National Art Education Association

The School Art Style: A Functional Analysis

Author(s): Arthur Efland
Source: Studies in Art Education, Vol. 17, No. 2 (1976), pp. 37-44
Published by: National Art Education Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1319979 .
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 THE SCHOOLART STYLE:A FUNCTIONALANALYSIS

ARTHUR EFLAND

It's Thursday, and the fourth grade If art is less valued than reading, why
class is happily marching to the art does the school try to find time for art?
room. The children are glad, because Why is it missed when it is not in the
for a whole hour they can forget about curriculum?What I want to focus upon,
reading and mathematics and take up then, is the phenomenon of school art,
with the enticements of colored con- what it is, and what it does.
struction paper, papier mache, paint, School art is first of all a form of art
and clay. The teacher greets the art that is produced in the school by
teacher with a cheery "Hi, Mona. Am I children under the guidance and in-
glad you have them now. They are fluence of a teacher. The teacher usually
higher than kites". Then she says is not an art teacher but an elementary
halfway apologetically, "I hope you classroom teacher (NEA, 1963, pp. 24-
won't mind, but Johnny has remained in 26). Though student work done with art
the room to finish his reading. He was teachers differs in artistic complexity
out a lot with flu, and he's fallen from that done with classroom teachers,
behind." The art teacher really does the definition that I'm advancing in-
mind, but she has been on friendly cludes both. School art is not the same
terms with this teacher for a long time, thing as child art. Child art is a spon-
so she lets it go. taneous, unsupervised form of graphic
In this fictional account a expression usually done outside of
phenomenon that recurs with great school by children for their own
regularity in the life of an elementary satisfaction or in response to a need felt
art teacher was depicted. The art in an environment other than the
teacher is the recipient of a double school. Wilson (1974) identified the
message. On the one hand she is valued characteristics of child art. He says:
as a member of the school staff by Thisart has seldombeenallowedinto
students and professional peers; yet, she our highlycontrolledart classes.It is
also is told that her subject, art, is not as the spontaneousplay art of young
people .... It has little of the
important as are other subjects. In the polished lushness of art classroom
example above she and the classroom art, but onceone learnsto look at tat-
teacher acted as though they believed ty littledrawingsdonein ballpointon
this to be true. Even so, her services are lined paper,a whole worldof excite-
valued. Time spent in art provides ment unfolds.From play art we can
learn why young people make art in
students with needed release. The the first placeand why some keepon
teacher is relieved from the duties of makingit while others stop. (p. 3)
maintaining control over a large, slight- Wilson's paper focuses attention on
ly unruly class, and hence is free to child art as a phenomenon through the
provide remedial reading to a youngster study of a single practicioner in the
that had fallen behind. work of an eleven-year-old boy named
That art is not regarded as the most J.C. Holz. Historically, teachers like
valued of school subjects is driven home Franz Cizek of Austria thought they
with repeated regularity in hundreds of were bringing child art into fuller
thousands of incidents like the one development by their teaching, but ac-
above. tually they created a new style, the
38 STUDIES IN ART EDUCATION 17/2

