In August 1992, the Getty Education Institute for the Arts convened its third issues seminar for the theoretical development of discipline-based art education (DBAE) in Austin, Texas. Devoted to the topic of DBAE and cultural diversity, the seminar was designed to provide an opportunity for an invited audience of educators and researchers knowledgeable about and engaged with DBAE to critically examine and reflect upon the issues of cultural diversity as they pertain to evolving DBAE theory and practice. To achieve this purpose, DBAE and Cultural Diversity was structured around five basic themes:

1. perspectives on cultural diversity in education;
   
2. perspectives on DBAE and cultural diversity;
   
3. the effect of cultural diversity upon practices in art history, aesthetics, criticism, and art making;
   
4. experiences in other disciplines that affect DBAE; and
   
5. implications for evolving DBAE practice.

As a way of stimulating further discussion, several affinity group breakout sessions facilitated by participants representing museum education, teacher education, art education, administration, and supervision were held at various points throughout the seminar. A resource center featuring multicultural art education videos, films, slides, posters, and books was open throughout the seminar (a listing of these resources appears at the end of the book). Finally, the Center's staff selected videos on various aspects of cultural diversity were aired on the conference center's closed-circuit television for participants to view at their leisure.

The Issues Seminars Series
The Center Supports five program areas in its commitment to development of DBAE theory and the implementation of DBAE: advocacy, professional development, theory development, curriculum development, and demonstration programs. The philosophical basis of the theory development program area is that the theoretical underpinnings of DBAE need to evolve continuously to provide a strong foundation for professional development, classroom practice, assessment, and research. One of the ways the Center has supported theoretical development has been through the sponsorship of Issues seminars or forums for presenting information, ideas, and new perspectives as they apply to DBAE research and training.

In May 1987, the Center sponsored its first seminar, Issues in Discipline-Based Art Education: Strengthening the Stance, Extending the Horizons. Thirty-seven art educators met in Cincinnati for three days to present and respond to papers structured around several basic issues:

1. child development and the cognitive styles children use when learning,

2. art and its societal role, and

3. art education curriculum reform.

Proceedings summarizing the reactions and recommendations of Issues I participants were published in 1988.

The Center's second issues seminar, Inheriting the Theory: New Voices and Multiple Perspectives on DBAE, was held in May 1989. More than 130 art educators spent three days in Austin presenting and responding to papers structured around five basic issues or, as the Issues II Planning Committee termed them, "triangulation" sessions. This approach allowed for three different perspectives on each of the following topics:

1. the integration of art history;

2. the role of aesthetics and criticism in the creation of new works of art;

3. DBAE teaching effectiveness, evaluation, and cognition;

4. philosophy and aesthetics; and

5. DBAE and the concerns of multicultural education.

The proceedings from Inheriting the Theory were made available in 1990.

DBAE and Cultural Diversity
As has been the case with previous seminars, at least two years before DBAE and Cultural Diversity, the Center's staff began an extensive preparation process. Because the Issues seminars fall under our program area of theory development, we felt it essential for our preparation to include an examination of the theoretical basis of cultural diversity and multicultural art education. This examination included the following activities:

1. Developing a bibliography of scholarly articles, news articles, books, and resources on multicultural art education for the Center's program staff. This bibliography includes philosophical, sociological, and legal writings as well as those pertaining to practical applications in K-12 and higher education.
2. Convening six day-long orientation meetings for staff on multicultural art education issues with art educators, scholars, policy makers, and teachers, who were commissioned to write briefing papers. Many of these authors became Issues III speakers. Others—such as James Sears, Department of Educational Leadership and Policies, University of South Carolina; Tomás Miranda, Bilingual Education and Equity, Connecticut State Department of Education; Howard Simmons, Middle States Commission on Higher Education; and Brenda Welburn, National Association of State Boards of Education—are recognized for their expertise in multicultural education issues.
3. Visiting a group of mid-Atlantic schools identified by their mission statements as either being multicultural or having art programs designed to meet the needs of culturally diverse student bodies through a DBAE approach. This tour revealed a wide range of multicultural instructional strategies, e.g., human relations, social reconstruction, bicultural/cross-cultural analysis, value-free education, collaborative learning, and monocultural approaches.
4. Sponsoring a round table devoted to the topic of DBAE and cultural diversity with educators and representatives of community arts organizations from the greater Miami area. The purpose of this round table was to hear how diversity has changed the nature of their jobs and their interaction with one another.

The other activities we undertook to prepare for Issues III included a survey of multicultural instructional strategies used in our own regional staff development institutes. The authors "DBAE: Becoming Students of Art" (Clark, Day, and Greer, 1987), one of the influential and defining monographs for DBAE, were surveyed to identify issues and/or themes they felt essential to be covered at Issues III. A similar survey was taken of our own program staff. The results of these surveys and activities, vetted over a period of two years with the Center's Advisory Committee and the Issues III Advisory Committee, enabled us to identify the seminar's audience and to structure a program we felt would elicit ideas essential to understanding the complexity of topics related to cultural diversity and DBAE.

Many concepts and ideas emerged from Issues III. In the discussions of how cultural diversity has affected the practice of DBAE, the following themes consistently emerged: the need for individuals to examine their own biases, attitudes, and/or sensitivities and the need to make theory, language, and terminology both relevant and accessible to the realities of everyday practice. This process of self-examination was seen as being particularly significant to art museums, where the effects of cultural diversity upon art history, aesthetics, art criticism, and art making have been, in some instances, more readily seen than in the classroom.

In general, participants felt all institutions need to establish concrete goals for change and that such changes should represent a diversity of values and aesthetic persuasions as well as address issues of cultural ethos in underlying value systems and power bases. As disseminators of art education, schools, universities, and museums have the ability to expand the "canon" and sponsor new modes of art education. With regard to an expanded role for teachers of art in theory development, most participants felt greater collaboration was essential to develop theories that adequately embraced issues of cultural diversity at the local level and to address the needs of various learning styles. In short, the need to create solidarity as well as solidify relationships, both inside and outside the disciplines, was a consistent Issues III theme.

We are deeply indebted to the 150 Issues III participants and speakers, each of whom so willingly shared their ideas and opinions with us during the seminar. I am particularly grateful to the Getty Education Institute for the Arts staff, as well as the Issues III Seminar Advisory Committee. Without their support and guidance, DBAE and Cultural Diversity would not have been possible.

Thandiwee Michael Kendall
Program Officer
Getty Education Institute for the Arts

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