Creando espacios: nociones de educación artística para la justicia social en profesores de artes visuales y música en Chile

Approaches in Art Education

Some of the models that have been identified in Art Education include (Cubillo López, 2011):

Logocentric/Cognitive/Disciplinary Models. Focused on the artistic facts and its products, they seek to provide indi viduals with the tools and knowledge necessary to know and produce artistic objects. This formative trend has driven European Art Education, rooted in the instruction of professions and training of specialists, from the Middle Ages to the 20th century. It is founded on the Cartesian rationalist tradition and the search for the classical ideal, based on the knowledge and practice of the rules and principles of art, such as universal proportion and harmony. Their methodolo gical strategies include respect for the norms and procedures, expert direction from a master or specialized teacher, preci sion and sequentiality. Since these models are based on the development of thought and cognition, they organize artistic knowledge into disciplines (art history, aesthetics, art criticism and practice) to facilitate learning. They position art as a relevant subject in schools and prioritizee the works of institutionalized art, neglecting other artistic manifestations, such as popular art, with an emphasis on institutional pedagogy (González, 2019).

Expressionist Model. This model places the subject at the center of the formative action, to promote the development of the individual’s creativity and personality, considering that the essence of the artistic practice is the transmission and expression of the subject’s feelings or emotions, to promote freedom, sensitivity, originality, creativity, naturalness, sponta neity, and imagination, so that they become emotionally healthy adults. From here, Art Education seeks the free develo pment of the individual’s innate creative faculties (which would be present in childhood, but would be hindered by adult intervention), reinforcing their self-confidence and self-esteem, instead of the transmission of norms and knowledge, or the study of the classics. The orientation is ludic, using games and pleasurable stimuli, creating welcoming spaces, and without imitation of previous models, which would inhibit discovery. According to González (2019), it is one of the most disseminated approaches in Chilean education and would not require teaching specialization.

Pragmatic model. It considers that aesthetics is an experience that should not be separated from daily life, which implies summoning and forming sensitivities for an integrated experience of art and other cultural frameworks. It criticizes a teaching that only considers traditional and institutionalized art, which would separate artistic manifestations from real life. The understanding and interpretation of the artistic events would not be oriented towards the knowledge of the works of artists, but towards the development of an aesthetic sensibility that favors identification operations. From this perspec tive, the works of art do not have a specific content to be discovered, but the interpreting subject is the one assigning them possible meanings. This approach would allow the configuration of the identity of the students, who, by empathizing and reflecting themselves in the works constitute and re-elaborate the notion of themselves, being a dimension in constant construction. Although it would not seek social transformation or reconstruction, it would not be a merely individualistic perspective, but it would allow solidarity by recognizing other lexicons (Orbeta, 2015).

Reconstructionist, culturalist or educational models for the understanding of visual culture. From a postmodern paradigm, these models highlight the ability of all cultures to produce images in all their social demonstrations, valuing the importance of knowing their meanings and cultural value. Their fundamental purpose is to provide students with tools for a critical understanding of the visual representations, their functions, and the power relations to which they are linked, questioning the notion of “high culture”, substituting the notion of art for visual culture, and seeing possibilities of social reconstruction through art (Orbeta, 2015). Hernández (in Cubillo López, 2011) emphasizes the need for this approach, given the relevance of visual representations in the contemporary world, which has broadened the limits of visual arts. Agirre (2015) proposes that the reconstructionist approach sees art education as a contribution to understanding the social and cultural panorama and sees all elements that form cultural meanings as an object of study, from traditional art to contemporary media aesthetic production, and from a multicultural and deconstructive perspec tive, where the assumptions behind different visions and beliefs are revealed. Regarding their presence in initial teacher education, Gutierrez-Cabello et al. (2021) propose that the objective is for future teachers to understand the social influence of contempo rary visual culture, developing a critical thinking in students that distances itself from passivity. These models question Art Education from trans- or interdisci plinarity, where visual arts bet on the opening of the disciplines and the vagueness of limits; and from multiculturalism, where students are sensibilized to the artistic productions of other cultures, to build respectful social relations and to challenge tensions and complexities from the new multicultural contexts (Orbeta, 2015). González (2019) adds that these models have gained strength since the late 1990s, when it was assumed that the world is a global space where diverse cultures coexist, questioning the idea of institu tionalized art, and integrating themes such as interculturality, popular art and handicrafts, colonialism, feminism, advertising, issues related to visual and technological consumption, and others linked to the critical positioning.

Contemporary approaches/Art education for social justice. Authors such as González (2019) propose this category to group those approaches to Art Education where it is sought to respond to current problems, and where art, culture and aesthetic experience appear as wider, more flexible and complex concepts. From these approaches, any artistic and cultural manifestation, including the ones produced in a local and popular space, is valued, being a more inclusive education and closer to the Latin American multi cultural reality (it incorporates the study of indigenous, urban, rural, migrant, or juvenile cultures). On the other hand, it empha sizes the artistic process over the product, appealing to a reflection on the problems of our society. In terms of artistic movements, these approaches are related to the development of conceptual art, in which the idea prevails over the formal aspects of the work, and to community or socially committed art, which develops action and/or projects at the service of or in conjunction with people, groups or communities, addressing their own contexts, strengths and problems. From this perspective, it is proposed that students identify themselves as active agents, committed to their contexts; develop a critical view; value the diversity of gender, culture, origin and/or provenance of all people, and recognize their equal right to citizenship; and identify themselves in the collective project of a democratic society, contributing creatively to build the ideal society (González, 2019).