school art style. Wilson describes school string paintings; string printing; dried-
art with terms such as game-like, con- pea-mosaics; tissue collages; fish-
ventional, ritualistic, and ruled- mobiles; and masks of every size, shape
governed. "Conventional themes and and description. Themes range from
materials are fed to children which topics like "Playing in the School
result in school art with the proper Yard" (Lansing, 1972, p. 446),
expected look" (Wilson, 1974, pp. 5-6). "Picking Apples" (Viola, 1949, p. 134;
While Wilson characterizes the school Lowenfeld, 1952, pp. 116, 125), and "I
art style, he leaves open the question of am at the Dentist". (Lowenfeld, 1952,
why there is need to invent a style that p. 94). Halloween, Thanksgiving,
has little or no counterpart either in the Christmas, and Valentine's Day are
personal spontaneous expression of observed with products in the form of
children or in the culture outside of the cultural symbols.
school. What is so amazing about School art is an institutional art style
school art is that it doesn't exist in its own right. It is not the first such
anywhere else except in schools, and it style. There is a church art and a cor-
exists in schools around the world. The porate art, and there is a museum art.
school art style is international in scope All of these art styles deal with different
(Asihene, 1974; Glover, 1974; subjects and themes, have different
Suleiman, 1974). social functions, and involve different
The three studies referred to above people. Church art is perhaps best un-
document the fact that African derstood in the context of how it
schooling practices, for example, tend enhances the act of worship. Corporate
to resemble the curriculum provided by art is best understood in the context of
former colonial overlords, in these cases its merchandizing function, while
the art curriculum of England. Ghanian museum art is best understood in the
children, in one instance, were seen il- context of curators, connoisseurs, and
lustrating English nursery rhymes like art lovers and what they do in the
Little Bo Peep. These writers interpret presence of the art in the museum
such manifestations as evidence of collection. School art presumably
Western influence upon their respective should be art that is understood in the
countries, but the persistent presence of context of its educative function.
such alien influences in their Institutions like schools can be and have
educational institutions, some fifteen been treated by anthropologists and
years after independence, calls for sociologists in their own right (Dalke,
another explanation - one that takes 1958). These institutions develop inter-
into account the fact that the school as nal social structures (Merton, 1968),
an institution has a latent tendency to channels of communication, and the
assert its autonomy and authority. It people involved in these cultures behave
does so in these cases by retaining the in certain ways that are mediated by the
alien influences. Any educational use of symbolic forms. Hence we can
material would have sufficed, provided say that these institutions frequently
that it was sufficiently obscure or irrele- develop symbolic artifacts to facilitate
vant to the population surrounding the these activities. These artifacts are
school. sometimes called art.
Most of us are familiar with the Now I am getting into a problem!
products, themes, and media given play The school presumably exists to
in the school art style. The products transmit a cultural heritage including
range from tempera paintings on the knowledge, beliefs, values, and
newsprint applied with large brushes to patterns of behavior that are prized by
THE SCHOOL ART STYLE: A FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS 39

the society that established the school. wish to make about that culture. If a
Part of this heritage is the art of the culture is egalitarian or hierarchical in
culture. Why, then, does the school its social structure, these facts might
develop a new and different art style show up either in some aspect of a
that is only marginally related to the product's form, or are explained by the
heritage? Why does the school, which is social circumstances for which the par-
the agency providing the transmission, ticular work was made or by the social
proceed to invent a new and different conditions under which it was to be
style of its own? My perplexity is com- perceived - when and by whom. If this
pounded by the fact that the school art is true, then it should follow that the
style does not seem to be a pedagogical school art style is like any other style in
tool for teaching children about art in that it expresses the culture within
the world beyond the school, though which it originates. Let us turn the
this is its manifest function, to be sure. statement around and ask it as a ques-
When mathematics is taught in the tion. Can the existence, indeed the ap-
school, there is some correspondence parent need for a school art style, be
between what is taught as mathematics explained by the structure of social
and the mathmatical understandings at relations or the structure of beliefs that
large in the minds of men and women in operate within the school? Do the forms
the world outside of the school. This is that school art takes express these
less so with art, where there is little cultural components? If this is so, then
resemblence or relation between what art teachers need to face the fact that
professional artists do and what what is frequently taken to be the con-
children are asked to do. To answer the tent of the art that is made in school
riddle I am going to rely on some isn't about art as it exists beyond the
anthropological assumptions. First, all school; it may be more a function of the
art as an artifact originating within par- school life-style itself. This is not to say
ticular cultures or subcultures tells us that school art is bad or mistaken in its
something about those cultures within objectives. Rather, it is an attempt to
which they originate. Fischer (1971) explain the facts as many professional
cited evidence that there is a cor- art educators have observed and decried
respondence between the social struc- them with repeated regularity over the
ture of a given society and certain for- last fifteen years. One is the fact that art
mal attributes of its art styles. The education remains a peripheral concern
products of the school art style as ar- within general education. (Eisner, 1972,
tifacts of a school culture should be able p. 1). It is one of the last subjects to be
to tell us something about that culture added to the curriculum and the first to
that may, on first look, not be obvious. go when funds are short. Another
Thus, the social structure or religion of perennial fact is the continuing pre-
a vanished people can sometimes be dominance of studio art instruction in
reconstructed from small fragments of both elementary and secondary schools
physical remains such as potshards or (Barkan, 1962). This exists in spite of
carved bone. Art forms are made in the fact that the profession has gone on
response to a constellation of situations record supporting critical and historical
that arise within a culture, and hence study (NAEA, 1968).
these can be read as evidence about the We have in the past attempted to
culture itself. The products of the school explain these facts by alluding to anti-
art style, no less than the style of an- aesthetic tendencies in American
cient Egypt, can be interpreted as culture going back to the Puritan
evidence to support claims we might fathers, and we have attributed the
40 STUDIES IN ART EDUCATION 17/2

