Was Smooth (1), Meet Every Day (1), Need Repeat Several Times (1), New Modern Experience (10), Next Time Will Choose Students', Contact Topics (4), One Hour Weekly (1), Quality and Appreciation of Artistic Education Depends On the Teacher (2), Questionnaires to Choose Topic (2), Strongly Implemented (23), Two Classes Weekly (2), Will Apply in Every Lesson (4).
15 Topic Generation in IBAE
Accept Other (4), Beneficial Technology (3), Bigotry (1), Bullying (13), Corruption (2), Cultural Diversity (5), Cyberbullying (1), Depression And Frustration (2), Domestic Violence (3), Electronic Addiction (2), Environmental Pollution (3), Family Topic (2), Hearsay (3), Heritage (7), Hooliganism (1), Ignorance (1), Isolation And Loneliness (1), Mass Media (5), Muharram (4), National Day (3), Political Issues (2), Poverty (4), Public Health, Teacher's Day, Tree Week (2), Racism Lesson (7), Respect for Public Regulations (2), Respecting, Appreciating, Kindness, and Helping Older Person (1), Save the Blessings (1), Self-Censorship (1), Sexual Abnormality (3), Smoking (3), Social Phobia (10), Thanks Blessings Water (3), The Nature of Women's Work in the Region (1), Traffic Regulations (1), Volunteering and Serving the Community (1), Wars (1), Woman’s Decency (3), Woman’s Rights (8).
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In this phase, I was careful while reading and re-reading the data set in order to develop
and test the words, phrases, and sentences I used to identify my coding scheme. This procedure
required close and intense concentration to find appropriate sub-categories and gain a full
understanding of the important themes emerging from this data. I thought through certain
specific questions: “What is going on? What are people doing? What is the person saying? What
do these actions and statements take for granted? How do structure and context serve to support,
maintain, impede or change these actions and statements?” (Charmaz, 2003, p. 94-95).
Phase 2B: Data Summary, Revise Coding Scheme
In this analytical phase, it was important to reduce the size of the collected database and
sub-categories by reducing coding-schemes in useful ways. Creswell (1998) said this phase
requires ways to distill the information into smaller sets of notes that characterize total data. The
aims from this phase were to revise the coding scheme; review, re-review each piece of
information, and build upon insights and expectations and ideas gained during data collection.
Saldaña (2016) stated that the primary goal during this phase coding is to develop a “sense of
categorical, thematic, conceptual, and/or theoretical organization” (p. 234). Thus, coding
schemes were reviewed. As a result, the list of coding schemes was polished to find a sense of
categorical, thematic, and conceptual connections from first cycle codes by merging the close
meaning. I chose an in vivo coding scheme because “it uses participants’ exact words, which
results in rich data for studies” (Rogers, 2018, p. 890).
I realized I had multiple coding schemes that were very similar. Thus, to collapse these
together into one coding scheme, I grouped and colored codes, establishing overarching sub-
categories. In the ATLAS.ti 8, I merged codes together into one single code, thus bringing
similar codes together under one code. As I analyzed my data and created codes, it became
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difficult to keep track of all the codes. I decided to group together coding schemes according to
their overarching theme or category. I organized my coding schemes in ATLAS.ti by assigning a
color to each code sub-category for the different coding schemes. According to Dey (1993), the
researcher must continually try to define and redefine categories by specifying and changing the
criteria used.
I identified the coding schemes and the sections of information that were related to every
coding scheme. When I read the transcript for the last time, I found some connections and made
some changes in order to better answer the research questions. I used phrases and keywords from
the data to label the coding schemes. Every time I read, I perceived new statements, ideas, or
connections with other themes, categories of in vivo codes, and ideas. Braun and Clarke (2012)
recommend that the researcher code for as many potentially interesting themes as possible and
that she or he keep a little of the data surrounding the coded text when carrying out the coding
scheme; that way, not too much of the context is lost. At the same time, I reduced the data to
make the analysis as useful as possible to attain a balance between having too many and too few
coding schemes.
Table 4.21 shows examples of how I developed sub-categories from the merging of in
vivo codes to achieve close meaning and concentration of each coding scheme. Also, once the
entire coding scheme was placed under sub-categories, I revised for any overlap between coding
scheme sub-categories. When I had similar characteristics or properties, I interpreted them as
really one and the same thing. Splitting two descriptors is sometimes arbitrary, and they can
sometimes be better collapsed into one. In the first three readings, I perceived around 275 coding
schemes from all 9 transcriptions. At that time, I did not clearly understand the transcript in
terms of the coding scheme, meaning, and results.
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Table 4.21
Example of the Sub-Categories Collapsed into One Coding Scheme
Original Coding Scheme Collapsed into One
Enjoy Dialogue with A Group Cooperation Groups Cooperation Groups
Look at Things from Different Points of View Learned to Accept and Respect Opinions Learned to Accept and Respect Opinions
Positive Emotions Touched Feelings Touched Feelings
Passion to Know Artists Increased Awareness Increased Awareness
Look for A Solution Deal with Issues Deal with Issues
Title Caught Attention Questionnaires Are Striking Caught Attention Caught Attention
Research Famous Artwork Research for Social Action Research Research
Use Environmental Material Artistic Social Production Artistic Social Production
DBAE Questions Analyze Artwork Analyze Artwork
Length of Preparation Long Implementation Procedures Long Procedures Long Procedures
Lack of Capabilities Challenge School Administration Challenges Environmental Challenges Environmental Challenges
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Table 4.22
Tag Cloud from Phase 2B: Revised Coding Schemes of Polished and Non-Repetitive Codes
# Sub-Categories Quotations and Repetition Coding Schemes
1 Artists & Kinds of Artwork
Abdul Wahab Qatif Artist (1), Ahmed Al-Maghlouth Painting (2), Calligraphy (1), Caricature Art (1), Collage (8), Crafts (2), Design (4), Draw, Collage, And Multiple Combinations (6), Drawing in Pastel Colors (2), Include Social Issues in Digital Art (2), Painting: Scream Artist: Edvar Mont (1), Saknah Hassan Artwork (1), Saudi Artists (2), The Contour Line (1), Tragedy Van Gogh (1), Wall Banksy Panel (1), Watercolors (1)
• International Artists • Multiple Type of Art • Saudi Artists
2 Benefits of IBAE
Apply In Real Life (3), Communication Skills (14) Cooperation Groups (13), Creative Artwork With IBAE (18), Curiosity About The Subject (3), Develop All Aspects Of Life (9), Educational Through Art (10), Enjoy Dialogue With A Group (6), Exciting Experience (10), Express Issues That Affect Community (14), Great Exchange Experience (14), Greatly Beneficial (15) Help To Ease Of Criticism (3), Impact Is Stronger And Deeper (10), Important Issue Of Concern To Society (9), Increase Students Respect (6), Information Organized And Easy (8), Interesting Skills And Content (2), Invite To Reality (26), Lead Society Forward (3), Learn How To Read Artwork (17), Learned To Accept And Respect Opinions (4), Look At Things From Different Points Of View (5), Many Discussions And Views (3), Meaningful Message (7), Modify Youth Behavior (3), More Useful (7), New Ideas To Apply (8), Participation Of All Society (8), Positive Effects (18), Powerful Voice Embodied (5), Shifting Its Path From Negative To Positive (7), Solve Society Issues (47) Think, Research, And Investigated (2), Use Art As The Medium Of Social Expression (8)
• Communication Skills • Creative Artwork With IBAE • Develop All Aspects of Life • Educational Through Art • Exciting Experience • Express Issues That Affect Community • Great Exchange Experience • Increase Students Respect • Invite To Reality • Lead Society Forward • Learn How to Read Artwork • Learned to Accept and Respect
Opinions • Modify Youth Behavior • Powerful Voice Embodied • Shifting Its Path from Negative to
Positive • Solve Society Issues • Stronger and Deeper Impact
3 Challenges in Addressing IBAE
Choose Artwork or Subject First (7), Difficult to Find a Painting (1), Distribute Some Papers (1), Least Helpful Writing in Paper (3), Long Preparation IBAE (2), Long Writing Surveys (1), Need One More Day (1), A Transition Phase in Our Society (1)
• Choose Artwork or Subject First • Increase Duration • Long Writing
(table continues)
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# Sub-Categories Quotations and Repetition Coding Schemes
4 IBAE within Saudi Society
Addressing Current Issues (2), Adherence To The Values Of The Nation (1), Always Use IBAE With Students (3), Criticizing Paintings (1), Defense Of The Nation’s Property (1), Fits With 2030 Vision (2), Fits With The Saudi National Curriculum (2), Freedom To Add 20% Of Curriculum (3), Learned An Inventory Of Saudi Society Issues (1), Preserving The National Identity (3), Pride In The National Values (3), Society Differ From Other Societies (1), Supports Principles (3), The Appropriate Possibilities For Its Implementation (1), Thinking, Awareness And Vision 2020 (2)
• Fits With 2030 Vision • Fits with The Saudi National
Curriculum • Freedom to Add 20% Of Curriculum • Pride in The National Values • Supports Principles
5 Implementation Challenges
A Blame for The Length of Preparation (2), Create Plan Challenge (1) Long Implementation Procedures (1), No, A Special Reference for Art (2), Not All Lesson Can Use IBAE (1), Part of Art Class or Library (2), School Administration Accepts Challenge (3), The Lack of Capabilities Challenge (6), Time Challenge (13)
• Environmental Challenge • Long Procedures • No, A Special Reference for Art • Not All Lesson Can Use IBAE
6 Improvement and Suggestions
A Visual Presentation Listing A Goal (3), Classification Of Issues Is Most Important (2), Curriculum Update Annually (4), Doing Workshop For Other Teachers (1), Draw Live (1), Inform The Principal And Colleagues (1), Leaving Teachers To Select Topics (1), Prefers Teacher Choice Of Curriculum (4), Present Individual (1), Provide Devices With Students (1), Reducing Duration (1), Suggest Repeat The Idea (3), Teacher Preparation Programs Adopt IBAE (3), Tell An Introductory Story (1), Theme Coincides With All Events (1), Training For Teacher (1)
• Curriculum Update Annually • Increase Duration • Inform the Schools • Prefers Teacher Choice of Curriculum • Suggest Repeat the Idea • Teacher Preparation Programs
7 Lesson Implementation Process
Analyze Artwork (21), Apply For Four Weeks (1), Artistic Social Production (2), Assist To Understand The Topic (1), Avoid Inappropriate Topic (3), Brainstorming Ideas (7), Collect More Than Ideas To Apply (1), Criticism, Analysis And Debate (18), DBAE Questions (2), Demonstration And Presentation (2), Discussion And Dialogue (15), Evaluation (4), Implement Social Action (5), Pictures And Movies Supported Theme (1), Religious Connection (2), Use Environmental Material (8), Using The Internet Through Research (1)
• Analyze Artwork • Artistic Social Production • Brainstorming Ideas • Demonstration and Presentation • Discussion and Dialogue • Evaluation • Implement Social Action
8 Planning and Generation of IBAE Lessons
Concern About Set Time (3), Difficult to Choose Topic (2), Divide the Artwork (6), Follow IBAE Steps (11), Freedom to Choose Subject (3), High Confidence for Implementing (26), Participate Selecting Appropriate Topics (3), Prepare Lessons Based on IBAE (10), Research Famous Artwork (3) Research for Social Action (4), Search for International Artists' Paintings (2), Set of Artworks and Artist (1), Transferred to My Students (8),
• Choose Subject • Follow IBAE Steps • High Confidence for Implementing • Prepare Lessons Based On IBAE • Research
(table continues)
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# Sub-Categories Quotations and Repetition Coding Schemes
9 Quality of IBAE Workshop
Add A Goal in The Beginning (4), Effective Knowledge (4), All Respect and Appreciation (19), Comprehensive Content (25), Easy Points and Explained in Detail (15), Enjoy in IBAE With Group (21), Flexibility (3) High-Quality Workshop (23), Presenter Method (4), Questionnaires Are Striking (6), So, Helpful (22) Successful Experience (30), Title Caught Attention (7) Wonderful Encourage Smile (7), Wonderful Workshop (28), Workshop Clear (13)
