What Is Discipline-Based Art

Education?
Discipline-based art education (DBAE) is a comprehensive approach to art
education that takes advantage of art's special power to educate. The Getty
Education Institute for the Arts advocates DBAE as an effective means by which
to help students experience the visual arts in a variety of ways.
Following its foundation in 1982, the Getty Education Institute adopted the
ideas of art educators who had been calling for a more holistic, comprehensive,
and multifaceted approach to art education. One of the premises guiding the
Getty Education Institute's programs was that, because of the creation of
artworks and inquiry into the meaning of the arts are primary means through
which we understand human experiences and transmit cultural values, the visual
arts should be an essential part of every child's education.
Educators who take the DBAE approach integrate content from the four
disciplines that contribute to the creation, understanding, and appreciation of
art. These disciplines of art provide knwwledge, skills, and understandings
that enable students to have a broad and rich experience with works of art
1. by making art (art production);
2. by responding to and making judgments about the properties and qualities
that exist in visual forms (art criticism);
3. by acquiring knowledge about the contributions artists and art make to
culture and society (art history); and
4. by understanding the nature, meaning, and value of art (aesthetics).
Not only do teachers incorporate paintings, drawings, sculpture, and
architecture into their lessons, but they also include "fine," applied, craft,
and folk arts, such as ceramics, weaving and other textile arts, fashion
design, and photography. Students work with and study a variety of visual
images and objects that carry unique meaning for human beings from all cultures
and times.
Although there are DBAE curricula, DBAE itself is an approach to instruction
and learning in art and not a specific curriculum. It exists in many forms to
meet the needs of the community in which it is taught. Examples of variation
include selecting one or more of the disciplines as a central or core
discipline(s) for helping students understand works of art; featuring settings
such as art museums or community centers and the original artworks they collect

or display; integrating the arts with other subject areas; and pursuing newer
technologies.
This approach is compatible with the goals for art education stated by the
College Board, the Council of Chief State School Officers, the National Art
Education Association, the National School Boards Association, and many state
departments of education.
Getty Education Institute for the Arts
ArtsEdNet URL: http://www.artsednet.getty.edu/