reluctance to engage students in critical authority of the corporation, the

and historical approaches to study in military, and the welfare bureaucracy.
the arts to an incipient anti- The school's rhetoric of service seems,
intellectualism among rank and file art sometimes, to obscure these latent func-
teachers. Placing the blame within these tions which go unrecognized. For this
sources has the effect of getting the reason we can use this rhetoric as a
profession off the hook. Blaming it on benchmark for purposes of analysis.
the culture is like blaming it on In my view the presence of the school
providence, leaving the fate of art art style can be explained as a result of
education in the lap of the gods beyond the conflicts that arise between a
the ken of human volition. This is a rhetoric articulating the manifest func-
fatalism that says that nothing can be tions and the latent functions which go
done - a position I am not willing to unstated. In art education our manifest
accept. Blaming it on the anti- functions have to do with helping
intellectual traits of art teachers is a lit- students become more human through
tle like blaming the crime on the victim. art (Feldman, 1970) by having them
The Hidden CurriculumProblem value art as an important aspect of their
There exists a literature that is lives. The typical art program operates
written and spoken by school officials, in a school where students are
teachers, and school board members. It regimented into social roles required by
is a collective attempt to define the society. If the school's latent functions
school's purposes - what it attempts to are repressive in character, what effect
accomplish for the individual and socie- does this have on the art program? It's
ty. The literature attempts to state the my speculation that the art program's
ideology or philosophy of the school manifest functions are subverted by
with statements about the worth of the these pressures. As the repression
individual, the democratic process, builds, art comes to be regarded as
equality before the law, fair play, "time off for good behavior" or as
respect for law and order, scholarship, "therapy."
free enterprise, individual initiative, and Illich's views were stated with
the like. The school's rhetoric of service extreme passion and vituperation which
is usually stated in the form of goals ac- sometimes outstripped his facts, but in a
complishing these general aims. These critique sympathetic to Illich, Gintis
statements express the manifest func- (1973) cited some historical studies that
tions of the school, i.e., those which the lend corroboration to the Illich thesis.
persons involved in the school recognize For example, one study traced the
and accept as the right ones. Schools organization of the American school
have latent functions (Merton, 1968) and that of the American corporation
which go unrecognized even by those as both evolved their hierarchial forms
who carry out these functions. Thus, of social organization. One conclusion
Illich (1971) described the fact that made by Gintis was that the school's
most people think that a school's structure was patterned after the cor-
manifest function is the cognitive poration rather than the society as a
development of the students, but, in his whole. In essence then, the social
view, its latent function involves relations of the American school are
socializing the individual into accepting described as democratic in their service
the authority of the school as a prelude rhetoric though in actuality they more
for accepting the authority of other in- closely approximate the hierarchic
stitutions. Once he accepts the authority organization of the modern corpora-
of the school, he is able to accept the tion.
THE SCHOOL ART STYLE: A FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS 41

