IntroductIon
Art education is rooted in interpretative models that have been developed in western thought (Chalmers 1999; Bradley 1992). The pedagogical means deployed by art education aim to turn pupils into consumers and producers of art, in the spirit of the western artistic canon (Azoulay 1997, 1999). The assimilation of artistic habits and knowledge by learners is seen as deriving from the fields of art to which they had been exposed, and from their learn-ing experiences (Bourdieu 1984, 1993). Theoretical and empirical studies on art education, therefore, assume that it plays a key role in forming students’ habitus – the set of habits and behaviours acquired and accumulated by the individual in light of the socialization process in which he takes part – and in turning them into ‘civilized’ beings (Waller 1992).
This tendency has been challenged by approaches and practices developed in the spirit of critical pedagogy. These sought to question the dominance of western culture in the field of art education and its turning into a subject enjoyed mostly by privileged western pupils. Art education in Israel is mainly based on imported, European cultural models, while teaching art has been subject to a national, modern-western rationale (Levin 1980; Even-Zohar 1980). Thus, the art curriculum is defined universally as an important tool for the accultura-tion of all pupils, which would then assist their integration into modern Israeli society (Steinhardt 2004). Despite numerous transformations in art education in Israel in recent years, the western pedagogical model is still dominant.
This dominance is especially striking given the changes in other curriculum subjects, such as music (Cohen 1991), theatre (Orian 2001), dance (Roginsky 2009), history and civic education (Matias and Zabar-Ben Yehoshua 2004) – attesting to an effort to broaden the cultural canon conveyed in schools, and to add a non-western orientation to it.
Moreover, art education (in its Eurocentric guise) has been virtually nonexistent in schools attended by under-privileged students in Israel, a trend that has been worsening in recent years (Erev Rav 2011).
However, teachers at a Jewish high school in Jerusalem named Kedma, which is seeking to nurture ethno-cultural awareness of under-privileged pupils, integrated the subject into the school curriculum. The pupils at Kedma are second and third-generation Jewish immigrants who immigrated to Israel from Arab countries (hereafter Mizrahim), and who suffer from a low economic status and a labelled cultural image.
The particular curriculum in the school draws largely on principles and practices of critical pedagogy (Bairey-Ben Ishay 1998) that are applied inter alia to the school’s art classes. The artistic knowledge has been inculcated via two main practices, derived from this pedagogical doctrine: The first practice requires students to engage in the hegemonic process of creating art by using expensive raw materials, mainly canvas and oils (defined as using ‘the master’s tools’), while the second asks them to compose a personal narrative that confers political meaning on their artwork (ascribing a voice to the subaltern). Both practices aim to nurture the pupils’ ethno-cultural awareness and identity: the first, by introducing and integrating them into the artistic ‘high culture’; the second via imprinting a personal/political mark on their work.
As we shall see, the students in Kedma strongly countered both practices. The way they perceived these practices and challenged them is the focus of this article. Taking on this line of research, our study differs from critical research on art education that is mainly concerned with the ways in which the artistic object constructs the viewer’s subjectivity (Stuhr 1995; McFee 1995), and the ways in which it questions prejudices and chauvinistic, racist and other stereotypes (Boughton and Mason 1999; Karp and Lavine 1991). However, it neglects to examine the ways in which different groups, among them underprivileged, immigrant pupils and pupils from a labelled ethnic background understand the critical praxis in relation to their particular social position and the wider sociocultural context. This study focuses on the meanings underprivileged pupils gave to the critical practices that directed the learning process in the class and on the ways in which they understood their identity and their social placement in its light. This move enables us to examine critical pedagogical practices in a specific social–structural context, while putting its educational and social assumptions to the test.
arT edUcaTion in israel
Nationalism, Eurocentrism and locality
Art education occupies a twofold status within the Israeli education system. As early as the British Mandate period (1920–1948), learning the Israeli culture was perceived as an important element in the enterprise of ‘nation-building’ and moulding the younger generation (Reshef and Dror 1999). The format for art studies was imported from European curricula and was of a marked Eurocentric nature.1 Over the years, certain dominant, local, Israeli characteristics were incorporated into the art curriculum, aimed at promoting a Zionist-national
1. Local Israeli art has been described as cleansing itself of Diaspora-Ashkenazi characteristics, by inventing an imaginary European centre of gravity. S. Chinski described the subordination of local art to the world of western art in terms of ‘Eurocentric bleach’ (2002: 68).