Approaches in music education. Although the approaches previously mentioned are relevant for art education in general, they focus on the visual arts. In the case of music education, Akoschky (2002) highlights different emphases:

• Appreciative aspect: usually called “music appreciation”, this activity is based on listening of music pieces, selected and organized by the teacher or by the curricula. The work is listened to, and an analytical approach is applied, accompanied by long explanations. In addition to the cultural distance that is established in many cases between students and the chosen styles, a passive attitude is adopted.

• Notional aspect: it addresses the teaching of conventional music notation with an increasing order of difficulty, regardless of its musical application or use. Class time is dedicated to learning the symbols that represent it, but not to music itself.

In addition to these orientations, Akoschsky (2002) adds that the use of music is widely extended for other educational objectives: patriotic (learning the national anthem, hymns dedicated to national heroes), socializing (as a support for other learning, for example, to establish habits of hygiene or discipline), and recreational (as entertainment, with a songbook of current hits, with stereotyped dances and choreographies).

Art Education in Chile

As Miranda and Espinoza (2015) state, in the case of visual arts in Chile, histori cally, the curriculum had been focused on the practice of geometric drawing and until1900, when theoretical contents were integrated (history of art or concepts of art, focused on universal art and the classical ideal, with some spaces for national art). However, these contents were mainly included in secondary education, to which mostly the elites had access, while, for the rest of the students, the focus was on the development of drawing, associated to the technical and manual skills of the mathematical plan.

In 1949, the subject of Drawing was renamed Plastic Arts, initiating a trans formation of the teaching of the arts, with the introduction of experiences about creativity, self-knowledge, and expressiveness, inspired by the postulates of Lowenfeld, who saw art education as a support for the integral development of the personality of kids and young people. From here, artistic production was seen in a depoliticized and de-ideologized way.

In 1982, Decree 300 led the subject to lose its compulsory nature in the first years of secondary school, with an optional plan between Plastic Arts, Music and Technology, and it was completely excluded from the last years of schooling. At the same time, theoretical and technical contents associated with technologies to produce digital and media arts were introduced, which led to the change of the name Plastic Arts to Visual Arts.

Moreno (2012) adds that, after the 1973 coup d’état in Chile, there was a shift towards technique and the use of materials, leaving behind the processes of reception, interpretation, and creation of artistic works. Afterwards, in the 1990s, the teaching of art in secondary school began to consider the knowledge of the form, function, and aesthetic appreciation of objects, showing diverse cultural and historical contexts, with a critical view of the consumer society and the possibility of developing a personal and collective production.

In 2013, new curricular bases for Visual Arts from f irst to sixth grade of primary education were published, and in 2015, those from seventh grade of primary educa tion to second grade of secondary education, with two large areas: an artistic one (with cognitive and expressive dimensions) and another linked to visual culture, including disciplines such as advertising (allowing the development of communicative, creative and critical skills) (Miranda & Espinoza, 2015).

In the case of first to sixth grade of primary educa tion, there are two main emphases: expressing and crea ting visually; and appreciating and responding to art. From seventh grade of primary education to second grade of secondary education, the disseminating and communi cating emphasis is included, which implies that students develop work management skills, either using community networks or digital social networks (Miranda & Espinoza, 2015), in addition to the appreciation of the environment and nature (Moreno, 2012).

Orbeta (2015), when revising the Chilean Visual Arts curriculum to identify which approaches predominated, found that there was no positioning in a single artistic pers pective and that the approaches were not present explicitly. She states that it is possible to observe a certain harmony with the American curricular proposal from the Discipline Based Art Education (dbae), which conceives the area from four disciplines: history of art, criticism, aesthetics, and artistic creation. This would be aligned with the inten tion of developing students’ visual perception or thin king, from a cognitivist or logocentric perspective. Certain aspects of the pragmatic proposal are also noticed, as the aesthetic experience is mentioned as a nuclear aspect to develop the sensitivity of students. In the Visual Arts curri culum of 2016, it is possible to observe an emphasis on the perspective of visual culture, by including both contem porary and historical works of art, as well as elements of popular culture, such as design, graffiti, interventions and digital art; elements of the pragmatic model are also consi dered by reinforcing the response to art and the “learning by doing”; and elements of art for social justice in the rele vance of diversity.

In Chile, there is a significant socioeconomic gap in access to art education, where the less favored localities would have a poorer cultural infrastructure and less access to programs and workshops specialized in arts. In this context, private schools would have more art class hours, better spaces to carry them out, more specialized pedago gical equipment and material resources of better quality; and in rural settings, art education would not be a prio rity. The lack of appreciation of the arts in school has been accentuated with the curricular prioritization, relegating arts education to the extracurricular or optional hours of the school day, drawing attention to it exclusively in holi days or events of the school calendar, or suspending it in the event of any emergent situation. Finally, there would be difficulties to evaluate Art Education with the metrics of the educational system, as well as many school principals who do not show interest in arts subjects, ignore their benefits, or do not have the skills to manage spaces for arts given the bureaucratic requirements (Orealc, 2022b).

Teachers’ representations of art education

In the international context, Li (2020) interviewed five art education teachers in the United States, to explore their perspectives on discussing social justice issues in art classes. Li found that three of them discussed these topics in class (including issues such as race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, poverty, drug use, unemployment, environmental issues, education, multiculturalism, wealth distribution, homelessness, and migration), and integrated diverse artists into the curriculum, while the other two teachers only did it in small groups of students or out of class hours. They found it challenging to address these issues, and some of them stated that they did not have the support from the school administrative staff or from the parents to do it, or sometimes encountered resistance from the students. They also identified the art room space as a safe place to express themselves through art, while learning about appropriate behavior and collaborating with others. Li suggests teachers to work collaboratively to develop art curricula for social justice in their schools, that the training programs for art teachers bring opportunities for teachers to feel comfortable addressing these issues, and that teachers disseminate what they do in classes related to social justice with the parents and administrative staff, integrating them into these projects.