• All Respect and Appreciation • Caught Attention • Comprehensive Content • Easy Points and Explained in Detail • Effective Knowledge • Enjoy with Group • High-Quality Workshop • So, Helpful • Successful Experience • Wonderful and Clear
10 Reasons for Using IBAE
Art Goal Deeper Than Beauty (16), Art Language of Dialogue (8), Artists Not Isolated (4), Beneficial For Individual (6), Benefited Community (13), Change Perspective on Art (1) Connect Art with Issues (18), Express Freedom (3)
• Art Language of Dialogue • Benefited Community and Individual • Change Perspective on Art • Connect Art with Issues • Deeper Than Beauty
11 Social Action An Exhibition (2), Folded (4) Heritage Show (2), Morning Line (3), Parent Meeting (1), Phobia in Lecture (1), Present Video Clips (1), School Podcasts (3), Silent Acting Scene (3), Surveys (6), Water Program (1)
• Papers and Technology • Schools' Activities/ Performance
12 Students' Views Based on Teachers' Perceptions
Choose Subjects From Community (7), Connect To Community (20), Critical Teenage Feeling (5), Criticism Skills (10), Deal With Issues (4), Discover Talents (2), Encourage Thinking (16), Enthusiasm (35), Express Freely (27), From Repetitive To Fun Lesson (4), Full Of Experiences (9), Great Interaction (12), Increase Research And Produce (8), Increase Value And Information (11), Increased Awareness (22), Increases Self-Confidence (15), Influential Role Of Students In Society (7), Interactive (4), Look For A Solution (4), Open Dialogue (3), Passion To Know Artists (5), Positive Emotions (10), Sensitivity To Social Responsibility (12), Share Experience (5), Some Student Imitated Other (1), Touched Feelings (11)
• Connect to Community • Criticism Skills • Deal with Issues • Enthusiasm • Express Freely • From Repetitive to Fun Lesson • Great Interaction • Increased Awareness • Increases Self-Confidence • Interactive • Open Dialogue • Positive Emotions • Sensitivity to Social Responsibility
(table continues)
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# Sub-Categories Quotations and Repetition Coding Schemes
13 Teachers’ Perceptions of IBAE Workshop
Artist History Is Not Important (3), Asked For Almost 19 Years (1), Attend More IBAE Workshops (8), Become Close To Students (4), Current Curriculum Limited Creativity (8), Current Curriculum Repeated Topics (5), Educate Community (2), Enthusiasm To Apply (16), Find Students' Needs (11), Fun Workshop (4), Helpful Lesson Sample (2), Hope Apply In All Subjects (4), Knowing The Students’ Abilities (2), Learned New And Creative Ideas (6), Marginalization Of Art (4), Modern And Nice Topics (12), Need More Practice (2), Needs More Time And Training (1), Negative About Current Curriculum (3), Optimistic To Apply (16), Reach Experience (13), So, Important (26), Suffering With Current Curriculum (22), Sure, Repeat (5)
• Attend More IBAE Workshops • Become Close to Students • Current Curriculum Negativity • Enthusiasm to Apply • Helpful and Important • Needs • Reach Experience
14 Teachers’ Views of IBAE Implementation
Administration Accepted Positively (2), At The End Of The Semester (1), Directed Them To Develop (2), Explained Several Issues (3), Good And Beneficial Experience (2), Included In The Extra-Curriculum (4), Interesting Conversation With Students (3), Interesting Experience (19), Lesson Was Smooth (1), Meet Every Day (1), Need Repeat Several Times (1), New Modern Experience (10), Next Time Will Choose Students', Contact Topics (4), One Hour Weekly (1), Quality And Appreciation Of Artistic Education Depends On The Teacher (2), Questionnaires To Choose Topic (2), Strongly Implemented (23), Two Classes Weekly (2), Will Apply In Every Lesson (4)
• Interesting Experience • Meeting Time • Strongly Implemented • Will Apply in Every Lesson
15 Topics Generation in IBAE
Accept Other (4), Beneficial Technology (3), Bigotry (1), Bullying (13), Corruption (2), Cultural Diversity (5), Cyberbullying (1), Depression And Frustration (2), Domestic Violence (3), Electronic Addiction (2), Environmental Pollution (3), Family Topic (2), Hearsay (3), Heritage (7), Hooliganism (1), Ignorance (1), Isolation And Loneliness (1), Mass Media (5), Muharram (4), National Day (3), Political Issues (2), Porno Snap (1), Poverty (4), Public Health, Teacher's Day, Tree Week (2), Racism Lesson (7), Respect For Public Regulations (2), Respecting, Appreciating, Kindness, And Helping Older Person (1), Save The Blessings (1), Self-Censorship (1), Sexual Abnormality (3), Smoking (3), Social Phobia (10), Thanks Blessings Water (3), The Nature Of Women's Work In The Region (1), Traffic Regulations (1), Volunteering And Serving The Community (1), Wars (1), Woman’s Decency (3), Woman’s Rights (8)
• Cultural Diversity • Electronic Addiction • Environmental Pollution • Family Topics • Isolation and Loneliness • Morality Issues • Violence • Women's Topics
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Thus, I read and re-read until I had 1346 quotations and 583 coding schemes. Then, in Phase 2B,
15 coding categories were revised--polished and freed of repetitiveness in coding schemes. Table
4.22 shows the coding schemes from Phase 2 (B) and provides more details about the revisions
made in polishing coding schemes and collapsing repetitive coding schemes.
Also, Figure 4.9 shows the tag cloud coding schemes from Phase 2B of coding, including
the revised, polished, and collapsed coding scheme column.
Figure 4.9. Tag cloud from Phase 2 (B): Revised coding schemes of polished and non-repetitive codes.
I was the main coder, and another coder reviewed the in vivo and subcategory codes to
test for reliability. The other coder was my classmate, a doctoral candidate from the curriculum
and instruction department, the College of Education, University of North Texas. Besides being a
doctoral candidate, he is a person with knowledge of and experience with qualitative research. I
chose someone with art education knowledge because he could better assist me in understanding
the quotations and codes. Also, he was someone with knowledge of ATLAS.ti.8. Before we
began coding, I provided coding scheme instructions in ATLAS.ti.8 for Windows software for
the second coder; however, I used the Mac version.
In addition, I provided the coder with detailed coding scheme procedures for ATLAS.ti 8.
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We attended a Webinar meeting (Overview of ATLAS.ti 8) provided by Ivana Radivojevic on
Wednesday 1-15-2020 at 4:00 am. I submitted all documents and software that required analysis.
After the coding scheme process was complete, I reviewed all codes in the 15 categories and
compared my codes and the other coder’s codes to find out if there were any differences for each
part, the categories, or the sub-categories. To avoid unfairness, I compared my coding schemes
and that of the second coder to discover whether or not there was consensus.
Concerning the reliability of the classification process, inter-rater reliability was used to
see the consistency of different individuals/raters. The two sets of codes achieved an acceptable
IRR coder reliability rate of 0.89, which should be considered highly reliable because .90 or
greater is considered highly reliable, and .80 or greater is acceptable in most studies ((McHugh,
2012). My process phases agreed with those of Bloomberg and Volpe (2018) in relation to their
observation that "each phase in this multi stage process leads logically to the next, yet the
process is essentially an iterative and somewhat messy one" (p. 99). I cycled through the
sequence of phases more than once and went back and revisited earlier steps in an ongoing effort
to narrow and produce sense us of what was in the data. The steps that I took overlapped with
each other as I continued to read and re-read data.
Phase 3: Focus Coding Scheme and Report Findings
In this phase, I aimed to develop the 15 sub-categories on Phase 2 to 12 sub-categories on
Phase 3 for focus coding schemes in two main categories by using my research questions and my
data collection points to concentrate on the important focus coding scheme. I used the focus
coding scheme with in vivo code to find the relationships between sub-categories. I found that
certain sub-categories were subsumable under others, while some needed to be sub-divided even
further. At this point, the refinements became more focused. I found that some of the data did not
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fit any sub-category's criteria for inclusion; thus, I reviewed and modified the coding schemes
once again for the final listing of sub-categories. Lastly, I carefully examined every piece of data
to determine its fit with the sub-category's criteria for inclusion.
To answer Research Questions 2 and 4, I implemented 51 coding schemes, under 12 sub-
categories, under 2 main categories; they are the following:
• Category 1: Evaluation of IBAE by reflective essay and post-workshop questionnaire included the following 5 sub-categories (for answering Research Question 2):
o Benefits of IBAE and the IBAE workshop
o Quality of IBAE workshop
o Reasons for using IBAE
o Teachers’ perceptions of IBAE workshop
o Challenges in IBAE and the IBAE workshop
• Category 2: Perception of IBAE lesson plan generation and implementation within the context of Saudi Arabian society by personal journal protocol and art teachers focus group discussion questionnaire included the following 7 sub-categories (for answering Research Question 4):
o IBAE within Saudi society
o IBAE lesson implementation process
o Teachers’ views of IBAE implementation
o Students' behaviors based on teachers' observations
o IBAE topics and lessons
o Challenges in implementation of IBAE lessons
o Improvement and suggestions
Finally, in this phase, I created a structure, provided examples of supporting participant
quotations, and visually summarized key findings by generating word clouds and visual
networks.
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Category 1: Evaluation of IBAE by Reflective Essay and Post-Workshop Questionnaire
The following (for answering Research Question 2) was answered after teachers
participated in a professional development workshop on social IBAE: What is the status of in-
service Saudi Arabian art education teachers’ perceptions of the workshop and lesson plan
generation and activity? Figure 4.10 shows the category 1 Words Cloud for coding scheme.
Figure 4.10. Category 1 word cloud for coding schemes.
Evaluation of the IBAE workshop, by means of a reflective essay and post-workshop
questionnaire, yielded five categories after the final phase. Table 4.23 shows Category 1 results.
1- Benefits of IBAE and the IBAE workshop
2- Quality of IBAE workshop
3- Reasons for using IBAE
4- Teachers’ perceptions of IBAE workshop
5- Challenges in IBAE and the IBAE workshop
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Table 4.23
Phase 3: Category 1
# Sub-Categories In Vivo Refined Codes Focused Coding Scheme and Number of Frequencies
1
Benefits of IBAE and the IBAE Workshop
• Communication Skills • Creative Artwork with IBAE • Develop All Aspects of Life • Educational Through Art • Exciting Experience • Express Issues That Affect
Community • Great Exchange Experience • Increase Students Respect • Invite to Reality • Lead Society Forward • Learn How to Read Artwork • Learned to Accept and Respect
Opinions • Modify Youth Behavior • Powerful Voice Embodied • Shifting Its Path from Negative
to Positive • Solve Society Issues • Stronger and Deeper Impact
• Communication Skills, 22. • Exciting Experience, 39. • Express Issues that Affect
Community, 52. • Great Exchange Experience, 35. • Invite to Reality, 26. • Read Artwork, 33. • Solve Society Issues, 47. • Stronger and Deeper Impact, 40. • Powerful Voice Embodied, 24.
2 Quality of IBAE Workshop
• Effective Knowledge • All Respect and Appreciation • Caught Attention • Comprehensive Content • Easy Points and Explained in
Detail • Enjoy with Group • High-Quality Workshop • So Helpful • Successful Experience • Wonderful and Clear
• Effective Knowledge, 7. • Caught Attention, 66. • Comprehensive Content, 48. • High-Quality Workshop, 42. • Successful Experience, 52. • Wonderful and Clear, 41.
3 Reasons for Using IBAE Approach
• Art Language of Dialogue • Benefited Community and
Individual • Change Perspective on Art • Connect Art with Issues • Deeper Than Beauty
• Deeper than Beauty, 34. • Change Perspective on Art, 33.
(table continues)
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# Sub-Categories In Vivo Refined Codes Focused Coding Scheme and Number of Frequencies
4
Teachers’ Perceptions of IBAE Workshop
• Attend More IBAE Workshops • Become Close to Students • Current Curriculum Negativity • Enthusiasm to Apply • Helpful and Important • Needs • Reach Experience
• Current Curriculum Negativity, 39.
• Enthusiasm to Apply, 53. • Helpful and Important Approach,
28. • Rich Experience, 55.
5
The Challenges in IBAE and the IBAE Workshop
• Choose Artwork or Subject First • Increase Duration • Long Writing
• Choose Artwork or Subject First, 7.
• Long-Writing, 38.