Because the school is compulsary after all required to take art. They can-
there are no genuine democratic op- not copy or imitate which is an option
tions, i.e., children do not have the op- that a free individual may wish to exer-
tion of not attending school. In that cise; they must use the media provided
sense it is more obligitory than military them, and they must experiment with it
conscription where at least one can in certain ways to produce the look that
refuse service on grounds of conscience. their teachers will reinforce. Some of
In that light, Cass (1974) noted that the the qualities involve filling the space,
teaching profession was the third most using clean colors, spontaneous brush
authoritarian profession now being strokes, looseness as opposed to
practiced, succeeded only by the police tightness, etc. The art that is produced is
and the armed services. suggested by the teacher who com-
Functions of the School Art Style missions it and motivates the students
to accept the commission. The teacher
1. Making the service rhetoric credible.
is also the client-patron for the products
One of the functions of the school art
produced and is the dispenser of
style is to provide behaviors and rewards for commissions completed
products that have the look of humanis- within specifications. In other words the
tic learning. I don't know if humanism
involves the use of a given look, but teacher is in charge of the game, and it
I would wager that in the popular is not so very different from the other
view art products that would be deemed games that are ordinarily played within
the school. Art teachers, like all
humanistic would be those having an
teachers, assert the authority of the in-
"unregimented," "irregular," "in-
dividual" look. School art activity stitution; and if, in the eyes of the
would have to be designed to produce system, they are good teachers they will
such products, yet within a pre- be able to turn on the creativity and
determined range. A class where turn it off again in time to clean up and
get the children back to math and
everyone draws the same view of the
same leaf (see Gombrich, 1960, p. 148, reading.
Illustration #106) would not be 2. The Morale Function.
tolerated as an accepted practice today. Art is supposed to be easy and fun.
Teachers know in advance the look of Though most art teachers find such talk
the products they want and what they perjorative, the fact of the matter is that
don't want. Usually they do not want art is one of the areas that is used to
pictures with a copied look or comic vivify school life and break up the
stereotypes.Abstract, free form or scrib- deadening routine. Much art produc-
ble designs would be sanctioned within tion is associated with school holidays
their expectations as monsters would such as Halloween, Christmas, and
be. As long as the art program seems to Valentine's Day. The evaluators for the
be producing products that have a free Arts IMPACT Program in the Colum-
and creative look, school persons can bus public schools, for example, noted
say that life in school is not just a that there is a statistically significant in-
cognitive matter. Man does not live by crease in pupil attendance on days when
bread alone. Thus, while mouthing the program occurs over days when it is
these homilies and even believing them, not present (Arts Impact Evaluation
the school with characteristic alacrity is Team, Note 2).
free to pursue its hidden curriculum of The school uses art as therapy,
socialization. minimizing the psychological cost of in-
The self-same creative activities may stitutional repression. This assertion
not be as free as they look. Children are may help explain why it is that when art
42 STUDIES IN ART EDUCATION 17/2

