Creando espacios : nociones de educación artística para la justicia social en profesores de artes visuales y música en Chile.

Abstract

This qualitative study explored notions of Arts for Social Justice in Visual Arts and Music teachers in 5 schools from different socioeconomic contexts in Chile, identifying discourses and practices that showed an understanding of art as a right and a tool for the critique and transformation of society, as well as alternative notions of art and art education (expressionist, cognitive/logocentric, pragmatist, cultural, etc.). Semi-structured interviews were conducted and NVivo 12 software was used to analyze the data, which was coded for themes around the notions of art that appear in the teachers, using tools from Critical Discourse Analysis, that sees discourse as a site of struggle and manifestation of ideology. Different notions of art appeared in teachers, that impacted their pedagogical practice. There were some facets of art as a tool for social justice, as well as the recognition of contemporary forms of art. Obstacles to the implementation of arts education in schools were identified, such as limited space and resources for arts in a context of accountability and standardized tests; socioeconomic vulnerability that made art a distant language for the students; and fear of presenting controversial issues in a conservative institutional context. In Chile, this constitutes a timely exploration, since the announced national plan to strengthen arts education in 2015 did not take place, with a reduction in the number of hours for arts education. The role that teachers’ notions about art can have in a context that tends to push the arts out is, therefore, crucial.