Sub-Category 1: Benefits of IBAE and the IBAE Workshop
Data in sub-category 1: “Benefits of IBAE and the IBAE Workshop” had 9 coding
schemes under this sub-category, which are communication skills (frequency 22); exciting
experience (frequency 39); express issues that affect community (frequency 52); great exchange
experience (frequency 35); invite to reality (frequency 26); read artwork (frequency 33); solve
society issues (frequency 47); stronger and deeper impact (frequency 40); and powerful voice
embodied (frequency 24). For example, a variety of responses, indicated a coding scheme about
the importance of “expressing issues that affect the community” (frequency 52). One example of
this was when one of the participants responded,
I learned that art is a very sophisticated science that cares about the community, material, and emotional needs of humankind, and that through art, I changed my view of art more broadly; and broadly, we need to educate the community about the importance of art and its role in solving many social issues and expressing issues that affect the community. For the “Invite-to-Reality” coding scheme (frequency 26), another participant responded,
“we must link art to our reality through drawing and other artworks,” and yet another participant
emphasized that art could permit “contact with student’s reality and her life need.” In the “great-
exchange-experiences” coding scheme (frequency 35), one teacher noted, “we exchanged
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opinions and experiences, benefited from the impact of social issues on society, and criticized
paintings in an amazing way, individually and in groups.”
In terms of experiences with interpretation and “reading-of-artwork” coding scheme
(frequency 35), another teacher said, “I learned quickly to read the paintings in an organized
manner,” and two other teachers said, “We read artworks critically, through technical analysis
that we learned in the IBAE workshop by using DBAE and IBAE approaches.”
Sub-Category 2: Quality of IBAE Workshop
In the “quality-of-IBAE-workshop” sub-category, there were 6 coding schemes, effective
knowledge (frequency 7); caught attention (frequency 66); comprehensive content (frequency
48); high-quality workshop (frequency 42); successful experience (frequency 52); and wonderful
and clear (frequency 41). For the in vivo phrase “caught-attention” coding scheme (frequency
66), participants presented responses such as the following: “The title of the workshop caught
my attention and how to use the questionnaire and activate the technology that suits the role.”
Moreover, the phrase “successful-experience” coding scheme had a frequency of 52, and the
“wonderful-and-clear” coding scheme had a frequency of 41. For example, 21 participants said,
“It is so successful experience, and so wonderful workshop, I appreciate her work and
motivation.” Another coding scheme “high-quality-workshop” had a frequency of 41 in
answering the question of how participants rated the quality of the IBAE workshop. Another
said,
I was impressed by the smoothness of the presenter and the flow of dialogue. I enjoyed the IBAE workshop through discussion that addressed how to use IBAE approach. It was a very high quality workshop.
Sub-Category 3: Reasons for Using IBAE Approach
The “reasons-for-using IBAE” sub-category included two coding schemes, “deeper than
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beauty” (frequency 34) and “change perspective on art” (frequency 33). The art is “deeper-than-
beauty” coding scheme was included, with some respondents saying phrases such as “Art is not
just beauty, and the purpose is not to install the paintings on the walls only, but to benefit from
them and display them to society in a different way.” Also, in the “change-perspective-on-art”
coding scheme, some teachers responded with comments similar to “art has in important social
relationship that we neglect.” Also, other participants said things similar to this: “My perspective
changed about the useful link between issues and art educating students, which is an important
goal that art can pursue.”
Sub-Category 4: Teachers’ Perceptions of IBAE Workshop
The sub-category 4 had 4 coding schemes, which were current curriculum negativity
(frequency 39), enthusiasm to apply (frequency 53), helpful and important approach (frequency
28), and rich experience (frequency 55). For example, in the “rich-experiences” coding scheme,
art teacher participants responded with comments like the following: “It adds to my experiences
a sense of criticism, expression, a sense of painting and social issues, and it is rich on practical,
intellectual, practical and creative experiences as well.”
Under the “enthusiasm-to-apply” coding scheme, one teacher said, “I have been asking in
using this method for almost 19 years.” Also, another said, “I will make my students an
important party to solving and developing appropriate solutions and their ability to express the
issues that affect their community.” Several art education teacher participants stated that they
were greatly enthused to “apply the IBAE approach to their art education classrooms.”
In the “helpful and important” coding scheme, which had a frequency level of 28, several
teachers stated that “IBAE workshop and approach were helpful and important workshop to
show us how to use this kind of approach to our art education classroom.”
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Sub-Category 5: The Challenges in IBAE and the IBAE Workshop
Data in sub-category 5: “challenges in IBAE and the IBAE workshop” had 2 coding
schemes under this sub-category, which are choose-artwork-or-subject-first (frequency 7), and
long-writing (frequency 38). With respect to the “choose-artwork-or-subject-first” coding
scheme, three participants said something similar to this: “I do not know whether to choose the
artwork or subject/topic/issue first.” In “long-writing” coding scheme in this sub-category,
several participants made comments similar to this one: “This kind of lesson requires a long
time for writing and preparing its activities before implementation. In addition, there were many
services and instruments that we did.” Finally, three of the participants asserted that they needed
more than 5 days for the IBAE workshop.
Category 2: Perception of IBAE Lesson Plan Generation and Implementation by Using Journal Protocol and Focus Group Discussion
The following question (for answering Research Question 4) was answered after teachers
participated in a professional development workshop on social IBAE and after implementing an
original IBAE lesson plan: What is the status of in-service Saudi Arabian art education teachers’
perceptions of the IBAE lesson implementation activity and of social IBAE, especially within the
context of Saudi Arabian society? Figure 4.11 shows the Category 2 words cloud for coding
scheme. Table 4.24 shows phase three, category 2, and results for the entire 29 coding schemes
under 7 sub-categories. Perception of IBAE lesson plan generation and implementation within
the context of Saudi Arabian society by personal journal protocol and art teachers focus group
discussion included the following 7 sub-categories (for answering Research Question 4):
6. IBAE within Saudi society
7. IBAE lesson implementation process
8. Teachers’ views of IBAE implementation
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9. Students' behaviors based on teachers' observations
10. IBAE topics and lessons
11. Challenges in implementation of IBAE lessons
12. Improvement and suggestions
Figure 4.11. Category 2 word cloud for coding schemes.
Table 4.24
Phase 3: Category 2
# Sub-Categories In Vivo Refined Codes Focused Coding Scheme and Number of Frequencies
6 IBAE within Saudi society
• Fits With 2030 Vision • Fits with The Saudi National
Curriculum • Freedom to Add 20% Of
Curriculum • Pride in The National Values • Supports Principles
• Fits with 2030 Vision, 9. • Fits with The Saudi National • Curriculum, 18.
(table continues)
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# Sub-Categories In Vivo Refined Codes Focused Coding Scheme and Number of Frequencies
7 IBAE lesson implementation process
• Analyze Artwork • Artistic Social Production • Brainstorming Ideas • Demonstration and Presentation • Discussion and Dialogue • Evaluation • Implement Social Action • Follow IBAE Steps
• Analyze Artwork, 44. • Brainstorming Ideas, 22. • Discussion and Dialogue, 21. • Implement Social Action, 35. • Follow IBAE Steps, 38.
8 Teachers’ views of IBAE implementation
• Interesting Experience • Meeting Time • High Confidence for
Implementing • Strongly Wish to Implement Will
Apply in Every Lesson
• Interesting Experience, 44. • Strongly Wish to Implement, 43. • High-Confidence for
Implementing, 44.
9
Students' behaviors based on teachers' observations
• Connect to Community • Criticism Skills • Deal with Issues • Enthusiasm • Express Freely • From Repetitive to A Fun Lesson • Great Interaction • Increased Awareness • Increased Self-Confidence • Interactive • Open Dialogue • Positive Emotions • Sensitivity to Social
Responsibility
• Connect to Community, 27. • Criticism Skills, 10. • Enthusiasm, 49. • Express Freely, 34. • Great Interaction, 22. • Increased Awareness, 59. • Increased Self-Confidence, 15. • Open Dialogue, 8. • Positive Emotions, 26. • Sensitivity to Social
Responsibility, 12.
10 IBAE topics and lessons
• Electronic Addiction • Environmental Pollution • Family Topics • Isolation and Loneliness • Morality Issues • Violence • Women's Topics
• Cultural Diversity, 43. • Morality Issues, 51. • Woman’s Topics, 22.
11 Challenges in implementation of IBAE lessons
• Environmental Challenge • Long Procedures • Limited Arabic IBAE References • Not All Lesson Can Use IBAE • Negativity about Saudi
Curriculum
• Long Procedures, 11. • Limited Arabic IBAE
References, 4. • Environmental Challenge, 6. • Current Curriculum Negativity,
8.
(table continues)
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# Sub-Categories In Vivo Refined Codes Focused Coding Scheme and Number of Frequencies
12 Improvements and suggestions
• Curriculum Update Annually • Increase Duration • Inform the Schools • Prefers Teacher Choice of
Curriculum • Suggestion to Repeat the Idea • Teacher Preparation Programs
• Prefers Teacher Choice of Curriculum, 15.
• Suggestion to Repeat the Idea, 11.
Perceptions of IBAE lesson plan generation and implementation within the context of
Saudi Arabian society, revealed by a personal journal protocol and by an art teacher focus group
discussion, produced seven categories after the third cycle in Category 2.
Sub-Category 6: IBAE within Saudi Society
“IBAE within Saudi society” was a sub-category that had two coding schemes, the “fit-
with-the-Saudi-2030-Vision” coding scheme (frequency 9), and the “fit-with-the-Saudi-national-
curriculum” coding scheme (frequency 18). Many participants confirmed that “I believed IBAE
was in line with the new vision for Saudi Arabia and with the national curriculum.” Three
participants presented that “only in the range of 20% time devoted to it in any given semester,
which means I could not apply it in every lesson.” The responses varied from teachers who
could not apply it to those who could apply it in a limited way. Thus, participants mostly
indicated that a free time within the curriculum would be required in which they could
comfortably use a new method such as the IBAE approach.
Sub-Category 7: IBAE Lesson Implementation Process
Data in sub-category 7: “IBAE-lesson-implementation-process” had 5 coding schemes:
analyzing artwork (frequency 44); brainstorming ideas (frequency 22); discussion and dialogue
(frequency 21); implementing social action, (frequency 35); and following IBAE steps
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(frequency 38). For example, “analyze artwork” (frequency 44) is one strong coding scheme in
this sub-category. The art education teachers confirmed that “technical analysis skills and results
allowed for extrapolation as well as rich discussion by using DBAE questions and IBAE steps to
analyze art.” Also, some teacher participants stated that they “learned how to critique the
paintings in a wonderful, artistic way and to discuss social issues and how to deal with social
issues.” Others focused on the “importance of the presentation of a socially relevant work of art
by the teacher-trainer, who guides students in criticizing it [established methods], explaining it,
expressing thoughts/feelings, finding solutions, and learning how to connect it to the
community.”
In the “brainstorming-ideas” coding scheme (frequency 22), several participants
mentioned cooperation and brainstorming as means of collecting the largest number of social-
issue connections when viewing a work of art. With respect to the “brainstorming-ideas” coding
scheme, one comment was as follows: “This kind of method encourages students’ critical
thinking (through) brainstorming and searching for issues and (responding to) artwork using
social action.”
In the “implement-social-action” coding scheme (frequency 35), art education teacher
participants had different ideas on how to implement/promote social actions --such as through
the use of exhibitions, the school’s morning line (the arrangement of students according to class
for morning announcements before the school day starts), the school’s morning podcast, parent
meetings, programs, and shows. Follow IBAE steps is one coding scheme in this Sub-Category
7. Several teacher participants said, “I follow the DBAE and IBAE steps that we had at IBAE
workshop, I follow the seven steps from beginning to end to apply social action and evaluation
the lesson.” In this sub-category 7, the “discussion-and-dialogue” coding scheme appeared, with
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an art education teacher participant responding,
I was impressed how the students enjoy and participate in the dialogue. I enjoyed the IBAE lesson implementation through discussion that addressed the important issues for Saudi society through various discussions.
Sub-Category 8: Teachers’ Views of IBAE Implementation
This sub-category 8 included three coding schemes, which were interesting experience
(frequency 44); strongly wish to implement (frequency 43); and high-confidence for
implementing (frequency 44). In “interesting-experience” coding scheme (frequency 44), several
art teacher participants mentioned, “It was new, modern, interesting, personal experience with
my students.” And one said,
I am surprised how students are so enthusiastic, even the students who are lazy and were not interested in doing their artwork as usual, they participated and did a wonderful job and artwork.
Other participants said, “students thought IBAE lessons were attractive, beautiful, joyful,
interesting, important, helpful, wonderful, fun, and positive reification.”
Regarding the “strongly-implementing” coding scheme, most of the participants agreed
about the benefits of including the IBAE approach in their teaching experiences at every chance
that they could, except for one teacher, who said, “I have my own method.”
The “high-confidence” coding scheme (frequency 44) shows that the art teacher
participants expressed high confidence in their own ability to implement this kind of approach in
their own art classes. Several participants said such as, “I am so confident and will strongly apply
it to my class because it will be helpful for me, my students, and our society.”