In Chile, Orbeta (2015) studied the representations of practicing Visual Art teachers regarding art teaching, their social and institutional contexts. Including teachers of three types of initial university education: graduates (artists), pedagogue graduates (artists) and pedagogues, in establi shments of a different types of dependence (private, subsi dized private and municipal) in the Metropolitan Region of Chile, she found that the experience of teachers appeared to be linked to a more “traditional” visuality, while the one of their students, more linked to contemporary languages and new technologies, establishing a separation between the youth world and the adult world, where the everyday nature and identity of students was not always integrated in the classes.

Methodology

Using a convenience sampling, semi-structured interviews were conducted with five teachers (four women and one man), two of them belonging to paid private establishments (schools A and B, from the Metropolitan Region), and three of them belonging to public establishments (one from the Fifth Region and two from the Metropolitan Region). T hree of them only taught at secondary level, one only at primary level, and one at primary and secondary levels. The interviews were conducted as part of a broader ethnogra phic study, which was investigating the citizenship educa tion in these schools. Details of the interviewed teachers are shown in table 1.

Table 1: Teachers interviewed according to type of school region, location, level, discipline and sex.

Source: Author’s own elaboration

The NVivo 12 software was used to analyze the data, which were coded in search for themes around notions of art that teachers have, using tools of the Critical Discourse Analysis (Anderson & Grinberg, 1998; Fairclough, 2003), which considers the discourse as a site of struggle and manifestation of ideology, where the discursive prac tice contributes to reproduce identities and social rela tions and systems of knowledge and beliefs, but can also contribute to transform society. This method addresses three different levels (Fairclough, 2003): The context of discourse (historical, political, cultural and economic), or social practice: includes ideology (constructions of reality that contribute to the production, reproduction or transformation of relations of domination) and hegemony (power over society of a particular class in alliance with other social classes); the conditions of production, distri bution and consumption of discourse, or discourse prac tice: includes the speech acts that the discourse conducts, its genre, coherence, intertextuality, metatextuality, irony, how participants produce and interpret texts, and whether they use their resources in normative or creative ways; and the text: form and meaning, covering themes, voca bulary, grammar, cohesion, structure, verbal modes, metaphors and transitivity. For the purposes of this analysis, special attention was paid to the metaphors used. According to Lakoff and Johnson (1995) , “a large part of our social realities are understood in metaphorical terms, and as our conception of the physical world is essentially metaphorical, the metaphor plays a very significant role in determining what is real for us” (p. 188).

The place of art in society and school

In the teachers’ discourses, we observed that, although the arts have advanced in terms of space and resources available in schools, they still remain as a type of secon dary knowledge and experience, which is not very valued socially and where priority is assigned to the prepara tion for the standardized tests or basic subjects, which is associated with the fact that arts have been discarded as compulsory subjects for the last years of secondary school, becoming optional workshops. Thus, teachers state that it is difficult to find more spaces for arts inside the school and, in one case, that students themselves, when having to choose workshops, prefer those that provide them “hard knowledge” rather than the artistic ones. It is also observed that the material limitations determine the methodology, making it in one of the cases, more theoretical than prac tical, as practice would require more time and resources.

The two previous years it was terrible because nobody would enroll in the art electives, nobody. Everyone: Molecular Biology and Chemistry and Economics. So, I used to tell these kids: “Why do you bother with those subjects? Why don’t you take one and take Art, Music, Theater? And they got stressed, they were two years on that. And in the middle of the year: “Can I change to Art? I can’t do it anymore”. Then, this year they realized that they had to change, that it was not the end of the world, and, for example, the Dance workshop was opened. And the students are fascinated and the teacher as well by how they are progressing. (VA Teacher, Private school A)

Thissemester I was given a Cinema and multi discipline elective, like multimedia. And we started with the students from third and fourth grade of high school this semester doing stop-motion, and we have been busy. It was the best idea, because they arrived, sat down, did their thing by themselves, I put some music for them, we talked, everything was very calm, relaxed (...) I do not know if this school is focused on art, but it is not something they ignore, I feel like it has many positive characte ristics, starting with the fact that it has an Art room, which not all schools have; they allow things, one can paint murals, and are permis sive; if someone makes a proposal, somehow they will allow you to do it. (VA Teacher, Private School B)

There are so few projects and now as we have the objectives prioritized and after third and fourth grade of secondary school there is no arts class for them (...) And if it weren’t for a matter of resources, schedule or fatigue... I think an art workshop, but not compulsory, because I don’t like it when the child is forced, an ideal for me as a teacher, and for children, an art workshop, in a place where there are all the resources needed and children are moti vated. (VA Teacher, Private School C)

In general, it seems that everything that is art and non-core subjects has its well-earned space in school. I would be lying if I told you that art doesn’t matter, that music doesn’t matter. No, they have their space. I mean, before the pandemic, for example, in music there was a space that was for musical exhibi tions, all day there were musical presentations in the gym of every grade of the school. In art, there are interventions of children’s works, so they are hung like big banners and all the work is visible. In physical education there are also dance exhibitions for the national holidays (...) I believe that something that would be very good, would be having a music room, because, f irst, iThelps a lot that children understand that in your room there are rules and certain rules —for example, taking care of the musical instruments—, and that adds order to the room, and if you have order, iThelps you to be more efficient, to start the class faster, they learn more, everything becomes more agile (...) If there were more space at a physical level, I would like to apply more movement, but the spaces to do it aren’t there, whether in terms of time in class or at a physical level, I don’t have the space to do it. But, in spite of that, I really like to teach the theoretical content (...) My school is like the son of rigor, they care a lot about the result, the numbers, so I feel like I would be lying if I told you that yes, the music teacher really needs to do more manage ment so that there are more instances and it’s like “when and what spaces will they take away?”. (M Teacher, Public School D)

