Brooke Mathews

Professor Ward
Art Ed 133
February 16, 2016
Unit Paper 2
Unit 2 focused on the 21st Century Art Education Approach of Visual Culture and Social
Justice and the Big Idea of Conservation and Ecology. Visual culture is the presence of
purposeful visual artifacts that are seen, deconstructed, and interpreted by society. Hurwitz &
Day (2007) identify two aspects of visual culture: the denotation and connotation of meaning
(pg. 86). Denotation is described as the images or texts present in visual art. Connotation is the
implications and interpretations of the image and how they are perceived by individuals and
society. Visual culture can hold connotations that reflect the idea of social justice. Social justice
with regards to art education is the process of using art to convey social issues with the purpose
of educating viewers on these issues. The big idea of conservation and ecology is an example of
promoting social justice through visual culture. Conservation being the act of preserving natural
resources, and ecology describing the complexity of natural systems in relation to one another.
For adaptation in younger populations, visual culture in art education can be approached
in a variety of ways. Barrett (2003) describes ways a teacher might teach the concepts of
denotation and connotation to children of different grade levels: middle schoolers are capable of
understanding the concept behind denotations and connotations, kindergarteners can use these
concepts and understand the presence of persuasion in media, and preschoolers are able to
express ideas that correlate to denotations and connotations without understanding the terms
directly (pg. 6&7).
Reference
Barret, T. (2003). Interpreting visual culture. Art Education, 56(2), 6-12.
Hurwitz, A., & Day, M. (2007). Children and their art: Methods for the elementary school, (8th
ed.). Thompson Wadsworth.