Sub-Category 9: Students' Behaviors Based on Teachers' Observations
In the “students' behaviors based on teachers' observations” sub-category, there were 10
coding schemes identified, which included the following: connect to community (frequency 27);
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criticism skills (frequency 10); enthusiasm (frequency 49); express freely (frequency 34); great
interaction (frequency 22); increased awareness (frequency 59); increased self-confidence
(frequency 15); open dialogue (frequency 8); positive emotions (frequency 26); and sensitivity to
social responsibility (frequency 12).
The most frequent code in this category was “increased awareness” coding scheme
(frequency 59). For example, some of the art teacher participants’ ideas about student views (not
the actual students’ views) was, “Using IBAE raised students’ social awareness about societal
problems and the need to solve them.” The second strong code was “enthusiasm” coding scheme
(frequency 49). Participants mentioned “the influence on the students’ enthusiasm.” One
participant said, “I was passionate to apply the project (with) my students; really, they love the
idea so much, and they were enthusiastic while they did their artworks.” The “express-freely”
coding scheme (frequency 34) also appeared in this category. One participant said, “students like
to have the freedom that exists in an IBAE instructional unit/project.” Another art teacher
participant said,
Sure, I will apply the method in every lesson for my class to move from repetitious and boring to fun and creative lessons because my students love to express themselves freely. In relation to the finding on “social-responsibility” coding scheme, some participants
said,
This approach will assist to build the relationships between citizenship and responsibility through the examination of artistic participation and its importance in association with responsibility extended to community need. Also, it helps to build fundamental beliefs that help citizens center themselves around responsibility.
Sub-Category 10: Topics Generation in IBAE
“Topics-generation-in-IBAE” sub-category had three concentration coding schemes.
With respect to topics that had high frequencies, a number of art education teachers chose to
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mention cultural diversity (frequency 43), morality issues (frequency 51), and women's topics
(frequency 22) as appropriate for their respective classrooms.
Sub-category 10 agrees with or helps confirm the quantitative data that shows the same
suggested IBAE topics. Art education teacher participants presented various potential social
issue topics to be used in conjunction with IBAE, including cultural diversity, addiction to
electronics, environmental pollution, family topics, isolation and loneliness, morality issues,
violence, and women's topics.
Sub-Category 11: Challenges in Implementation of IBAE Lessons
In sub-category 11: “challenges-in-implementation-of-IBAE-lessons,” four concentration
coding schemes, which are long procedures (frequency 11); limited arabic ibae references
(frequency 4), environmental challenge (frequency 6), and negative current curriculum
(frequency 8). Most participants felt high-confidence in their ability to implement IBAE in their
classroom. For example, many art teachers’ participants said, “after the IBAE workshop, I am
very confident about applying this kind of approach in my respective classes.”
Regarding the “negative-current-curriculum” coding scheme (frequency 8), art teacher
participants felt they could not apply the new approach easily because they had a specific
curriculum which they could not change: only about 20% of the curriculum allows them the
freedom to apply any topic in a way/manner of their own choosing.
Many of the art teachers’ participants said, “the current art education curriculum was
limited and full of repetitive subject lessons, with every different grade level presenting the same
material, style, and methods each year.” Other examples related to the delivery of art education
curriculum also mentioned that “I need more freedom to control my lesson,” “I am constrained
and restricted,” and “this curriculum reduced creativity and critical thinking.”
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Overall, several of the participants had “Negative-Current-Curriculum.” They said that
the IBAE curriculum was not compatible with the current curriculum of art education in Saudi
Arabia because the current Saudi Arabian curriculum concentrates on technical learning skills
more than thinking, valuing, expressing oneself, freedom, and making connections to one’s own
life. The current curriculum is concentrated on art production and lacks a connection to students
as human beings who have value, ambition, and issues that they need help/guidance in solving.
Sub-Category 12: Improvements and Suggestions
The final sub-category 12, “improvements-and-suggestions,” led to two further coding
schemes, prefers teacher choice of curriculum (frequency 15) and suggest repeating the idea
(frequency 11). The first coding scheme included teachers’ comments such as “preferring to
choose curriculum from ourselves or to have a voice/say in curriculum choices.” The second
coding scheme related to repeated exposure to IBAE ideas. The respondents stressed the value of
attending other IBAE workshop. One participant noted “the value of attending other IBAE
workshops and/or other kinds of similar workshops because of the benefits of this experience.”
Another participant said,
Adding this kind of curriculum to art teacher preparation programs will impact their awareness to using this kind of approach and improve their experience. I hope I can attend more like this workshop in IBAE.
Summary
I created a structure that I followed and documented the findings in this chapter through
an extensive coding scheme protocol and by providing examples of participant quotations like
those above. In addition, I further summarized findings by generating the various word cloud
figures shown above and the visual networks figure, Figure 4.12. Stated more specifically, I used
a focus coding scheme to find the relationships between sub-categories.
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Figure 4.12. Final focus coding schemes showing the final relationships between sub-categories.
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This final phase reported the finding to answer the research questions by using two main
categories in twelve sub-categories in 51 coding schemes. After review, the data and the focused
coded data had a reduced number of coding schemes, from 538 down to 51. In Figure 4.12, the
Visual Network for categories, sub-categories, and coding schemes’ data shows in-service art
education teachers’ perceptions with respect to the IBAE workshop and its implementation in
Saudi society context in greater detail.
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CHAPTER 5
DISCUSSION OF THE RESULTS
Introduction
Art can be used as a means of exploring the basic values related to social issues affecting
the community. Some scholars (Albers, 1999; Bethel & Foels, 2016; Chang, Lim, & Kim, 2012;
Carvalho, 2014) have pointed to the potential of art to strengthen education through the lessons it
provides on social issues. Art has a unique ability to bring us onto a path to social change; it can
thus play a significant role in the community by causing students and teachers to reflect on or
consider their cultural values or understandings in a new way. Furthermore, art influences
society by changing opinions, inspiring values, and translating experiences across physical
places and time periods. Early researchers such as Dewey (1934), Albers (1999), and Chang,
Lim, & Kim (2012) have shown that art affects the fundamental understanding of individuals and
communities, especially when using art with social issues. Education is not solely the gain of
knowledge to make students more intelligent academically. Education should also aim to make
students better people, therefore leading to a better society.
Nevertheless, in “The Position of Art Education in the General Education in Saudi
Arabia”, Alshehri (2001) asserted that “there is no doubt that art education has not taken its
position in the general education in Saudi Arabia despite (the fact) that art education is in the
same level with other Modules in the Curriculum and (has) uniqueness in its purposes and
messages” (p. 3). He found that the art education curriculum in Saudi Arabia was out-of-date. In
addition, he indicated that there was no specific development of how to teach art and that the
aims of art education and directions in general education were not clear.
In addition, Alshehri (2005) gave insights on the role played by art education in
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explaining and disciplining the moral and social behavior of general education pupils and the
importance of using art in this way. However, despite these assertions, there is still a lack of
concentration on using social issues in the art education curriculum in Saudi Arabia.
In a review of the literature, I noted that art teachers tend to concentrate on training
students in art skills more than on educating them about the intersection between ideas and art
and (b) on personal satisfaction rather than on dilemmas and issues faced by students in their
everyday lives (Bowman & Frega, 2012). Thus, I sought to address the situation, at least within
the Saudi Arabian art education teaching context, by providing an IBAE workshop to in-service
Saudi art teachers, focusing on IBAE techniques they can apply in their classrooms.
Therefore, the professional development workshop IBAE was created by Dr. Laney and
me. The IBAE workshop was a process wherein a coach/researcher increased art teachers'
capabilities and improved their skills in preparing and teaching social issues in their art education
lessons by following several steps, which are: 1. Recognize the need for social action in the art
education curriculum, 2. Search for resources, 3. Brainstorm and plan together and sharing
resources, 4. The presentation of “what if” idea possibilities, 5. develop and organize a timeline,
6. Follow the planned art learning experience, and 7. Student and teacher self-reflection and
critique of accomplishments (Guay, 2002).
Based on the current state of Saudi Arabian art education as described above, the current
research investigated and described the impact of an IBAE workshop and associated lesson plan
implementation on art teacher participants in Saudi Arabia. The data analyses were intended to
answer questions regarding the following:
1. Teachers’ philosophy of teaching before and after a professional development workshop on teaching about social issues with and through art
2. Teachers’ perceptions of the workshop and lesson plan generation and activity
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3. Teachers’ perceptions about the relative importance of the IBAE approach, possible rationales, possible topics, and possible challenges
4. Teachers’ perceptions of the IBAE lesson implementation activity, especially within the context of Saudi Arabian society
I prepared and conducted an IBAE workshop and reported on the pretest and posttest
results demonstrating the effects of the IBAE workshop on in-service Saudi Arabian art
education teachers’ philosophy of teaching. Furthermore, I made note of art education teachers’
perceptions of the workshop and lesson-plan-generation activities, and perceptions about the
relative importance of IBAE, as well as the general approach, reasons, topics, and challenges in
addressing social issues using IBAE. Finally, I investigated the art education teachers’
perceptions regarding implementing IBAE lesson plans, especially within the context of Saudi
Arabian society
The participants were all female art education teachers from intermediate schools in
general education in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The arrangements for teacher participation were
made with help from the supervisor in the North Riyadh office. She was so helpful and
welcoming.
In the methodology chapter, it was noted that this current mixed-method research study
utilized a sequential research design. The quantitative research portion of the study incorporated
an experimental one-group, pretest-posttest design to discover the effects of an IBAE workshop
on in-service Saudi Arabian art education teachers’ philosophy of teaching. With the qualitative
portion of the study, the positive impacts of IBAE on art teacher participants’ perceptions of art
education regarding the use of social issues in at education, the generation and implementation of
IBAE lessons, and use of IBAE lessons within the context of Saudi art education classrooms
were studied.
The quantitative part of the study consisted of a pretest and posttest using Kauchak and
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Eggen’s (2014) questionnaire and modified questionnaires from Milbrandt (2002); these were
completed by all teacher participants. The qualitative part of the study utilized a post-workshop
questionnaire, reflective essay, journal protocol, and a focus group discussion session. Data from
40 cases were screened, and 3 participants had missing docements. There were 37 participants
for post-workshop questionnaire and reflective essay, and18 participants for journal protocol and
a focus group discussion for 2 sessions.
The findings of the current study included the fact that there was an increase in art
education teachers’ adherence to the philosophical ideas of Progressivism and Social
Reconstructionism. Furthermore, there were positive impacts from the IBAE workshop on art
education teachers’ perceptions related to using social issues, generating IBAE lessons, and
implementing IBAE lessons in the art education classroom. The positive teacher-participant
perceptions evident in this study match those observed in earlier research studies and theoretical
works (i.e. Hunkins and Orstein, 2016 and Dewey, 1934) that indicated positive effects from
IBAE. In addition, Oreck (2006) stressed that successful classrooms require teachers to
incorporate other subjects with arts in their teaching.
As stated above, the goal of this research was to investigate and describe the impact of an
IBAE workshop on Saudi art education teachers. Overall, he findings of the current study
indicate that there was an increase in art teacher participants’ adherence to ideas within
Progressivism and Social Reconstructionism, two teaching philosophies which align well with
IBAE content and approaches. Moreover, there were positive impacts from the IBAE workshop
on art teacher participants’ perceptions with respect to addressing social issues within art
education, generating IBAE lessons, and implementing IBAE lessons in Saudi art education
classrooms. A detailed discussion of research questions, conclusions/answers to each research
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question, implications for classroom practice, and recommendations for future research follow
below.
Discussion
Conclusions Related to Quantitative Results, Research Question 1
Regarding the experimental/quantitative types of effects of the IBAE workshop on in-
service Saudi Arabian art education teachers’ philosophy of teaching, the first research question
was answered by administering at pretest and posttest, Kauchak and Eggen’s (2014)
questionnaire that tested the effects of the IBAE workshop on in-service Saudi Arabian art
education teachers’ philosophy of teaching. The overall analysis of the quantitative data sets
confirmed that the perspectives of art teachers became more positive regarding the teaching
philosophies of reconstructionism and progressivism philosophy after participants completed a
professional development IBAE workshop. As mentioned above, attitudes regarding the
progressivist philosophy appeared to become more positive, but to a lesser extent than what
occurred with the social reconstructionist philosophy. The other two philosophies, perrenialism
and essentialism, did not show significant effects. The two philosophies showing significant
effects reflect the views of Dewy (1934), in which he attempts to shift the focus from the
physical manifestations of an artwork to the process, which is a fundamental element in the
development of an experience that can personally affect one's life in a way crucial to an
individual’s social and educational life.