When they give you the possibility to dream, because it’s not the first time that they have asked me, it’s like what we are doing today with the Big Band: having your own space, having a space where you know you will have the materials and with that you can plan your year. Today you still must depend on the student to bring materials and, unfortunately, the student doesn’t bring materials. The school gives you one marker a year. So, these are such domestic things that they become unbelievable. Nothing works. The system is so vulnerable that it doesn’t allow you to develop properly. So, the condi tions are not there. (VA and M Teacher, Public School E)

Interdisciplinary work

Regarding the interdisciplinary work of arts, which is proposed as an ideal from the contempo rary and art for social justice approaches, the interrelation between the different artistic disci plines is more present in Private School A, which a few years ago started an Art Department, allowing Visual Arts, Musical Arts, Technology and Theater/Corporal Expression teachers to work concertedly and project the presence of the arts in the school:

In general, I used to work alone, but not anymore. We’re with the Music teacher, the Technology teacher, we’re all with ideas of doing things together. So, I’m happy because we’re doing things like let’s dress up, let’s go to events… They (school owners) know that it is necessary, so they invest in it. (VA Teacher, Private School A)

In Private School B, there is also an interdisciplinary approach to the arts, as an emphasis transmitted by the teacher in the Visual Arts class:

The disciplines are interconnected. So, that’s what catches my attention, showing the children that there isn’t only one way to reach art, like painting, drawing, which many think it´s all there is. And no, here there are many options: they can make a collage, take pictures, make movies, they have a wide range of things to do. (VA Teacher, Private School B)

Meanwhile, in other establishments, teachers have little notion of the existing extracurri cular artistic workshops or, when they are developed by external teachers, there is no connection with the artistic main subjects.

Although in public schools there is little relationship between art teachers, regarding the integration of arts with basic subjects, two of them are developing the Project Based Learning (PBL) methodology, which allows articulating the learning goals of Arts with the learning goals of subjects such as History, Language and Religion. In these projects, as one of the teachers points out, the role of the arts is paramount and the final product of the projects implies an artistic crea tion, which allows to generate a validation and appreciation of the Arts within the school:

The objective of the project was from Visual Arts: in first grade of secondary school, for example, it was to be aware of the cultural heritage and to generate works of art for the community. So, the children were researching all semester, making challenges. And those challenges are done digitally, and some do it physically. And when they are done physically, I get involved a lot, for example, with water colors, one child made something like a cube, and on each side of the cube there was an illus tration and on the other side there was text. It’s like the more expressive side. And the final product of this project was an illustrated guide of the province. (VA Teacher, Public School C)

On the other school where the pbl model is used, this modality has not been implemented adequately. This is the reason why the teacher indicates tha he is conducting the Arts class in a more autonomous way, given that it has not been possible to initiate the projects.

In Private School A, the va teacher also highlights the inclusion of artistic products as part of the methodology of other subjects:

What I did like is that they have included Art in other subjects, and that has been super good, and I thank them for it. For example, now the History, Language, Mathematics teachers do not only do their classes, but they also must make posters, sculptures... They make artistic presentations, but within the subject. For example, on Book Day everyone had to decorate the classroom and dress up as a character. (VA Teacher, Private School A)

Teachers specialized in art are not the norm in Chilean schools, especially at primary level and in public schools. Nevertheless, in this study, one of the public schools (Public School D) which offers classes at primary level has a specialized music teacher; and in Private School A, there are several teachers specialized in their disciplines who teach even from the preschool level:

Now there is an Art specialist in preschool and primary school. Before, the same primary school teacher taught all the subjects, so she couldn’t know Mathematics, History and Art. Whereas now, there’s a secondary school Art teacher, who teaches from third to sixth grade. And for the little ones, there is also a teacher who only teaches Art. And that’s good because no one can learn everything. Also last year in preschool they hired a Music teacher, and he does super entertaining things. (VA Teacher, Private School A)

Teachers’ perceptions of students

Although there are contradictions in the teachers’ discourse regarding conceiving students from a strengths or deficits model, there is a tendency to recognize the importance of cultural capital for approaching art, identifying its presence in the case of private schools, and the lack of it, in the case of public schools. It was possible to observe that these diffe rences had an impact on the type of learning experiences offered in class and on the expectations regarding the art education of students. in the case of public schools, being much closer to aesthetic literacy, looking for students to appreciate their surroundings and connect with the artistic experience of reception or creation of artworks; and, in the case of private schools, involving an experience closer to the cognitive models, which require knowledge of artistic styles and movements; the possibility of conceiving art from its social and political aspect, linked to art oriented to social justice; and without excluding the possibility of deve loping a professional career in the Arts.

