The Handbook of Research and Policy in Art Education marks a milestone in the field of art education. Sponsored by the National Art Education Association and assembled by an internationally known group of art educators, this 36-chapter handbook provides an overview of the remarkable progress that has characterized this field in recent decades. Organized into six sections, it profiles and integrates the following elements of this rapidly emerging field: history, policy, learning, curriculum and instruction, assessment, and competing perspectives. Because the scholarly foundations of art education are relatively new and loosely coupled, this handbook provides researchers, students, and policymakers (both inside and outside the field) an invaluable snapshot of its current boundaries and rapidly growing content. In a nutshell, it provides much needed definition and intellectual respectability to a field that as recently as 1960 was more firmly rooted in the world of arts and crafts than in scholarly research.

Table of Contents:
Contents: E.W. Eisner, M.D. Day, Introduction to Handbook of Research and Policy in Art Education.Part I:Historical Currents in Art Education.F.G. Chalmers, Learning From Histories of Art Education: An Overview of Research and Issues. M.A. Stankiewicz, P.M. Amburgy, P.E. Bolin, Questioning the Past: Contexts, Functions, and Stakeholders in 19th-Century Art Education. J.H. White, 20th-Century Art Education: A Historical Perspective. Part II:Policy Perspectives Impacting the Teaching of Art.R.A. Smith, Policy and Arts Education. S. Hope, Art Education in a World of Cross-Purposes. C.B. Gee, Spirit, Mind, and Body: Arts Education the Redeemer. L. Hetland, E. Winner, Cognitive Transfer From Arts Education to Non-Arts Outcomes: Research Evidence and Policy Implications. R.A. Smith, Aesthetic Education: Questions and Issues. H.G. Blocker, Varieties of Multicultural Art Education: Some Policy Issues. E.L. Lankford, K. Scheffer, Museum Education and Controversial Art: Living on a Fault Line. Part III:Learning in the Visual Arts.A.M. Kindler, Introduction: Development and Learning in Art. A.M. Kindler, Researching Impossible? Models of Artistic Development Reconsidered. J. Matthews, The Art of Infancy. B. Wilson, Child Art After Modernism: Visual Culture and New Narratives. C. Golomb, Sculpture: Representational Development in a Three-Dimensional Medium. N.H. Freeman, Aesthetic Judgment and Reasoning. D. Pariser, E. Zimmerman, Learning in the Visual Arts: Characteristics of Gifted and Talented Individuals. Part IV:Teaching and Teacher Education.E. Zimmerman, Introduction to Teaching and Teacher Education. L. Galbraith, K. Grauer, State of the Field: Demographics and Art Teacher Education. M. Stokrocki, Contexts for Teaching Art. M. Erickson, Interaction of Teachers and Curriculum. F. Thurber, Teacher Education as a Field of Study in Art Education: A Comprehensive Overview of Methodology and Methods Used in Research About Art Teacher Education. F.R. Sabol, An Overview of Art Teacher Recruitment, Certification, and Retention. J.M. Burton, The Practice of Teaching in K-12 Schools: Devices and Desires. Part V:Forms of Assessment in Art Education.E. Soep, Assessment and Visual Arts Education. D. Boughton, Assessing Art Learning in Changing Contexts: High-Stakes Accountability, International Standards and Changing Conceptions of Artistic Development. H. Persky, The NAEP Arts Assessment: Pushing the Boundaries of Large-Scale Performance Assessment. C.M. Myford, A. Sims-Gunzenhauser, The Evolution of Large-Scale Assessment Programs in the Visual Arts. E. Soep, Visualizing Judgment: Self-Assessment and Peer Assessment in Arts Education. Part VI:Emerging Visions of the Field.A.D. Efland, Emerging Visions of Art Education. S.M. Dobbs, Discipline-Based Art Education. T. Barrett, Investigating Art Criticism in Education: An Autobiographical Narrative. A.D. Efland, Art Education as Imaginative Cognition. M. Parsons, Art and Integrated Curriculum. G. Sullivan, Studio Art as Research Practice. K. Freedman, P. Stuhr, Curriculum Change for the 21st Century: Visual Culture in Art Education.