Editors' Introduction: Expanding Our Vision for the Arts in Education

Abstract

In 1991 the Harvard Educational Review presented a two-part arts education symposium (vol. 61, nos. 1 & 3) that was published the following year as Arts as Education (Goldberg & Phillips, 1992). Then, HER editors were troubled to look back on the history of our journal and find scant discussion of issues pertaining to the arts in education. Twenty years after the Arts as Education symposium, we remain troubled that the topic of arts teaching and learning has continued to remain a stranger to the pages of our journal, only rarely making an appearance in the occasional article or Book Note. While we are dismayed by this lack of focus on the arts in a generalist education journal such as our own, we wonder, Should we really be surprised by the absence of arts education content in HER? Given that our current educational landscape is so deeply fixated on standardized tests, measurable outcomes in rigid content areas, and increased “achievement” at all costs, perhaps it makes sense that the arts—though fundamental to how we make meaning of ourselves, our environments, and our sociocultural interactions—are relegated to the margins of dominant discussions on education and therefore sadly absent from HER's pages.