In comparison with other children that I have worked with, it is clearly a much more affluent school, it’s not a very vulnerable school (...) It happens to me with some secondary school students that, although are young, they are very sure of the values and rights that they have, as if they are socially more conscious and have a better understanding of that (...) They somehow come with this more culturally formed criterion, so it’s easier to reach them when we speak in this language. It happened to me, when I worked in more vulnerable schools, it was more difficult to reach them., I had to explain them the reason for some things. like For example, with a first grade of secondary school, I’m doing muralism, and they just kind of brought up the political and social issue. And it is also because they lived the social outburst, inside the school it’s some thing that is constantly discussed, so it’s some thing that interests them. (VA Teacher, Private School B)

They are students who live in overcrowded conditions and that is very noticeable when it comes to the spaces, for example, when they do formations, they can have all the space in the back, but they are used to being stuck together, it is inevitable. They are also used to being surrounded by garbage, so that is an everyday struggle in the classroom, every day, you enter the room and you have to sweep and start the cleaning routine, and repeat it, and repeat it, and repeat it (...) Children will always be willing to want to create, as long as you help them or guide them, but music can sometimes seem very abstract and, in that abstraction, children may not understand. But I think that when you give the guidelines of what you are looking for, children will always create, always. (M Teacher, Public School D)

When we were online, as children have a high vulnerability index, they did not join classes, and the projects barely worked (...) Last year I spent a semester in another school, and that was a very traditional school. There, I could teach art techniques, art history, connection with the community. But in this context, my goal is that children develop an aesthetic sense to have a better quality of life, for example, that they understand through their projects, that if they take care aesthetically of the place where they live, they will be happier, their mental health, will improve, and the reason why they shouldn’t destroy everything—because I have super destructive students—. (...) I’m very happy that the projects turned out well, but it was very difficult to deal with the setbacks with the children, they were violent, they had no rules, they were like little animals. So, there was very little creativity. I always compare them with my nephews, and of course, my nephews have family support, cultural capital, and children who have their creativity more developed, in general, are those children. (VA Teacher, Public School C)

I think that I’ve only had two or three students who haven’t reacted well to the arts. Because what happens is that the student has no expec tations and I have high expectations in them: “No, it’s just that I draw badly”. I decide that. “It’s just that it looks ugly when I do it”. No, nothing is ugly, because it’s your creation, born from your ideas, from your pencil or, now that we can do digital art, from your mouse (...) One problem is that the student doesn’t show interest in participating politically, first, because of rurality. Although Til Til is consi dered urban, it’s not urban, there’s not even a traffic light. So, the student remains provin cial. He doesn’t have the possibility of the polis. So, these cultural capitals that can be formed through human relations, the student from Til Til doesn’t have them. The student from Til Til three years ago didn’t know what a play was, because the Cultural Center didn’t exist. And there are also many threats: here there is a lot of drug addiction, a lot of violence. (VA and M Teacher, Public School E)

Importance of the teachers’ initiative

One of the constants that appears in the teachers’ discourse is the idea of having to fight to create spaces for the arts within schools, both in private and public schools:

You know, I think that it depends on the school, and it also depends a lot on the way in which one manages things. There are times when principals show support, I remember that I was in a school in 2018-2019 in Renca, and it was a very vulnerable school, but the Principal helped me with everything, I would tell her “Let’s do this” and boom, she went and got me supplies with the school owner, fully motivated; but, for example I have worked in much larger schools, where there are many more supplies than in vulnerable schools, but there was more room for scientific subjects. So, I think that it depends a lot on the school prin cipal, as well as on the management that one does. (VA Teacher, Private School B)

I’m lucky to work here, which is a place where one can fly and not have one’s wings clipped. Here I can make a decision and then tell my principal, and the principal will tell me: “It’s fine, if you’re thinking about the school, it’s fine” (...) Nowadays, the participation of teachers is very low, the attitude that they’re having is: the teacher finishes his class, goes home, even if he has a schedule until 6, if he f inishes at 1, he goes home. So, these spaces for conversation are not being generated during non-tea ching hours. We used to have meetings on Wednesdays all afternoon, where professional issues were discussed, and personal ones at some point, we had a nice meal, because that is how we organized. Nowadays that is not the case. We get together, for example, with the history teacher and we go to the music room to play. But that is of my own initiative: I sacrifice my recess, or I stay a little longer, but it is not because it is happening naturally, because that is being lost due to the rebellious attitude that we have. (VA and M Teacher, Public School E)

Approaches to art education

Regarding the models of art education that appear in the teachers’ discourses, there is no primacy of a particular model, although the perspectives of art oriented to social justice do not tend to be predo minant, which can be explained both by the teachers’ beliefs, and by contextual limitations.

The cognitive or logocentric dimension of arts is linked to the presence of a students’ cultural capital, as it is emphasized by the teachers at the private schools in the study. Moreover, one of the teachers regrets the decrease of this emphasis in the new curricular bases, an emphasis that allowed her to transmit what happened with art through the historical periods and that students became familiar with classical works:

And in preschool and primary school they are now doing a little bit of aesthetic appreciation, because teachers name the artists to the children and that is super good, being shown paintings of Van Gogh, Picasso, and that has been good because girls did not do that before, it was just drawing (...) I used to love the artistic appreciation of works and, in fact, I did it for many years, but then it kind of changed, so now the program is Create and Express Yourself, Diffusion, so the study of the theory has been lost a bit, and that upset me, but I said “Well, times change” and we have to do it, because there is no other way. But I still try to throw it in different classes, tell them that they must read, they must research. (VA Teacher, Private School A)

And in preschool and primary school they are now doing a little bit of aesthetic appreciation, because teachers name the artists to the children and that is super good, being shown paintings of Van Gogh, Picasso, and that has been good because girls did not do that before, it was just drawing (...) I used to love the artistic appreciation of works and, in fact, I did it for many years, but then it kind of changed, so now the program is Create and Express Yourself, Diffusion, so the study of the theory has been lost a bit, and that upset me, but I said “Well, times change” and we have to do it, because there is no other way. But I still try to throw it in different classes, tell them that they must read, they must research. (VA Teacher, Private School A)

It is perhaps the most technical part of the visual arts because art theory, nothing, and art history, nothing.

