Contemporary Art and Culturally-Responsive Education

Contemporary art provides a critical lens for educators working with young people. In the 1980s and 90s, contemporary art and “multicultural education” practices were brought together to bridge students’ lived experiences with social critique. The New Museum of Contemporary Art’s High School Art Program, for example, addressed the political issues students cared about through art, linking them with daily life and creative expression. In 1997, the New Museum published the book "Contemporary Art and Multicultural Education," followed by "Rethinking Contemporary Art and Multicultural Education" in 2011.

The discourse of critical pedagogy has evolved significantly in recent decades and Gloria Ladson-Billings’s theorizing of “culturally-responsive pedagogy” has influenced teaching practices that support young people in connecting with their own cultural identities and analyzing the world around them. Likewise, contemporary art continues to change. How can evolving artists' practices—particularly those employing new technologies, social practice, and alternative knowledge systems—inform culturally-responsive pedagogies in today's classrooms?

This session asks how emerging contemporary artistic practices can strengthen and model new approaches to teaching – becoming more than simply the content for lessons – especially within the context of our shifting cultural and political landscape. It seeks papers addressing the intersections of contemporary art, education, and topics such as: expanding historical narratives, global perspectives in the classroom, critical engagement with technology, climate change, immigrant rights, new definitions of American identity, political division, and speech rights. This session will inform the development of a third publication to be produced by the New Museum on contemporary art and education.