Student artwork

During each classroom visit, I searched for projects created by students during their art lessons. I found these not only within some classrooms but also displayed in school hallways. In most cases, the projects were holiday-based: tree ornaments during the December interviews, Valentine’s Day hearts trimmed with doilies during the February ones, and construction paper clovers and leprechaun hats during my March visit to Red’s school. There were very few examples of traditional fine arts activities.

Figure nine: Contrast activity sample

Regardless if their art education focus was fine arts or crafts, the participants were proud to show me the artwork their students had created. Meme, for example,

   117  shared designs from a recent contrast activity. Figure nine is an example from that activity where students cut out black construction paper shapes and pasted them on white backgrounds to show positive shapes (those that stand out from the

background) and negative ones (those around or between the positive shapes).

Others who shared student artwork included Lee, who showed me various ornaments that her students had made and how she had displayed them on an artificial Christmas tree in her classroom. Dreamer welcomed me to photograph a Remembrance Day piece (see figure 10).

Figure 10: Remembrance Day activity sample

Despite the fact that Melanie had a thick portfolio of samples she had made as a Bachelor of Education candidate and the art ideas binder from her school board, the only artworks on display in her classroom were ‘bug’ names (see figure 11).

Doreen’s classroom housed samples from art integration projects she had done with her students; for example, as part of a science unit, her students created water cycle dioramas from cardboard, paper, paint, cotton balls, and found objects (see figure 12). According to her, this project was one of many where she blended art with other subjects:

   118  I don’t have a big art background so my goal is that they have fun and

that they see the connection between art and what we are doing in class with different subjects, for sure with social studies and science.

Doreen’s comment echoed those of others who stated that they blend art with other subjects not only to tie their personal strengths and subject areas with art but also to help their students meet hundreds of curriculum expectations by ‘clumping’ them within multi-disciplinary projects.

Figure 11: ‘Bug’ name design sample

Figure 12: Water cycle diorama sample

   119  There were only two classrooms (those of Dreamer, Doreen) with sculptures but these were in the form of models for integration activities. The only participant with examples of printmaking was Laura. When I visited her class, Laura told me that her students had been pressing pencil designs into styrofoam trays and then inked and printed them on paper (see figure 13).

Figure 13: Printmaking samples

Observation summary

Although it would have been ideal to visit all 19 interviewees in their classrooms in order to observe their teaching environments, the 12 visits allowed me to obtain much visual information to augment the transcript data. From these observations, and the information I obtained from informal conversations with stakeholders, plus classroom support centre visits, I was able to practise some degree of what

Richardson (2000) calls ‘crystallization’ (p. 934). I looked at the central research issue from various angles, and by doing so, I found information that seemed to both support and conflict with what the participants said in their interviews. That said, just because I did not see many examples of fine arts activities does not mean the participants’ students did not do them. Although my observations could have been different at different times of the school year, adding observation data to the transcript data helped give me a somewhat clearer picture of the state of art

   120  education in the participants’ schools whilst I interpreted such observations with caution.

Analysis summary

Throughout the analysis segment of this study, I combined methods suggested by Woods (1986), Marton (1994, 2000), Miles and Huberman (1994), Hammersley and Atkinson (1995), Ashworth and Lucas (2000), Bowden (2000), Richardson (2000), and Richards (2005). I looked at the transcript data first, then compared and contrasted it with my observation notes and related documents, and reduced all data sources through topic coding. I was careful to be open to new information and not look for only what I wanted to see. Like developing photographs in a

darkroom, the analysis process rendered both expected and unexpected results.

The analysis was engaging and expanded my knowledge about elementary art education in general and the issue of art education expendability specifically. Some teachers were doing more with their art lessons than I had expected but some of the conditions and practices present in the participants’ elementary schools were, in my view, obstructive to effective art education implementation (see details in chapter six).

Modeling Relationships

After I conducted the coding and purposive reading, the next step was to create visual models of relationships identified. These models were impact displays; that is, diagrams that showed what issues impact elementary art education in the schools of north-eastern Ontario studied here. They were based on the information I

obtained from all sources but are, of course, limited by the small scale of this study.

According to Miles and Huberman (1994), ‘a display is an organized, compressed assembly of information that permits conclusion drawing and action’ (p. 11). After I identified several impact issues from the analysis, I knew that visual

representations could help me see relationships better and develop understandings to explain what impacts art education in the location of the study. I wanted to, eventually, ask questions around the generalisability of these displays; for example,

‘Would other schools in the same boards or other school boards in the same region yield similar data?’.

   121  Most of the issues were negative (see figure 14) but there were a few positive ones (see figure 15). Figure 14 is based on data that illuminated issues that had a negative impact on art education in the participants’ schools. It illustrates a hierarchy of impact relationships, according to all sources of data for this study.

The issues with the most impact are at the top of the triangle, followed by those of lesser impact underneath.

Figure 14: Issues with a negative impact on art education in north-eastern Ontario elementary schools

Figure 15: Issues with a positive impact on art education in north-eastern Ontario elementary schools

   122  In contrast, there were issues that had a positive effect on elementary art education in the location of the study and figure 15 illustrates the positive issues, according to all sources. Although support, location, and comfort were included as having a negative impact on art education, some participants and the elementary

coordinators shared examples of how these issues were helpful.

In chapter six, I will discuss the findings related to both the negative and positive issues that impacted elementary art education in the location of this study and develop understandings from the analysis segment. I will link the data to the literature in the first three chapters and to my practice as an art education lecturer. 

CHAPTER SIX