I conducted a two-tailed paired-sample t-test to determine whether there was a
statistically significant mean difference between the pretest and posttest means for the Kauchak
and Eggen (2014) questionnaire. The following null hypothesis was tested using inferential
statistics:
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H0∶ There is no significant difference between pretest and posttest measures of in-service Saudi Arabian art education teachers’ philosophy of teaching.
H0: 𝜇𝜇 Perennialis = 𝜇𝜇 Perennialism 𝜇𝜇 Essentialism 𝜇𝜇 Essentialism 𝜇𝜇 Progressivism 𝜇𝜇 Progressivism 𝜇𝜇 Reconstructionism pretest 𝜇𝜇 Reconstructionism posttest
As mentioned above, Research Question 1 was answered through the conducting of a
two-tailed paired t-test to determine if there was a statistically significant mean difference in
participants’ teaching philosophies before and after they participated in the IBAE workshop. The
researcher ran a dependent sample t-test (a paired sample t-test) on SPSS to test the null
hypothesis. The analysis produced statistically significant results related to the teaching
philosophy of Social Reconstructionism. The paired-sample t-test revealed a statistically
significant difference in mean Social Reconstructionism scores between the pretest and posttest
reports (p < 0.05).
More specifically, results indicated that there was a statistically significant positive mean
difference between the pretest and posttest Social Reconstructionism philosophy scores, with
t(36) = 8.952, p < .05, and d = 0.70, constituting a statistically significant and strongly
meaningful result. The null hypothesis (H03) for Research Question 1 was rejected with respect
to social reconstructionism. In contrast, the changes in attitudes were toward progressivism were
statistically significant but weakly meaningful, and the difference was relatively trivial.
In summary, the quantitative data results showed significant gains in both social
reconstructionist and progressivist ideas/thoughts among in-service art education teachers’ after
participating in the IBAE workshop, with the effect size being much larger/stronger for social
reconstructionism than for progressivism.
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Conclusions Related to Qualitative Results, Research Question 2
By means of descriptive/qualitative research, the second question was answered through
using a reflective essay and a post-workshop questionnaire to discover what the current status
was of in-service Saudi Arabian art education teachers’ post-workshop perceptions of the IBAE
workshop and IBAE lesson plan generation activity. With respect to conclusions associated with
the second question, six categories of results appeared.
Benefits of IBAE and the IBAE Workshop
Among the benefits-of-IBAE sub-categories, nine coding schemes showed that art
teachers’ views confirmed the benefits of IBAE and the IBAE workshop. The first coding
scheme, “great exchange experiences” for help, refers to art teacher participants
exchanging/sharing their experiences with other art education teachers in the workshop. The
second coding scheme, “exciting experiences,” indicates that participants felt joy, enthusiasm,
and energy about attending the workshop. The third coding scheme, “stronger and deeper
impact,” shows that the IBAE approach and the IBAE workshop benefited individuals by sharing
experiences and increase awareness. The fourth coding scheme, “powerful voice approach,”
refers to the fact that IBAE assists and supports individuals and the community in expressing
their opinions. The fifth coding scheme, “solving societal issues,” refers to how IBAE helps in
defining the problem, coming up with different solutions, deciding which solution to use, and
implementing that solution.
The sixth coding scheme was “communication skills,” which participants perceived were
increased through IBAE. This finding that IBAE increased communication skills agrees with
Milbrandt (2010), who asserts that IBAE is a more powerful way to increase communication
skills. This approach depends on engaging the audience in discussion through making
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suggestions, being yourself, thinking, and listening. Romero (1996), Milbrandt (2010), and Reed
(2005) support this assertion as well.
The seventh coding scheme was “read(ing) artwork.” Based on participant perceptions,
IBAE demonstrated its capacity for increasing one’s ability to read artwork and understand
artworks by employing IBAE and DBAE techniques and approaches for viewing and analyzing a
work of art. This benefit was achieved by helping educators talk about the connections between
what is seen in various artworks, the associated meanings, and the real-world experiences from
art viewers’ own lives. Cowan (1999) contends that drawings can be linked to cultural identities,
and that power derives not just from the imagery that these artworks include but from how we
read and use art to shape and support social interaction.
The eighth coding scheme was “invite to reality,” which refers to the IBAE’s provision of
vicarious and real-life experiences when studying works of art. This coding scheme agrees with
Laney’s (1996) study on “Developing Integrated Art-Social Studies Lessons Using the
Discipline-based Art Education Model: A Procedural Guide for Classroom Teachers,” in which
he said, “have the students 'live' the concept(s) in the classroom by providing them with real-life
experiences with the concept(s)” (p. 90-91). The “invite-to-reality” coding scheme found in the
current study also matches with observations from earlier studies such as Hunkins and Ornstein
(2016), who said controversial issues relate to reality and serve learners and teachers in their
efforts to promote culture and life issues. Also, in Art as Experience, Dewey (1934) believed that
reality must be experienced in art education.
The ninth coding scheme was “express issues that affect community.” This finding agrees
with the idea that art education, in the form of IBAE, can be used as a means of exploring the
basic values related to social issues affecting the community, thus strengthening art education
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through the lessons it provides on social issues (Albers, 1999; Bethel & Foels, 2016; Berman,
2009; Beauregard, Gunter, & Paquette, 2017; Chang, Lim, & Kim, 2012; Carvalho, 2014).
Figure 5.1 graphically illustrates the last cycle’s nine coding schemes for the benefits of IBAE
and the IBAE workshop.
Figure 5.1. Network of responses resulting from the last cycle of coding for benefits of IBAE and the IBAE workshop
Quality of IBAE Workshop
In the “Quality-of-IBAE-workshop” sub-category, participants indicated that this
workshop “caught-their-attention;” that was first coding scheme. Next, “a successful
experience,” “wonderful and clear,” and “high-quality workshop” were also coding schemes in
this sub-category, along with “comprehensive content” and “effective knowledge.” Figure 5.2
graphically illustrates the last phase of coding for the “Quality of (the) IBAE Workshop.”
Figure 5.2. Network of responses resulting from the last phase of coding for quality of IBAE workshop
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Reasons for Using IBAE Approach
Among the “reasons for using IBAE approach” sub- category, the “deeper-than-beauty”
and the “change-perspectives-on-art” coding schemes reflect the predominant perceptions that
participants reported. With respect to the “deeper-than-beauty” coding scheme, using IBAE in art
education supports Freedman’s (1994) assertion that education is meant “not only to promote
knowledge for students' personal gains, but to engage students in thinking about knowledge as a
part of social life" (p.158). Likewise, the “change-perspectives-on-art” coding scheme aligns
with Gablik’s (1991) assertion that using social issues with art creates a positive interaction and
changes community thinking about art and increases a belief in the meaningfulness of art within
society. Figure 5.3 graphically illustrates the last phase of reasons for using the IBAE approach.
Figure 5.3. Network of responses resulting from the last phase of coding for reasons for using IBAE approach
Teachers’ Perceptions of IBAE Workshop
In the “teachers’-perceptions-of-IBAE workshop” sub-category, four coding schemes
emerged, which included “rich experience,” “helpful and important,” “enthusiasm to apply,” and
“current-curriculum-negative” coding schemes. In this sub-category of findings, participants
indicated they had valued and rich experiences and felt enthusiasm about applying this kind of
lesson. Participants were excited to implement this kind of the lesson in their classrooms. They
felt they had had meaningful experiences and felt prepared to implement IBAE lessons in their
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respective classrooms. These findings seem to be consistent with Milbrandt's (2010) opinions
about how IBAE serves to “inform larger society about social issues; inform externally as a more
effective way to communicate movement ideals to people outside the movement; critique
movement ideology; and provide elements of pleasure and aesthetic joy” (p. 7). This quote really
goes with my findings on the “rich-experience” coding scheme and “helpful-and-important-
approach” coding scheme associated with Saudi Arabian art teachers’ perceptions of the IBAE
workshop. This statement also goes with the “enthusiasm-to-apply-in-the-classroom” coding
scheme because the IBAE workshop resulted in feelings of anticipated pleasure and aesthetic joy
when the teachers thought about using IBAE in their own art classrooms. Furthermore, the
findings above show improvements in art teacher participants’ valuing of IBAE and the IBAE
workshop. The teachers felt it was beneficial for the curriculum to communicate the value of
discussing social issues, and they felt that more encouragement and information about social
issues was a positive aspect of IBAE.
In relation to the “current-curriculum-negative” coding scheme, art education teacher
participants reacted negatively to the current art education curriculum in Saudi Arabia because
they perceived it as being repetitive, boring, and lacking in awareness of art’s effect on people’s
lives. Not surprisingly, students were perceived as having a negative view of art education, too.
The “current-curriculum-negative” coding scheme agrees with Al-Amri’s (2019), Al-Namlah’s
(1994), Alshehri’s (2001), Alheezan’s (2009), and Aboalkaur’s (1998) conclusions, which
indicate that art education in Saudi Arabia needs development. Milbrandt's (2002) findings agree
with participants’ opinions in the current study because her participants were in general
agreement on the need to construct programs along IBAE lines. Figure 5.4 graphically illustrates
the last phase of coding for teachers' perceptions of the IBAE workshop.
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Figure 5.4. Network of responses resulting from the last phase of coding for teachers' perceptions of IBAE workshop
The Challenges in IBAE and the IBAE Workshop
The few potential challenges within IBAE and the IBAE workshop included the
following: whether to choose the artwork or subject first; increasing the number of days of
commitment required; and the long time required for writing and preparing lessons. Teachers
were confused about whether to choose the artwork or the topic/issue first. In addition, the
findings indicated that it would be good to have more available time for the IBAE workshop
itself and for implementing IBAE lessons in the curriculum. Time was very challenging for some
participants. They confirmed that they needed more than 5 days of workshop preparation.
Participants also said that the current curriculum is limited and full of repetitive subject lessons,
with every different grade level presenting the same material, style, and methods each year.
Figure 5.5 graphically illustrates the last phase coding for the challenges in IBAE and the IBAE
workshop.
Figure 5.5. Network of responses resulting from the last phase of coding for the challenges in IBAE and the IBAE workshop
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Conclusions Related to Quantitative Results, Research Question 3
For the investigation of the third research question using quantitative descriptive
statistics, after the workshop I administered the Modified Milbrandt (2002) questionnaire to
reveal art education teachers’ perceptions of the relative importance of IBAE, the approach itself,
the reasons, the topics, and the challenges in addressing social issues.
The data analysis was accomplished using tallies/percentages, means, and standard
deviations for each item, thus allowing for an examination of the status of in-service Saudi
Arabian school art education teachers’ perceptions about the relative importance of (a) the IBAE
approach, (b) reasons for using IBAE, (c) various potential social issue topics in IBAE, and (d)
various potential challenges encountered in addressing social issues by using IBAE after they
had participated in an IBAE professional development workshop on social IBAE.
Teacher participants’ overall perception of addressing social issues in the art curriculum
was that it is important to use social issues within the art curriculum, with 91.9% of respondents
agreeing. That means most art education teachers agreed strongly with the importance of
addressing contemporary social issues as part of their approach to teaching art after the IBAE
workshop. This finding is consistent with those of other researchers (David & McCaughan,
2006; Feehan, 2010; Freedman, 2000; Lindström, 2014; Roman, 1968; Turner, 2007) who also
suggested the importance of addressing contemporary social issues as part of their approach to
teaching art.
The top reason/rationale for pairing art education with social issues was reason 4, “It
raises student awareness of “real world” problems.” This was consistent with the findings of
Alheezan (2009) and Lesy (1982) that this kind of research increases awareness and improves
students’ skills in relation to social issues in order to solve these issues positively and effectively.
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Additionally, the findings of the current study agreed with the findings of Gaudelius and Speirs
(2002) in supporting the power of art to increase social awareness about other cultures through
art education classes in which learners can discover how art is a reflection of cultural ideas,
beliefs, and social conditions as they negotiate life experience with art and make comparisons
and contrasts.
The social issues topic, “effects of mass media,” was the one ranked the highest. See
Appendix C for some examples from teachers’ results when they applyied IBAE in their
classrooms. Next came the topics of “environmental issues,” “appreciation of cultural diversity,”
“racism,” “homelessness,” “poverty,” “hunger,” and “censorship”—in that order. This result is
similar to Milbrandt’s (2002) research, which was originally designed to measure the status of
contemporary social issues in an art education class in Georgia, U.S.A. “Cultural diversity” and
“environmental issues” were most often mentioned by participants in this initial U.S. study.
