Rachel Fendler

6.10 Place-based Curriculum as a Nexus for Interdisciplinary Art Education (Paper)

Rachel Fendler – Department of Art Education, Florida State University, USA

Abstract:

This paper draws on a 2-year study (2023–2025) that brought art and social studies teachers, from the same school, into collaboration on the development and implementation of co-taught units. In describing our findings, the paper will discuss the role place-based curriculum played in developing an interdisciplinary arts and civics curriculum. 

We will review the motivations incentivizing interdisciplinary curriculum in our state and country (USA), as well as the roadblocks impeding its implementation. Finally, drawing on our empirical data, we will share how teachers navigated this territory by designing learning experiences that focused on local histories and places. The study was led by a university research team from art education and social sciences education. In Year 1 (23/24), the university team facilitated a 9-month professional development series for 6 teams of local teachers. The teachers were introduced to a model of integrated action civics, which prompts students to move through cycles of historical research and change analysis. In addition, teachers were engaged in workshops that modelled how to use art making as a tool for inquiry and critical reflection, in response to monuments, archival documents, and historical figures. At the end of this series, teachers developed curriculum units that integrated the local and engaged students in a meaningful civic concept that connected to or integrated contemporary art practice. In Year 2 (24/25), teachers implemented the curriculum, documenting student reflections, changes in their attachment to community, and an evolving understanding of civic engagement. 

Our findings illuminate how designing learning around inquiry into local places offered a creative solution for developing interdisciplinary curricula that received student, administrative, and community buy-in. The data also demonstrate the role of artmaking as a tool that scaffolds thinking/doing or learning/acting, in ways that enhance students’ ability to enact civic action in local communities.