Visualizing art education in the twenty-first century: Mapping the themes of art educators through the NAEA convention, c. 2000–2015

Abstract

Abstract This article presents a visual analysis of the National Art Education Association annual conference programmes from 2000 to 2015 to provide an understanding of the themes and topics that practitioners in the field of art education have presented in the twenty-first century. Over this period, themes such as curriculum, learning and teaching were consistently represented, while themes such as aesthetics were less used and themes such as visual culture emerged. Given the advancement of digital data visualization methods, we revisit the convention catalogue as a rich source of archival material to identify the thematic patterns and diversity in our field. Data visualizations can assist in making visible certain patterns and trends that can confirm, run counter, or diverge from our individual perception of an event. In this article, we identify some of the persistent, fading and emergent themes pursued by art education practitioners. We conclude by examining the theme elements and principles, which have considerable importance in the recent literature on art education, yet are curiously absent from the themes in convention presentations.