As stated above, the participants in the current research study focused their
implementation of several topics, one of which was “environmental issues.” With respect to
these social issues topic, the current study’s finding agrees with McFee and Degge (1980) and
Larson (1993, Sept.-Oct.) when they said art education combined with other subjects and issues
raises the awareness of students and teachers about the needs of our fragile planet. Larson (1993,
Sept.-Oct.). Their findings suggest that by incorporating environmental aspects into arts
curriculum, teachers can merge such approaches as the following: (1) looking at the problem, (2)
engaging in creative drama and use of one’s imagination, (3) engaging in brainstorming and
thinking time, and (4) participating in creative productions and activities. These activities match
up well with the IBAE approach and with what participants in the current study implemented in
their own classrooms. See Appendix C for some examples of environmental-issues-related
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activities experienced by students of teachers participating in the current study.
Also, some of the teacher participants in the current study used the “cultural diversity”
topic in their development and implementation of IBAE lessons, which aligns with Chalmers
(1996), who stressed that art teachers in schools still need to educate all students for multicultural
purposes and use this topic in their art education classrooms. In addition, Chalmers (1996) and
Duncum (2001) worked with others to move art education into diverse areas and use the arts to
address issues of social justice. I think one reason for teacher participants creating and
implementing cultural diversity lessons in the current study was likely due to my sample lesson
being on a cultural diversity topic. In addition, Saudi Arabia is made up of many diverse
cultures; thus, art teacher participants likely felt the importance of this topic for their students.
See Appendix C for some examples of cultural diversity and social justice/racism activities
developed and implemented in art education classes by IBAE-trained teachers in the current
study.
In the “other” possible topics/issues category, the highest ranked topics were “bullying,”
“social phobia,” and “women’s rights.” With respect to the “bullying” topic, in Visual Arts
Education: Teaching a Peaceful Response to Bullying, Bickley-Green (2007) stated that art
teachers can help reduce violence in schools by discussing bullying, fighting, violence, and
anxiety in their art education classrooms.
Also, in relation to “social phobia,” in Art and Social Anxiety, Cousineau (July 2, 2016)
argued that the best way out of anxiety is often to face the things you are afraid of. She
confirmed that teachers need to participate in making students feel safe in their communities.
Several artsteacher participants in the current study created and implemented lessons on these
topics. See Appendix C for some examples of social-anxiety-related activities developed and
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implemented in art education classes by IBAE-trained teachers in the current study.
In terms of “women’s rights” issues, the current study’s finding agrees with Garber
(2003) and Sadker (2000), who claimed that actively connecting students to feminist issues is an
effective way to present feminist issues in classrooms. In Garber (2003), four themes on feminist
pedagogy were applied to analyze class discussions: mastery, authority, voice, and positionality
(Garber, 2003). In the current study, several teacher participants developed and then
implemented in their own classrooms IBAE lesson plans on the women’s rights topic. For
examples of these development and implementation efforts dealing with women’s rights, see
Appendix C.
The top challenge to implementing IBAE was Challenge 3, i.e. lack of information about
artists or good lesson plans that explore significant social issues, and little time to sufficiently
research these topics prior to teaching. This finding agrees with the findings of Milbrandt (2002)
regarding the lack of time for the development of appropriate teaching materials and adequate
pre-teacher training, especially in dealing with sensitive topics during classroom discussions.
Conclusions Related to Qualitative Research Data, Research Question 4
By means of qualitative research data, the fourth research question of the current study
was answered by using the teacher participants’ personal journal protocols and discussions from
an art teacher focus group that revealed details about teacher participants’ perceptions of IBAE
lesson plan generation and IBAE lesson implementation within the context of Saudi Arabian
society. The following conclusion-related sub-categories reflect a continuation of the prior
conclusion-related sub-categories in the above section entitled “Conclusions Related to
Qualitative Research Data, Research Question 2.
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IBAE within Saudi Society
Based on the perceptions of teacher participants in the current study, IBAE is a good
match to the current Saudi societal context because it fits neatly into the 2030 Vision and the
new Saudi national curriculum. This approach meets national vision curriculum targets. All this
might impact the place/importance of art education in the schools and the inclusion/non-
inclusion of art education in the schools. Clearly, Vision 2030 planners are concerned with
addressing social issues; thus, using an IBAE approach in the Saudi Arabia curriculum would
seem to be beneficial for achieving that goal (Saudi 2030 Vision, 2016). However, art teacher
participants in the current study also said that they required free space/time to effectively make
use of a new method such as the IBAE approach. Figure 5.6 graphically illustrates the last cycle
coding for IBAE within Saudi society.
Figure 5.6. Network of responses resulting from the last phase of coding for IBAE within Saudi society
IBAE Lesson Implementation Process
“Analyze artwork” and “follow IBAE steps” were two strong coding schemes in this sub-
category of “IBAE lesson implementation process.” The art education teacher participants in the
current study perceived that the use of DBAE questions and IBAE steps to analyze art promoted
technical analysis skills that allowed for better extrapolation of meaning as well as rich
discussion. Also, some teachers stated they learned how to critique the paintings in a wonderful,
artistic way and to discuss social issues and how to deal with social issues. Furthermore, the art
teacher participants confirmed that analyzing artwork through technical analysis of art elements
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and skills using DBAE questions and IBAE steps led to rich experiences. They stressed the
importance of the presentation of a socially relevant work of art by the teacher-trainer, who
guides students in criticizing it (using established methods), explaining it, expressing
thoughts/feelings, finding solutions, and learning how to connect it to the community. These
findings agree with Laney’s (1996) recommendations on “Developing Integrated Art-Social
Studies Lessons Using the Discipline-based Art Education Model: A Procedural Guide for
Classroom Teachers.” In this article, Laney presents a seven-step procedural guide for
developing integrated art-social studies lessons using the DBAE model. A related empirical
study by Laney, Moseley, and Pak (1996) indicated that lesson plans of this kind increased
students’ understanding of art and social studies concepts and students’ ability to make
inferential interpretations of works of art.
Within the “brainstorming-of-ideas” coding scheme, participants stressed the important
role of cooperation and brainstorming in identifying the largest number of relevant topics/issues.
These positive findings match those observed/derived in earlier studies that indicated positive
effects for IBAE and supported the planning and implementation of issues-based art lessons. For
example, Oreck (2006) stated that the teacher’s primary goals for students were the promotion of
"higher-order thinking skills and personal connections to the subject matter, social development,
behavioral modification, and self-regulation;” these goals were achieved while also promoting
“fun in learning” and “an enjoyable class atmosphere" (p. 14).
With respect to the “implementation-of-social-action” coding scheme found in the current
study, the teacher participants’ IBAE lessons, which included social action plans, were
implemented in their own real world classrooms after the IBAE workshop. The art teacher
participants were so excited about the resulting student products and ideas. They kept sending
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me examples and documentation of the things their classes had done. This finding matches
Laney’s (1996a) expressed viewpoint that teachers should generate at least one follow-up
activity in the form of a social action plan, for example, to make connections between the new
learning and students' own background knowledge and life experiences using the IBAE
approach. Within the implementation-of-social-action scheme coding; they suggested ideas
including exhibitions, the morning line, the morning podcast, parent meetings, programs, and
shows.
Also, art education teacher participants stressed the richness of their experiences through
open “discussion and dialogue” with students that addressed the important issues for them and
society in general. Lastly, improvements in the valuing of free expression was evident within this
“discussion and dialogue” coding scheme. This is consistent with the ideas of Alharbi (2017)
regarding the importance of “freedom, equality, fairness, freedom of expression, and
participation in the decision-making process” (p. 82). Also, Jones (1993) asked schools to
endorse a specific procedure for supporting free expression. Figure 5.7 graphically illustrates the
last phase coding for IBAE lesson implementation process.
Figure 5.7. Network of responses resulting from the last phase of coding for IBAE lesson implementation process
Teachers’ Views of IBAE Implementation
The three coding schemes related to “Teachers’ views of IBAE implementation” included
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“interesting experience,” “strongly wish to implement,” and “high confidence for
implementing.” Teacher participants in the current study described the implementation of their
IBAE lessons as interesting and fun. Overall, they found it to be an “interesting experience.” The
teachers’ views also confirmed that they had “strong” wishes to “implement” what they learned.
All teachers strongly agreed with the notion of implementing IBAE in their own teaching
experiences—now and in the future. Finally, the “high-confidence-for-implementing “coding
scheme indicates that the art teacher participants expressed high confidence in their own ability
to implement the IBAE approach in their respective art classrooms. Figure 5.8 graphically
illustrates the last cycle coding for teachers’ views of IBAE implementation sub-category.
Figure 5.8. Network of responses resulting from the last cycle of coding for teachers’ views of IBAE implementation
Students' Behaviors Based on Teachers' Observations
Among the “students' behaviors based on teachers' observations” sub-categories, ten
coding schemes showed a select group of art teachers' perceptions of students' behaviors on
journals and teachers' comments during the focus group discussion. The first coding scheme is
“connected to community” coding scheme. In this coding scheme, participants indicated that
their students felt strongly “connected to their community” through the IBAE lessons. This
finding is consistent with theory and prior studies showing that art can foster connections to
community (Albers, 1999; Bethel & Foels, 2016; Berman, 2009; Beauregard, Gunter, &
Paquette, 2017; Chang, Lim, & Kim, 2012; Carvalho, 2014). Specifically, these studies point to
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the potential of art to strengthen education through the lessons it provides on social issues. In this
way, art can clearly play a significant role in the community. For the second, third, and fourth
coding schemes, “positive-emotions,” “express freely,” and “great interaction,” participants
indicated that these lessons gave students opportunities for positive emotions, enjoyment, free
expression, and rich experiences.
Regarding the fifth coding scheme, “criticism skills,” Gaudelius and Speirs (2002) argued
that art reflects humankind’s praxis—sharing, expression, and critical perspective, and it reflects
a critical perspective on the artist’s community, time, and place. Furthermore, Firdaus and
Mariyat (2017) stressed that the teachers’ function is to promote learners’ thinking critically and
acting according to the values of humanity. This is in agreement with the aim of Saudi Vision
2030 to create experiences for students that promote social values and support improvement and
create positive changes in line with the vision. According to Kinninmont (2016), “Vision 2030
envisages a Saudi Arabia made up of citizens who are more active and independent: better
educated, more capable of critical thinking, more entrepreneurial, many working in the private
sector” (p. 41). All of the proposed social contract austerity measures, transformations, and
changes require engagement from the Saudi community in order to achieve these goals and
overcome obstacles.
I need to make one more comment with respect to the “critical thinking” finding. The
promotion of critical thinking is one of the frequent influences used to confirm the power of art
education. By practicing IBAE, art teachers can develop and encourage skills connected to
critical thinking. Using this method has potentially positive effects on art students, but also on art
teachers and schools as well. This method encourages teachers to think critically and maintain a
sense of independence and creativity in teaching (Oreck, 2006; Deasy, 2002). IBAE assists
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teachers to think more critically. Improving critical decision-making and creative problem-
solving abilities, combined with the context of meaningful experiences, can assist building art
education into a more essential part of the curriculum.
The sixth coding scheme, “sensitivity to social responsibility,” refers to the fact that a
number of teacher participant comments in the current study stressed that IBAE methods and
procedures encourage “social responsibility.” This finding agrees with that of Milbrandt (2002),
when she said, “the development of student responsibility in the classroom was viewed as a life
skill that students would later transfer to their lives beyond school” (p. 151). In relation to this
same “social responsibility” coding scheme, it should be noted that Dewey (1934) claimed that
art has an ethical responsibility to the community and that art arises from and is connected with
students’ practices during their lives. Also, if people want to make art separate from life, the
value of this art will be reduced to its aesthetic benefits.
Bowman (2016) explained the relationships between citizenship and responsibility
through the examination of artistic participation and its importance in association with
responsibility extended to community need. The “social responsibility” coding scheme from the
current study is consistent with the ideas of Bowman (2016) that art should aim (a) to build
fundamental beliefs that help citizens center themselves around responsibility and (b) to enhance
the strengths and ideas that include the individual’s aesthetics and the advancement of
citizenship goals.
The seventh and eighth coding schemes, “increased self-confidence,” and “enthusiasm,”
the findings of the current study support the description by Fathal (1990) of the goals of art
education in Saudi schools as seeking to help students progress in the following areas:
“emotional growth, intellectual development, physical development, perception, social
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development, aesthetics, creativity, the use of the senses, respect for and love of work, self-
expression and the relieving of frustrations, self-confidence, knowledge of tools and equipment”
(p. 5).