teachers try to make their subject more presumably is an essential part of the
rigorous or intellectually challenging, art learning experience. (d) While some
such efforts meet with resistance. The stylistic influences creep in from the
last thing that many art teachers feel comics, from illustrations in children's
they can do is to make art another books, and from the more sophisticated
academic discipline. This latent social art styles of professional artists, all of
role may well explain why art teachers these should be kept to an absolute
have difficulty introducing art criticism minimum. All forms of such influence
or history into their programs. The are seen as destructive to the child's in-
expectations that children, classroom dividual creativity. That artists like
teachers, and administrators have built Duchamp, Warhol, Lichtenstein,
up through the years disallow any Picasso, and Cezanne have on occasion
weakening of the therapeutic functions copied without undue damage to their
of art. creativity is not a relevant matter. What
the child may have on his mind for his
Formal Requirementsof the School Art
expression may be the Snoopy symbol
Style in Peanuts, but such manifestations
Because art has acquired some of the need to be discouraged by the teacher
latent functions described above, the who alone knows what the art of
question that now must be answered is: children should look like and, what's
Why are these hidden functions more, knows how to get it to look like
furthered by the particular school art that. These prescriptionsare requiredto
style that we see? Asked in the reverse bring into being a style which squares
way, the question is: Does the presence with the school's service rhetoric in
of these hidden functions of school art some important ways. The prohibition
help explain its stylistic attributes?I will against copied forms and outside in-
answer the question by writing a fluences functions to keep the art
prescription for an art style that would looking child-like, a look that is
serve these latent functions. (a) The accepted by parents and classroom
style would need to be one that is teachers as evidence of the school's
relatively free of cognitive strain. It humane intentions of helping to ad-
needs a lot of manualactivity ratherthan vance creativity and individuality. The
one that involves the use of the head. media that are used cannot help but
The avant-garde styles like conceptual produce a range of products that cannot
art certainly would not be desirable. possibly be alike. Competence in school
(b) The products have to have a range art is condoned, but it is usually
of identifiable differences which the ascribed to parental pushing and, hence,
client-patrons of the style can detect. is possibly regarded as a source of harm
No lookalike art is acceptable here. (Lowenfeld, 1954).
The products should be ones that can As it happened, history played right
be made in a short time. The range of into our hands, because such a style was
allowable variations in differences invented for school use around the turn
should not tax the decorum of the of the century. It was the style that
school. (c) The media should be Cizek inventedwhen he thoughthe found
resilient, easily manipulated and con- a method to further child art. He iden-
trolled so that they yield a wide range of tified all the components: easy
products with a low order of skill and materials like colored paper and paints,
dexterity. They should be perceptually a range of subjects and themes to re-
inviting, i.e., colors bright, interesting mind the children of what they are sup-
textures, etc. The media should be non- posed to do, a prohibition against
toxic and easily cleaned, since clean-up copying, or even looking at other art. It
THE SCHOOL ART STYLE: A FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS 43

struck America between the wars when Conclusions

schools moved for a time into a child- Vincent Lanier (1972) made the
centered orientation. The style became observation that teaching practices in
associated with what was to become the school have remained static for the
accepted as a liberal stance in educa- last several decades. The goals change
tion. Previous school art was from time to time so that we justify our
regimented and authoritarian in its
practices by alluding to the importance
form and content. The new style, by of creativity in one year only to be
contrast, was a more vivid and freer followed by some other rationale in
expression. Cizek changed the game another. Yet the school art style has
plan; and, hence, the school art style remained essentially the same for the
changed. In some ways, however, it last forty-five to fifty years. To be sure,
serves the same functions that it always some of the flavor of contemporary art
had. finds its way into the classroom, har-
Another important reason why the boring the illusion that the curriculumis
style was readily adopted was simply changing. Society outside of the school
the fact that it made few professional changes, too. Children rarely have the
demands on the teacher. Teachers did chance to go to grandma's to pick
not have to know much art to teach it! apples, and the snow that they roll into
They had only to follow Cizek when he snowmen is polluted with the exhaust
said of his method "All I do is take the fumes of 80 million automobiles. In the
lid off, when most teachers clamp it on" face of these perplexities one would
(McDonald, 1971). The fact that ar- expect to see something else happen in
tistic competence seemed not to be a the art programs of the school. What I
prerequisite enhanced the popularity of suspect is that the school art style tells
the method, because the school could us a lot more about schools and less
have a liberal, humane, and creative art about students and what's on their
program without adequately trained minds. If this is so, then maybe we have
teachers. The school could look good been fooling ourselves all along. We
while its fundamental commitments are have been trying to change school art
based in a curriculum with a hidden when we should have been trying to
agenda of repression. change the school!

Arthur Efland is professor of Art Education, The Ohio State University, Columbus.

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REFERENCE NOTES

1. Arts Impact Evaluation Team. Arts impact: A curriculumfor change: A summary report.
University Park, Penn.: The Pennsylvania State University, March 1973.