Only when the children saw patrimonial places or objects of the province, that’s when it appeared. (VA Teacher, Public School C)

As for the expressionist approach, although it does not appear as such a marked emphasis, it does appear linked to the dissemination of artistic products, which require prior creative work:

I am trying to show the musical bands that exist in the school. I tell the music teacher: “Art is no good locked up, art has to be shown” ... (VA Teacher, Private School A)

We are trying to make the projects more contextualized for the students and the community; these projects will be presented to the school’s Innovation Center, to see if any of them can be built. And the illustrated guide will be presented to the community, in the Cultural Center or in the library, and the text will be disseminated. (...) We were talking with the history teacher because the Day of the Discovery of Two Worlds was coming up, about making an exhibition of pre-Columbian art, objects, replicas or objects inspired by it, and illustrations of the legends. (VA Teacher, Public School C)

The other art teacher at this school and I decided to do art exhibitions, at least one or two. At the end of the semester, I would like to show the products that we made with the fourth and third grade students at secondary school. I still feel like that is super important, because sometimes their work just stays there. With the children who are doing the mural, I take pictures every time they make progress, I take pictures every class, so that later I can see the process and make some slides, record a video, and then the mural can be inaugurated. (VA Teacher, Private School B)

Our intention was to perform in a school in the commune, a small rural school, to show the work of the Big Band. Unfortunately, vaca tions came early, and we missed that oppor tunity, but we resumed it and we are going to a small, rural school, where we are going to present the small repertoire that we have. (VA and M Teacher, Public School E)

As for the pragmatic approach, related to the artistic experience and the development of aesthetic sensibility, it is observed that this emphasis is stronger in the case of public schools:

The purpose of art education, and I am saying this intuitively, is to create sensitive beings, that is to say, we are all sensitive beings, but to develop sensitive beings, because chil dren, teenagers in general, even in all contexts, because of technology... their senses are a bit dull, their observation is too (...) Nowadays they take much more care of their classrooms than when they arrived: they sweep before leaving, they clean, they ask “Teacher, where do I leave this?”. Before, they used to just get up and leave for recess. (VA Teacher, Public School C)

I think the most important thing is that they take away a musical experience and when I say musical experience, I mean, that they enjoy listening to music and enjoy playing music. And it can be one or the other, because not all children like to play, but I do believe that they can take away an interesting listening expe rience. So, I think those two things are what I would look for as the purpose of a music teacher: that they take away a meaningful liste ning experience; that, maybe, when they listen to music, they do it in a different way. And maybe there is someone who discovered thaThe liked to play and that’s great. But I do not expect to train musicians and have them all study music, no. (M Teacher, Public School D)

In the case of Public School D, it is possible to observe an approach to music with emphasis on the appreciative aspect or musical appreciation (Akoschsky, 2002), aligning with the pragmatic approach mentioned above. The teacher also points out the presence of the historical aspect as part of the emphases promoted by the school:

The first semester we worked on different types of auditions. Some years we have worked on opera; some years we have worked on music from different musical periods, such as clas sical, Baroque; another year we worked on ballet music and lately we have put a lot of emphasis on Latin American music.

As for the models centered in visual culture, one of the aspects that they emphasize is the ability of different cultures to produce symbols. From here, the interaction with the heritage and with the community are relevant. One instance that stood out in this sense were the parades of school E, in a rural context:

First, we did not have a military band. We started with the military band. The military band, although it is true, had to do with an education that is not so academic from the point of view of the musical content, it does have to do with an artistic manifestation and the student feels as if they are representing the school outside of it. And today we are imple menting a Big Band, together with the music teacher and a history teacher who plays. There we made a personal investment with the history teacher, and we bought instruments to play with the children. And we are imple menting a small room, where the roof and the false ceiling have been already repaired, I got— excuse me for being so self-referential—the acoustic insulation and also in my vacations I got a man who donated the electrical insta llation (...) Here in the area there are parades, parties, rodeos, popular games. I go with the bands. And here the official parades are outs tanding, a lot of people come. (VA and M Teacher, Public School E)

In Public School E, it is also possible to identify a use of music in the service of a patriotic-martial objec tive, in the students’ participation in the military band, which implies a socializing character by emphasizing that students should become exemplary representatives of their secondary school outside of it. This aspect also appeared in Public School D, associated with the dances that the students performed for national holidays.

Both in Private School A, where the teacher regre tted that field trips had been suspended due to an acci dent during a previous trip, and in Public Schools C and E, which work with PBL, the heritage aspects were empha sized. In school A, this was done even at the preschool level. Meanwhile, in schools C and E, which have a rural character, as part of the projects developed, products such as patrimonial guides of the commune or illustrations of local legends have emerged. The students also participate with musical interventions or dances in the celebrations held at the local level, this type of participation being rele vant to their identity and sense of belonging, and motiva ting for the students, according to the teachers’ perception.

On the other hand, the critical reading of the images that appear in the media, which is also relevant in models focused on visual culture, was part of the projects of one of the schools (C) that worked with pbl, where the visual arts are worked interdisciplinarily with Language and History. For example, students had to identify fake news and propa ganda in the different historical periods, as well as develop creative products using audiovisual media (podcasts, digital magazines, TikTok).

As for the art for social justice approach, there was reluctance from the teachers to address these topics in a more conservative ideological context, in one of the private schools, and for fear of indoctrinating students, in one of the public schools.