In the and ninth and ten coding schemes, “open dialogue” and “increased awareness” as
features/benefits of IBAE that students exhibited or viewed as positive, Milbrandt (2010)
proposed an understanding of art as a means for helping students participate in open dialogue on
morality and social critical issues of the present and possibilities for the future. In the art
education field, one goal of the IBAE approach is to prepare students to discover, examine, and
participate in the power of art to increase social awareness about their own culture and other
cultures through art education classes. Therefore, IBAE has the potential to raise students’ social
awareness to help them solve their problems. Gaudelius and Speirs (2002) stressed that using
IBAE could assist students in learning about different cultures and in improving their
understanding of themselves and others. Under this curriculum, learners can discover how art
reflects cultural ideas, beliefs, and social conditions as they negotiate their life experiences with
art and make comparisons and contrasts. Figure 5.9 graphically illustrates the last cycle coding
for students' behaviors based on teachers' observations.
Figure 5.9. Network of responses resulting from the last phase of coding for students' behaviors based on teachers' observations
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Topics Generation in IBAE
In the current study, the most repeated topics that teacher participants mentioned were
“cultural diversity,” “morality issues,” and “women’s topics” coding schemes. All of these topics
are mentioned in Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s authoritative document entitled
“Vision 2030,” released in 2016. The findings of this study, in connection with the new vision
statement, support the idea that there is a new interpretation of women’s issues in Saudi society
in support of equal rights rooted in the truth and the correct interpretation of Islamic Sharia law.
Through the 2030 Vision, women are taking their place in military leadership and senior
government positions, working to support gender equality and women’s rights under the law,
seeing greater participation in the civil service sector, benefitting from mechanisms to improve
women’s employability, and being encouraged to take up a number of job opportunities at work.
For the “morality-issues” coding scheme and social responsibility, Milbrandt (2002) and
Lanier (1991) have argued for the inclusion of moral or social issues in art education. In addition,
Lanier (1976) confirm that the lack of moral concern in education is itself a reflection of much
the same condition in our society in general; thus, we need to consider morality issues and social
responsibility in our curriculum and teaching practices in the classroom.
Figure 5.10. Network of responses resulting from the last cycle of coding for topics generation
For the “cultural-diversity” coding scheme, Milbrandt (2002) indicated that over half of
her participants (63%) had taught lessons that addressed appreciation for cultural diversity. This
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percentage Agreed with this study’s findings, which had an even higher frequency for “cultural-
diversity.” Figure 5.10 graphically illustrates the last cycle of coding for topics generation in
IBAE.
Challenges in Implementation of IBAE Lessons
The IBAE lesson implementation challenge sub-categories included “environmental
challenges” (such as non-supportive school administration and lack of available time and
materials), “current curriculum negativity” (such as the perception that not all lessons can make
use of IBAE). Several participants commented that the writing of IBAE lessons was very time
consuming because there were very “long procedures.” The final challenge named had to do with
the limitations imposed by the lack of IBAE references written in the Arabic language (i.e.
“limited Arabic IBAE references”).
Figure 5.11. Network of responses resulting from the last cycle of coding for challenges in implementation of IBAE lessons
Notwithstanding, the possible risks and difficulties connected with addressing social
issues in the art curriculum, it is necessary that all teachers, principals, and scholars understand
the inherent dangers are connected to not involving students in this kind of dialogue. Purpel
(1989) and Milbrandt (2002) believed that the risks of avoiding discussing issues in the
classroom were that students (a) would not connect to their community and realty, (b) would lack
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any responsibility toward society, and (c) would lack ability and experience in solving real
problems. In contrast, IBAE brings the real world into the classroom and features students
taking social action on real-world problems. Figure 5.11 graphically illustrates the last cycle of
coding for challenges of implementation of IBAE lessons.
Improvements and Suggestions
Some art teacher participants in the current study noted the need for more time to prepare
and use effective strategies for addressing social issues in the art curriculum. This result agrees
with participants’ opinions in Milbrandt's (2002) study that they “thought social issues were
either extremely important or very important to teach, the top-ranked reason for not addressing
social issues was the lack of time; not a priority in teaching." (p. 152). Additionally, Giroux
(1988) stated that socially-referenced art education programs are not created without struggles.
Art teachers must take risks, sometimes under oppressive conditions, to construct a vision of
education that does not diminish existing forms of educational theory and practices in the field,
but reworks, revises, and constructs a vital critical pedagogy.
Teacher participants in the current study suggested the need for “suggest repeating the
idea” through increased training in the IBAE approach during teacher preparation programs.
Some participants suggested that the workshop be repeated. All participants were adamant about
the importance of teaching life skills and addressing social issues in their curriculum, but they
said they needed to have the program, curriculum, and training to better guide them in the
context of teaching art. This finding of the current research study emphasizes Milbrandt’s (2002)
ideas about training and engagement with teachers and the community to raise their awareness of
social issues, to help teachers communicate with parents, and to equip teachers with effective
methods.
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Finally, some teacher participants suggested that teachers be given more opportunities to
make choices in their curriculum. A few art teachers who participated in this research were not in
total agreement about how they would use IBAE in their art curriculum because of the
selected/required curriculum from the Ministry of Education. However, they were in general
agreement on the need to create a curriculum that connects students to moral and social issues
and that allows students to reflect on ideas and issues/practices at the individual and community
levels. Based on my own research/investigation and the answers/responses from participants in
this study, I found there is some availability of time (about 20%) within the existing Saudi art
curriculum. However, teacher participants in my study complained that this would probably still
not be enough. Figure 5.12 graphically illustrates the last phase of coding for improvements and
suggestions.
Figure 5.12. Network of responses resulting from the last cycle of coding for improvements and suggestions
To summarize, the current research used a sequential, mixed method design which was
made up of two quantitative and two qualitative analyses to address the perspectives of art
education teachers on teaching philosophies, the IBAE workshop, generation of IBAE lesson
plans, and implantation of IBAE lesson plans in the context of Saudi society. The findings
showed that the IBAE workshop had positive impacts on art education teachers’ perceptions of
the IBAE workshop and of teaching philosophies that align with the IBAE approach.
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Merging the Quantitative and Qualitative Data
In order to present a comprehensive view of the effect of the IBAE workshop on Saudi
Arabian art education teachers’ perceptions of IBAE, especially within the context of Saudi
Arabian society, a sequential research design was used. This consisted of two periods in which
the researcher first collected quantitative data and then collected qualitative data using multiple
methods (as suggested by Creswell, 2007) to answer four research questions. Answers to these
questions emerged from a synthesis of both the quantitative and the qualitative data that was
collected. The qualitative data both supported and extended findings from the quantitative data.
The Qualitative Confirmed Quantitative Analyses/Findings for Question 1
Q1: What is the effect of an IBAE workshop on in-service Saudi Arabian art education teachers’ philosophy of teaching?
The overall analysis of the quantitative and qualitative data sets confirmed that art
teachers’ perspectives towards IBAE positively increased after they attended the IBAE
workshop. Specifically, in the quantitative findings, participants indicated their positive attitudes
toward the teaching philosophy of social reconstruction were increased after the IBAE
workshop. These results show that the tenets of social reconstruction align with the IBAE
approach.
At the same time, the qualitative findings suggest that participants also had a more
positive perspective regarding the value of art when used with social issues after the workshop.
They were interested, enthusiastic, and ready to apply this approach in their classroom. They
believed IBAE to be wonderful, to be clear, to be capable of increasing their and their students’
awareness, and to be capable of enriching their and their students’ experiences.
The second finding that matches the quantitative and qualitative data results was
teachers’ philosophies after the IBAE workshop. The quantitative results showed there had been
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a significant increase in only the social reconstructionism and progressivism philosophies among
art teachers after participating in a professional development workshop on IBAE.
The qualitative data reinforced and/or extended that finding that art teacher participants
concentrated on reality, connected to the community, and had improved communication. In the
IBAE workshop and lesson, participants tested their ideas through active experimentation and
improved their students’ awareness through experiencing the world. Moreover, the participants
confirmed that thinking critically, analysis, and problem solving related to personal and social
issues to make meaning through their experience. Art teacher participants emphasized that the
sharing of decision making, the planning of teachers with students, and the use of student-
selected topics are all important aspects of an art education curriculum and that the art education
curriculum should be a tool for understanding the world better, rather than an authoritative
source of knowledge.
Art teacher participants increased positive perceptions of social reconstructionism as a
teaching philosophy in art education is likely due to IBAE’s emphasis on addressing social issues
and its quest to create a better society. Art teachers with this orientation believe in learning as a
process of inquiry in which the students must invent and/or reinvent the world for themselves to
understand it. Thus, for these teachers, the art education curriculum must focus on student
experiences, on teachers bringing the real world into the classroom, and on students taking social
action on real-world problems.
Viewpoints in line with the teaching philosophy of progressivism also increased after the
IBAE workshop. The progressivist philosophies emphasized combining various concerns and
discoveries from real-world experiences and bringing the real world into the classroom, thus
providing students with the opportunity to become aware of the society that they live in, learn in
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a social context, and preparing them to be responsible citizens/human beings. these ideas were
evidenced in coding schemes such as “connecting to the community,” “expressing issues that
affect the community,” and “communication skills,” which appeared in the last coding scheme
phase. Both quantitative and qualitative findings for Research Question 1 confirmed (a) having
more positive perceptions regarding the inclusion of social issues in art education and (b) having
a more progressivist-reconstructionist philosophical orientation in their art teaching philosophy
after the workshop.
The Qualitative Confirmed Quantitative Analyses/Findings for Question 2
Q3: After participating in a social IBAE professional development workshop, what is the status of in-service Saudi Arabian art education teachers’ perceptions about the relative importance of (a) the IBAE approach, (b) reasons for using IBAE, (c) various potential social issues topics in IBAE, and (d) various potential challenges in addressing social issues by using IBAE?
The overall analysis of the qualitative and quantitative data sets confirmed that art
teachers had positive perspectives toward incorporating social issues in the classroom. The
quantitative data suggests that teacher participants’ overall perception of the importance of
addressing social issues in the art curriculum was positive, with 91.9% of respondents agreeing.
These results are in alignment with the qualitative data.
In the quantitative data, the top reason/rationale for pairing art education with social
issues was Reason 4, “It raises student awareness of “real world” problems.” Then, the
qualitative data reinforced and/or extended that finding, where participants believed that IBAE
improves communication skills, emphasizes issues that affect the community, provides great
exchange experiences, and increases awareness of the real world. Art education teacher
participants appear to be using IBAE because they believe in the power of language and dialogue
through art, which has the potential to benefit communities and individuals, change perspectives
on art, connect art with social issues, and demonstrate that art is deeper than beauty. Also, they
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appear to be confirming that art invites students to reality and leads society forward, teaches
students to accept and respect opinions, modifies youth behavior, is a powerful embodied voice,
shifts society’s path from negative to positive, and aids in solving social problems. Also, both the
qualitative and quantitative Findings show that participants wanted more time to implement an
IBAE focused curriculum and that they indicated it would involve a long process.
Relationship of the Conclusions to the Teaching Philosophies of Social Reconstructionism and Progressivism
The research findings in the current study connect to and show the importance of the
social reconstructionist teaching philosophy within IBAE. Social reconstructionism centers on
achieving social change through the reconstruction of society and social values (Brameld, 1977;
Martin, 1994; Stuhr, 1994).
As described previously, Saudi art teacher participants in the current study increased in
their adherence to social reconstructionist ideas/thoughts after participating in the IBAE
workshop. Based on these results, it appears that these teacher participants are now committed
to equipping their students with the knowledge and skills they need to promote human rights,
peace, morality, and action on social issues. The social agenda of art education can provide the
foundation for community involvement and social change through promoting what Anderson
(2003) refers to as “personal, group-centered, and cross-cultural understandings approached
through art” (p. 58).
Regarding Vision 2030’s emphasis on three themes, i.e. a vibrant society, a thriving
economy, and an ambitious nation, this study’s findings show how schools can contribute to a
vibrant society with strong foundations that aim (a) to promote and reinvigorate social
development in order to build a strong and productive society and (b) to strengthen consideration
for families and the development of children’s character. This study also suggests the potential
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importance of Saudi student engagement in social life adjustment and the strong imperative of
family and community because of the strong national requirement to emphasize thiese concepts
in working for positive change in the community.
With respect to the connections established between IBAE training/participation and
adherence to social reconstructionist thoughts/ideas, this study supports previous assertions by
educators such as Brameld (1977), who believed that “students and teachers must not only take
positions; they must also become change agents to improve society” (p. 70). After the workshop,
the teacher participants in the current study strongly acknowledged their responsibility to include
discussion of social issues in their lessons; however, they expressed a need for a curriculum that
helps them fulfill this responsibility. For the social reconstructionist educator/instructor,
curriculum should highlight social improvement and positive changes as the purpose of
education. McNeil (2009) described it as a desire for learners to “improve the real world” (p.