2. The project includes guided museum visits and meetings with local artists engaged in contemporary art.
spirit. Zionist ideological messages were incorporated with theoretical and practical teachings of art that centred on the praxis of drawing. At the same time, art education was perceived as a secondary, marginal subject due to the negative attitude of the Jewish religious tradition to visual images and objects (Kenaan-Kedar 1999), and the high importance accorded to national values and goals, such as military service and agricultural work (Elboim-Dror 1996).
From its very inception in 1953, the national Israeli education system sanctified certain ‘national Jewish images’ and ‘universal human images’, in an attempt to form a local culture that would be a ‘melting pot’ and a ‘merging of the exiles’ (Adler and Kahana 1972: 554). Art education in this context followed the quintessential acculturation model, that considered western culture a fait accompli to be transmitted and assimilated (Lamm 1973). Over the years, art education has contracted (Sheinman 1999), ultimately becoming a marginal element within the general curriculum of all Israeli schools. The scholastic results of art as a form of knowledge were perceived as impossible to measure (Ronen 1999), or were simply dismissed as not sufficiently important (Mishory 1990). In the late sixties, art studies underwent a partial revival due to the importance ascribed to ‘child psychology’ and inner development in the national educational system, and the penetration of the dialogic approach within academic and administrative discourse (Eisner 1968; Efland 1987). The new programmes mainly catered to Jewish pupils of privileged backgrounds and emphasized their imagination, desires and needs.
During the seventies, art studies underwent a process of professionalization, and art became a matriculation exam subject. Art programmes offered in high schools were later enlarged by the establishment of secondary schools specializing in art. The process of professionalization was accompanied by a certain deflection from national goals and an emphasis on cultural enrichment as understood in western culture (Zmora Cohen 1985). In this context, a project known as ‘the culture toolkit’2 came into being, aimed at promoting an ‘informed examination of art’ and enabling seventh to twelfth graders to acquire ‘tools to identify and interpret artistic, aesthetic and cultural content, and to appreciate its complexity and meaning’ (Becker 2008: 2). Despite these changes, most art study programmes in the Israeli educational system are conducted in informal education settings. The incorporation of art within informal education is typical of paternalistic – as opposed to educational – projects addressing under-privileged communities (Shalom 2006), aimed mainly at filling time for children and youth (Wakstein 2006). Hence, the formal school system ‘affirms the marginalized status of this activity as a “hobby”, and art teachers are frequently seen as charged with nothing more than school decoration’ (Breitberg-Semel 1990: 3).
doMinanT pedagogical Models of arT edUcaTion
Currently, two central pedagogical models dominant in the West underlie art education in Israel: the reconstructive model and the creative model. The first model adheres to normative artistic criteria. The learning process is conducted as a guided interaction whereby the teacher supervises the student’s creative expression and serves as a role model. The second, creative model relies mainly on the pupil’s aesthetic concepts; the teacher serves as a facilitator and consultant charged with realizing the student’s creativity. While the reconstructive model is used typically in educational settings targeting underprivileged pupils, and mainly poor pupils from a Mizrahi cultural background, the creative one is more likely to prevail in schools attended by privileged ones, mainly middle class pupils from a western cultural background.
According to research, there is a correlation between the type of model employed, the skills acquired by students and their scholastic performance (Toren 2007). Students who embrace the messages of the creative model tend to reach higher achievement levels, while learners exposed to the reconstructive, authoritative model designed for weaker social groups are more prone to challenging messages conveyed by the teachers and even dro