At school, 80 % enter a private university to study Commercial Engineering, and some times you find a bold guy, a bold girl, but it’s hard. They are very much in their own little bubble; we are absolutely isolated from reality. About three years ago we had some girls, and two boys who entered Architecture, they were audacious, they were concerned, they went to demonstrations, but that was exceptional. And it is also because parents are scared, and they also think about safety. No, I think that we are a bubble, a bubble. And now, also, with this issue of the new school administration, us teachers are a little scared, because if it seems bad to them, we must start by testing this, because, for example, we had a history teacher who was super cool, but sometimes he went over the limit and in the end, he was fired. (VA Teacher, Private School A)

I am sure of my political beliefs, but I try not to interfere, and I try to respect the students’ beliefs. I have seen teachers here who get very frustrated because of that, because they think that a person who thinks differently from them must be contradicted and changed. And no, no, no. I respect political beliefs very much. I try not to interfere and not use art as a political manifestation of mine, using the children. It may be that the child takes part in an artistic manifestation at the same time as a political manifestation, but from his position, not mine. So, that is what interests me: that they express themselves and what they want to express. If I make the student replicate what I do, the student’s work will not be authentic and will be lost. I do not instrumentalize the student; if the student has a progressive vision, fine,let´s develop it. But if he has more of a right-wing vision, let’s develop that too. (VA and T Teacher, Public School E)

The perspective of art for social justice appears much more clearly in one of the private schools that has a history linked to political art:

I like that they understand that art is not only beautiful or ugly, good or bad, but that it has a philoso phical context, a political context, a cultural context, that through its society can be reached, that you can show, express what you feel, and not only as an artistic expression. That’s what I like to focus on, that they see that art does not always have to be beautiful or ugly, but that it has to have an underl ying discourse, that it is not done just for the sake of it (...) The other day I had a class with a fourth grade of secondary school and we were watching the movie called The City of Photographers, about the association of independent photographers during the dictatorship, who were killed, so it has a social aspect, and then the children commented on what they felt during some scenes, and they were surprised that the dictatorship lasted 17 years, which are the 17 years old that they are. So, reaching these conclusions with them is very enriching, both for them and for me. I have very clever students, whose opinions have a lot of content and that moves the class. So, when they start to have these ideas of creation, like “No, let’s do the mural about dissidences, because I think it is important that they see on the mural that there are artists from many years ago who were gay and who were not made visible or that were denied from being that way”. And it comes from them. But they must agree, discuss among themselves. They have another conscience around the revolutions, another conscience about social issues, and it is good that among themselves they discuss, and it is not me directing the class, I only observe and try to mediate. (VA Teacher, Private School B)

From the development of certain projects under the pbl methodology, an approach to art for social justice was also achieved in one of the public schools:

At the end of the project, they answered the essential question, which is “How do public spaces affect how we live?”. The product was for them to design an improvement in a public space and make a mockup and one group worked horribly, moreover with problems with marijuana, and when they got to the part in which they had to choose a place to design an improvement, they chose where they lived here, which is a town that has been transformed into a ghetto, because it has only one access and there are drug traffickers, where there have been rapes, murders, they have dumped bodies, they rob, and they designed a skate park. And, you know what? When they started that part of the project, the group got hooked, and talking with them, they said “Teacher, yes, because we have to go far away to skate, we have to go downtown, why isn’t there a skate park where we live?” And I think that this awakened in them a reflective capacity about the territory, about our environment, about why we must take care of the spaces, or about the appropriation of territories, like “This place belongs to us, why should crime occupy it?”. It was great. (VA Teacher, Public School C)

As for the incorporation of contemporary art, which facilitates the treatment of social justice issues, it was observed that it did not seem to be a priority within the contents, except when it was developed by the teachers’ own initiative. The political nature of this type of art may be one of the reasons, or that it is not consi dered appropriate in the sequence of psychological development of the students, limiting it to the last years of secondary school, where they would have achieved a greater capacity of abstraction. It is precisely at these levels where the visual arts or musical arts are no longer compulsory, replaced by workshops that make it more difficult for these contents to appear in a universal and consistent way, and where artistic workshops are more available in private schools. In the cases analyzed, only teachers in private schools intentionally included contemporary art in their classes:

I am now working with fourth grade of secondary school, and I made them research on a contemporary artist. I made them a performance, the theater teacher lent me a very nice text about some oranges, and then I cut the oranges, and I squeezed them. I did everything to motivate them. Now they are resear ching, and then they are going to make an installation. I told the teacher: “We have to introduce them to contemporary art”. And the children are super happy. (VA Teacher, Private School A)

I have talked about The Mares of the Apocalypse to fourth and third grade students of secon dary school and, wow, they are amazed. They find it wonderful, they think that The Mares of the Apocalypse talk about something that was totally taboo in the years when they did all their perfor mances, you know, and now it is very popular. So, boom! Their heads explode because this guy did this at that time. (VA Teacher, Private School, B)

Metaphors used by teachers

From the Critical Discourse Analysis carried out, starting from the textual level, certain metaphors emerged in the teachers’ discourse, which complement their notions about Art Education. Spatial metaphors (Lakoff & Johnson, 1995), which frequently emerge in the teachers’ discourse to describe how the situation of arts in school could be improved, stood out. They allude to the material dimension when specifying the need for an Arts or Music room, which not all the schools in the research have, or when referring to the lack of work supplies. They also make references to the time available within the curriculum and within class hours for the arts, a time that usually appears as limited, and where basic subjects have the priority.