31).
Regarding Saudi Vision 2030, which the country is currently working to achieve, Social
Reconstructionist concepts could be helpful in achieving the stated social aims. This study is a
line with Saudi 2030 Vision’s (2016) aim of embedding positive values and moral beliefs in
children’s characters from an early age by reshaping our academic and educational systems. This
matches Gaudelius and Speirs’ (2002) views, which placed emphasis on the fundamental values
of initiative, persistence, and leadership, as well as social skills, cultural knowledge, and self-
awareness.
Finally, this IBAE study’s connections to the progressivist teaching philosophy should
also be noted. As described previously, Saudi art teacher participants in this study increased in
their adherence to progressivist ideas/thoughts as well as social reconstructionist ideas/thoughts.
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Dewey’s (1915) work characterizes or describes students as humane and individual.
Progressivism claims that education should focus on helping learners develop into enlightened
and intelligent citizens; students should learn by doing (Dewey, 1915). Progressivists believe
that students should test ideas through active experimentation and grow while experiencing the
world to make meaning through practice in the physical and cultural context. Teacher
participants in the current study expressed similar viewpoints regarding the use and benefits of
IBAE.
Humanism is a conception of curriculum that relates to the teaching philosophy of
progressivism; it stresses the good in human behavior and the desirability of promoting the
development of an individual’s self-actualization (DeCarvalho, 1991; Firdaus & Mariyat, 2017;
Valett, 1977; Weinstein & Fantini, 1970). These ideas are consistent with the Saudi 2030 Vision
(2016) and its focus on “the fundamental values of initiative, persistence, and leadership, as well
as social skills, cultural knowledge, and self-awareness” (p. 28).
Educators should focus on the development of the whole child, rather than merely on art
content and art production. According to Dewey (1915), schools make possible a shared way of
life and a sense of community, and they are a medium for developing children's minds. Likewise,
schools shape the experiences that learners are likely to have and, in the process, impact who
children will become. Therefore, according to Fischer and Immordino-Yang (2007)
education, in turn, is the process of learning to create ourselves, and it is what the arts, both as a process and as the fruits of that process, promote. Work in the arts is not only a way of creating performances and products; it is a way of creating our lives by expanding our consciousness, shaping our dispositions, satisfying our quest for meaning, establishing contact with others, and sharing a culture. (p. 361)
Likewise, Dewey (1934) and Eisner (2002) believed the role of art is not only to see beauty, but
to make aesthetic forms of experience possible and to help ourselves and others learn to notice
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the world. Finally, Eisner (2002) questioned,
how can such a form of public education go forward? One way is to help the community understand the forms of thinking reflected in students’ work in the arts. For most, a clay sculpture made by a child is nothing more than a clay sculpture, but for an art teacher a clay sculpture must be much more than an opportunity for the child to play with clay. (p. 177) The current study also supports prior assertions in the research literature that promote the
humanistic curriculum as a means for helping students to attain self-actualization, self-
understanding, and self-realization so that students can learn optimally. According to Albakri
(2010), the current art curriculum in Saudi Arabia is failing to help all students achieve self-
actualization, self-understanding, self-confidence, self-governance, self-realization, and status as
contributing members of society. The responses provided by the teacher participants in the
current study confirm the importance of these concepts and the need for instructors to make
learning more significant and meaningful for students. Additionally, Carpenter (2019) added that
we need "care and empathy of the sort artists and art educators might be able to provide or at
least find an agency to foster and promote” (p. 167).
Implications and Challenges for Classroom Practice
The findings of the current study disagree with Milbrandt’s (2002) claim that few
teachers connected IBAE with an increase in student creativity. For the current study, the
majority of art teacher participants believed that IBAE increases student creativity. Nevertheless,
these same teachers believed that their current curriculum was limited and was full of repetition,
in which every year they saw the same teaching content and materials and the same teaching
styles and methods used across the different grade levels. This finding suggests that Saudi
Arabian art education has faced and may continue to face serious challenges associated with
resources. but another major challenge may be a lack of awareness of its importance.
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Al Zahrani, 1988; Fathal, 1990; Al-Namlah, 1994; Alshehri, 2001 believed art education
curriculum, in general, is limited and weak in the areas of helping students be self-directed,
emphasizing self-evaluation, encouraging expression of feelings, and avoiding a threatening
teaching-learning environment. The students study for scores/grades only (Albakri, 2010;
Alheezan, 2009; Almuraie, 2019). Based on the findings of the current study, IBAE does not
appear to suffer from these flaws. School/teacher use of the IBAE framework, within the current
Saudi Arabian context of social and educational change, has potential for assessing and
establishing the importance of Saudi student engagement, social life adjustment, and the strong
imperative on family and community. Emphasis on these concepts holds importance in working
for positive changes in Saudi society.
The relationship of the arts to education is fundamental. A wide range of art educators,
including Dewey (1934), Eisner (2004), and Greene (2000), have noted the individual and social
transformative power of the arts. As a society, we, in Saudi Arabia, need this kind of art for
instilling individuals
with the will and passion to purposefully critique the actions and assumptions of society in works of art. Looking and thinking critically about contemporary visual art prepares students to become more thoughtful of the messages communicated and the power of those images to shape a socially just and equitable society. As students understand the relationship of the arts to contemporary social movements, they may better understand how imagery can signal the need for social change or justice and motivate personal and collective trans- formation in ways that maintain social stability by defusing conflict and diffusing multiple perspectives. (Milbrandt, 2010, p. 17-18)
Most Saudis, whether for or against the new governmental policies, agree that the Crown Prince
has upended the country’s longstanding social contract. Everyone agrees that this was a surprise
due to the nature of Saudi society, tradition, and context. What the government is doing is simply
unacceptable to those individuals with a very traditional Saudi mindset, but it has also been met
with enthusiasm by other sectors of society. This deeply controversial process of social and
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economic change is not only empowering women, but also opening new opportunities for all
young Saudis to join the workforce.
The new changes in Saudi Arabia include permission for women to drive, the return of
public cinema, stadium access for women, live music festivals and concerts, tourism visas, and
access to the World Boxing Supreme Series. Using the IBAE approach offers female students
and all young Saudi students with diverse ways to grow logically and expressively. Thus, this
approach is very important for students’ growth as citizens--to assist them to express themselves,
to think critically about everything happening around them today, and to communicate
effectively with others.
Recommendations for School Leaders, Teachers and Teacher Educators, National Curriculum
Leaders, and Future Researchers
Based on the findings from this research, the current study affords a basis for
recommendations to four different audiences—school leaders, teachers and teacher educators
national curriculum leaders, and future researchers.
School Leaders
First, based on the research findings of the current study, it is recommended that school
leaders encourage teachers to use IBAE. Also, they are urged to make collaboration a priority
amongst art education teachers in order to achieve the goal of using IBAE. Each school leader
can manage and share data with other school leaders and thus make the positive experience of
using IBAE more widespread. School leaders could present their experiments to other schools to
benefit from their experiences.
Moreover, I think the means of application likely depends on support from the school
administration and on the teacher’s own passion for the new method; thus, school leaders should
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offer funding and the appropriate environment that teachers need to implement this kind of
curriculum. School leaders should also encourage art teachers and school social workers to work
together to contribute to the furtherance of the mission of the schools, which is to provide a
setting for teaching, learning, and the attainment of competence and confidence. This alliance is
important because it would help to combine efforts between disciplines and increase results.
School leaders could get art teachers and school social workers to work together in many ways
by helping teachers to plan lessons together and exchange experiences and resources. Also, they
could require art education and social teachers to devise projects that have art and social aspects
that they could provide for school or community.
Teachers and Teacher Educators
Second, based on the research findings of the current study, it is recommended that more
IBAE workshops for public school intermediate/middle art education teachers be developed,
lasting for one week or more. Moreover, this researcher recommends introducing a new course
on IBAE in Saudi teacher preparation programs in order for art teachers and non-art teachers (i.e.
the art teachers’ co-workers who teach in other subject areas) to have a better understanding of
IBAE and how to apply it in schools in the future. I suggest training some teachers to be experts
in IBAE so that they can give workshops to other teachers. Moreover, I recommend creating a
support group for teachers who use IBAE approach and social issues in their teaching through
group e-mails or another social media approach.
The teachers and teacher educators need to become better able to understand the context
and the development and enactment of lessons by using IBAE. Clearly, it is essential that
teachers and teacher educators study their learning environments very well. They should also
attempt to further their knowledge and carry out research to meet the needs of their students.
200
They should attempt to motivate students to present different ideas related to their lives and
reality. They should support parental engagement as needed because doing so may help these
teachers and teacher educators understand and identify particular needs for the implementation of
IBAE.
Also, I suggest that an essential way to ensure the success of IBAE is through promoting
better understanding of some of the affective and social needs and issues experienced by students
in our classrooms. Teacher education programs should provide training for preservice teachers in
using IBAE that highlights affective and social issues present in society that are of most
relevance to young Saudi learners.
Furthermore, teachers and teacher educators must develop lessons that connect and relate
to the social issues that students face (or will face) and begin to develop basic understandings of
students’ prior knowledge of and experience with these issues. Teachers may use these
understandings (a) to better connect and relate to their student's backgrounds and (b) to develop
lessons that link students’ prior knowledge and experiences to the new learnings as a means of
developing students’ critical thinking and decision making as they address and attempt to resolve
social issues/problems. Finally, teachers and teacher educators must let students participate in the
selection of the issues to be included and listen to students' opinions.
National Curriculum Leaders
Another recommendation is to provide teachers’ guides on IBAE that include multiple
sample lesson plans, instructions, activities, assessments, and social action plan ideas to support
teachers who are applying IBAE. Finally, due to the need for appropriate settings to do research
relevant to the use of social issues in art education, especially in the Saudi context, I recommend
creating comprehensive programs for applying IBAE within selected Saudi schools, with school
201
administrators, teachers, and parents included as active participants.
After I did the revision of the current curriculum, and examined what teachers mentioned
in the workshop, journal, and focus group session, I found the art education curriculum still has a
“traditional” curriculum even though there are new “Vision” statements for the country. I think
the art curriculum did not change to match the new vision. Thus, I suggested renewing the art
education curriculum to match the vision statements. The curriculum that is out there does not
seem to match well with the new “Vision” statements for the country. For example, one idea was
to add topics that mentioned and add social issues in the “2030 Vision” statements. Also, the art
education curriculum must include skills that the vision mentioned.
Future Researchers
For future studies, I recommend the use of additional examples of IBAE lessons, as
participants recommended. Also, the teacher participants in this study expressed a desire for
more IBAE references in the Arabic language. Thus, Arabic translators, Arabic publishers, and
Arabic researchers could participate in translating and exporting Arabic versions of such
references. Also, for researchers, I recommend increasing the number of studies carried out in
this area.
The questions that are left unanswered by this study are how will the findings change If
the study is replicated in different areas or cities such as a small city. How will be the findings
differ across different grade levels from college to elementary schools? ? I would still like to
have more findings from a large number of samples for more than 100 participants because that
would give me access to more information and reduce our uncertainty, even though the sample
used for this study was enough to see the official finding. I support using the professional
development IBAE workshop and IBAE lesson that is powerful, and others could learn and use
202
the workshop model and lesson plan that we actually created in this research. Other researchers
can use the workshop and other teachers could use the lessons’ model to incorporate social issues
into art education. Using IBAE workshop will help art teachers to include criticism of the issues
and artwork, new ways of thinking, make friends, new skills, motivation to make more artwork,
solve problems, and having fun.
Finally, due to the lack of relevant research on art education in Saudi Arabia, especially
with respect to IBAE, I recommend including not only in-service teachers but also pre-service
teachers, E-12 students, curriculum creators, and school administrators as subjects to better
portray the whole picture and the interaction within schools where IBAE is being applied.
I am hopeful this future research in IBAE will be supported by private and/or government
funding to provide teachers and students with effective, purposeful, and engrossing ways of
teaching and learning in art education and social issues.
203
APPENDIX A
STUDY ITEMS
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Appendix A.1
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Appendix A.2
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207
Appendix A.3
208
209
210
Appendix A.4
211
Appendix A.5
212
Appendix A.6
213
Appendix A.7
214
APPENDIX B
IBAE WORKSHOP PICTURES
215
216
APPENDIX C
LIST OF IBAE ARTWORKS’ PICTURES
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218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
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