An Uneasy Guest in the Schoolhouse: Art Education from Colonial Times to a Promising Future

An Uneasy Guest traces how art education in the United States has been defined, justified, and taught amid the ongoing marginalization of the arts in schools. Throughout American history, the teaching of art has often been defended not for its own sake but for its supposed benefits to other areas of learning or society. In the nineteenth century, art instruction focused on copying images to build drawing skills for industrial work. In the early twentieth century, influenced by John Dewey and progressive education, art classrooms emphasized self-expression and emotional development. Later, during the accountability era, art education was justified by its potential to raise standardized test scores.

The book documents these recurring shifts between progressive and traditional approaches, comparing them to international example--traditional art education in China and progressive preschools in Northern Italy. Against this complex historical backdrop, An Uneasy Guest explores how twenty-first-century art education has expanded with new, idea-driven, and socially engaged practices. Today, leading art educators draw inspiration from contemporary artists, fostering learning that is investigative, interdisciplinary, and personally meaningful. The book offers both a record of how art education has evolved and a vision for how it can become a more central and transformative presence in schools of the future.