The evolution of DBAE over the past decade has been far from a monolithic phenomenon. Evaluators discovered that it exists in a variety of forms and continues to be developed by communities of individuals directly involved in advancing its theory and practice. It has, in fact, become a two-way street where theory guides practice and innovative practices enrich and sometimes lead to the development of new theory.

Evaluators maintain that varied interpretations of DBAE are both healthy and desirable, especially if they become the basis for discussion of assumptions about the role of art in education. They argue that DBAE must remain an open concept, that some forms have equivalent merit, and that some will be superior to others.

DBAE evolved through the considerable interplay between the approaches developed within summer institute programs and the forms developed by art specialists and elementary classroom teachers. In implementing DBAE in their schools and classrooms, these educators devised new forms that began to affect thinking about DBAE curricular and instructional theory—a clear instance of practice shaping theory.

Past approaches to art education had a significant impact on the early forms DBAE took in the regional institutes. Works of art, the evaluators observed, were viewed too narrowly. Institute staff and teachers placed too great an emphasis on the elements and principles of design-on color, pattern, and composition and not enough on the significance, meaning, and philosophical issues the works raised.

Other problematic approaches included placing too much weight on the discrete character of the individual art disciplines and too little on the holistic understanding of the works of art. The evaluators remain concerned that such a preoccupation with the art disciplines actually draws attention away from works of art that students are supposed to create, understand, and appreciate.

As the institutes matured, more fully integrated models of DBAE instruction emerged. The evaluators observed that students develop holistic understandings of works of art when the disciplines are used as the means through which art objects are created and studied and not as the primary content. The directors and faculty of the regional institutes have encouraged the development of comprehensive DBAE units in which the disciplines are integrated; the content and inquiry methods from each discipline are emphasized as the needs of the artwork dictate.

In some institutes DBAE has played a richly interdisciplinary role when units of study also include content and approaches from other subject areas such as music, history, literature, anthropology, and the sciences, placing a work of art within its social, cultural, historic, and aesthetic contexts. The evaluators caution, however, that artworks should not be used to merely illustrate topics and concepts.

The evaluators concluded that the most effective curriculum would be built around works of art that have the potential to educate in powerful ways; students' work would reveal their reflections on and responses to the ideas, themes, subjects, and expressive characteristics of the works they study, but as modified, extended, reinvented, or countered through their own ideas and concerns.

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