Seeking Coalitions between Certified and Non-Certified Art Educators

The impetus for this article was a seemingly benign question in the call for submissions to this special issue of Studies in Art Education: "How can art educators embrace non-certified individuals who teach art in various settings such as craft stores, after-school programs, and community centers?" As art educators who study and teach in the formal context of a state university but whose research interests include non-formal, informal, and museum art education, we were delighted to see this topic clearly acknowledged as significant to contemporary debate in our field.At the same time, the question is more complex than it may at first appear. Does it suggest that non-certified teachers are not art educators, or merely that we should think more broadly about who should be counted as art educators? Whether intentionally or inadvertently, it implies an imbalance around who has the power to welcome whom into the official domain of art education and reveals an underlying tension between insiders and outsiders in the field.We are of the view that acknowledging the multiplicity of art education contexts and pedagogues is a very good idea. Nevertheless we stress that the circumstances surrounding the question above are riddled with complications and issues of power that must be taken into consideration if we are to understand the problem and seek solutions. Our discussion proceeds by first describing something of the complex and rapidly shifting educational landscape in the United States today. We share some of the policy debates related to multiple providers of art education. We also explore the simultaneous attack on education as a profession and the increasing regimentation of schools alongside a movement to shift education from the public to the private, corporate, and non-profit domains. We next discuss the ways in which binary, hierarchal thinking about school and non-school realms, as well as the lack of an adequate theoretical language about non-formal and informal education, make imagining ways to merge these forms more difficult. In broaching solutions, we argue the need to avoid dichotomous thinking, and instead, to view all educational sites as situated in ideological, economic, and political forces. We suggest that it might also be helpful to view coalitions as occurring around values and principles rather than between kinds of educators. We share the work of Farrell (2008) who examines community schools in the third world as examples of new educational structures. Finally, we offer suggestions about how different groups and institutions might contribute to the changes that are needed while acknowledging that our discussion offers more of a broad sweep of the issues than a set of procedures. In keeping with the intentions of this special issue, we hope to offer a jumping off point for further debate and research about what we believe to be an important topic.The Political and Economic LandscapeAs noted, we support a greater recognition and critical understanding of the nature of art education and pedagogy across multiple sites. The reality is that as a field we have largely focused on school-based forms of education and tended to de-emphasize innumerable sites of art education in non-formal and informal educational realms. Examining these other settings and the nature of the teaching and learning within them can expand our grasp of the ways in which art education is continually reinvented by particular contextual frameworks. Exploring out-of-school realms offers opportunities to question and reimagine that which is taken for granted in formal schooling. Such work helps us expand our ideas about what education is as well as where and how it occurs. Recognizing the educators who teach in non-school settings and honoring the nature and complexity of their practices may certainly be a first step in building coalitions (Lackey, 2009/2003).There are, however, real issues of contention between school-based and out-of-school art educators that must be acknowledged. …