Creating Culturally Inclusive Visual Arts Pedagogy

This thesis is crafted around the goal of creating culturally inclusive visual arts pedagogy. Pedagogy encompasses the mechanics, content, and delivery of teaching. To be culturally inclusive is to regard the diverse predispositions and distinct identities that students bring into the classroom and to treat each population with respect and dignity. Specifically, this thesis involves the use and generation of culturally inclusive pedagogy in the setting of Kindergarten through twelfth grade (K-12) art education in public schools. Art encompasses all aspects of creation, generations of people, creeds, backgrounds, and languages; these factors require a multinational, multilingual, and multifaceted approach to teaching. It is no longer sustainable or appropriate to teach students the Old Masters of classic Renaissance paintings, mixed in with select token minority faces, as a complete art curriculum. Artmaking and its underlying foundational pedagogy must embrace the peoples of the world in its teaching, while paying equal attention to its reception by students through deep respect, inclusiveness, and regard for individual difference. This thesis will seek to explore the background of diversity and multicultural education and then examine its theoretical implementation, concluding with a call to action for executing culturally inclusive visual arts pedagogy.