The place of the arts, from the orientational metaphors (Lakoff & Johnson, 1995), also appears as peri pheral or marginal, as well as inferior, in relation to other subjects of the curriculum. However, in some cases teachers recognize that they have a more relevant role in the school, approaching that center, as when they are combined with other subjects in the pbl model.

The work of an art teacher is characterized by using war metaphors, where artistic activism is a perma nent battle or struggle, with an enemy that is complex and multilevel: the excessive and prescriptive Visual and Musical Arts curriculum; the accountability orientation that determines the priority of the other subjects; the Ministry of Education; the Chilean society that does not value art nor artists; sometimes, students who are not motivated by arts or who have internalized the orientation to traditional careers that exclude them, so they do not choose art workshops voluntarily; or students who have difficulty understanding artistic languages. Following Lakoff and Johnson (1995) , these elements take on the character of an entity, which makes it possible to refer to them, quantify them and see them as a cause.

Generating spaces for the arts is also understood from a heroic or sacrificial logic: the teacher must sacri f ice or donate their time and energy to launch artistic initiatives in the school. If they do not do so, as when the art teacher from Public School C points out that she does not have more hours available because she also works at another school, the opportunities are missed. Or, if the teacher from Public School E does not get the instru ments or the acoustic insulation for the music room, it does not materialize. Thus, it is observed that the institu tionalization of these individual actions of teachers is not achieved when there is not an Art Department in the school, or when teachers do not work in a coordinated way.

As for art classes, there is also a tension between acti vity/movement, and passivity, where activities such as field trips to learn about the cultural heritage continue to gene rate reluctance. The lack of physical space for the arts also restricts the movement that can be incorporated into the class; and the lack of materials, restricts the disciplines and art techniques that students can learn and practice.

Predominant art education approaches

Using Critical Discourse Analysis, and emphasizing the level of the context of discourse, which includes the dimen sions of ideology and hegemony, it was possible to identify different notions of art that appear in the teachers, which reveal sometimes opposing visions:

• An art ascribed to privileged groups, which constitutes a difficult language, which requires cultural capital to be learnt, and which is distant for students in public schools. In relation to this, visions of students’ deficit appear, which generate tensions in teachers, as they want to maintain high expectations of students, but encounter difficulties when teaching. Thus, if on the one hand, students are seen as “violent”, “little animals”, “not moti vated by anything”, “addicted to cell phones” or “not very creative”; on the other hand, teachers also point out that “they will always be able to create with the right guidance”, that “we should not have low expectations of them”, and that “their reaction to art is wonderful”.

• An art that is perceived in schools as an idle or secon dary activity, when compared to the subjects that would lead to a traditional professional career. In this way, it is positioned as a countercultural or alternative manifesta tion, which entails the risk of deviating from the tradi tionalist orientations of most schools.

• A tool for socio-economic struggle, within the framework of progressive visions that conceive art as oriented towards social justice, with students who recog nize their social rights and use the language of art to assert them. This would be linked to the cultural capital present in private schools.

• An art linked to an integral experience, which involves the cognitive, emotional, and corporal aspects, as opposed to the excessive rationality of other subjects (which would be limited to “content”). In relation to the sensitive experience, the notion of creativity stands out as a process that requires effort and training, where the teacher has the task of “awakening” the students’ senses and motivation through different stimuli: mate rials, resources, works, pedagogical outings, artistic techniques and disciplines, etc. From here, teachers appear as mediators in the maieutic style, where the creative potential resides in the student in a universal way, distancing from the cognitive perspective where students would lack the knowledge and codes of the artistic language. From this pragmatic notion, art would constitute a more complete or integral experience than mere cognitive learning and would contribute to the opening of the world for students.

Although in this research we only showed the reality of five schools, which represent two of the three most predominant administrative units (and, therefore, socio-economic contexts) in Chile, and two regions in Chile, it is possible to outline that, in general, there is no approach or model of art education that dominates among the country’s Visual Arts and Music teachers. Although the curricular bases emphasize the aspects of appreciation/ reception, expression/creation and dissemination as axes, in addition to considering the perspective of visual culture in the analysis of media, this does not necessarily imply that all the axes are present with equal strength in all establish ments, nor that other approaches do not appear.

The cognitive or logocentric aspect appeared more developed in private schools, associated with greater proximity of students to artistic languages. The expres sionist approach was connected to the creation axis, and was present in all schools, but it took on a more multi media nature in private schools, and a more interdiscipli nary nature in schools that implemented pbl. As for the pragmatic approach, it was actively promoted by some of the public school teachers, who saw in the development of the aesthetic sensibility a mission associated with the deve lopment of students’ cultural capital, thus contributing to social justice. As for the perspective linked to the visual culture and reconstructionism, different instances of inte raction with the heritage and with the community were observed, highlighting the musical interventions or dances in local celebrations, which are part of the students’ identity and sense of belonging. There were also instances of critical reading of images in the media as part of the interdiscipli nary projects.

Although some of the teachers intended to develop perspectives of art for social justice, where students would look at the world from critical and activist perspectives, this was hindered by the conservative context of the school administration, in one case, and of the families and students, in others. For this reason, teachers were cautious not to present too controversial or political perspectives, or to indoctrinate the students.

In addition to the above, there are difficulties in gene rating spaces for art in contexts focused on accountability and standardized tests, where art remains in a secon dary place in schools, with limited resources and where teachers perceive a distance from the artistic languages for students with less cultural capital. Despite that, this pers pective managed to appear in more strategic ways, through the incorporation of contemporary art, in the case of one private school, or projects aimed at solving community problems and involving critical analysis, in the case of two of the public schools.