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Equity and socioeconomic status in the fine art classroom
Keywords
Fine art, low-income, class, economic mobility, education
Session Abstract
This presentation examines assumptions, biases, and their subsequent effects on the adult learner’s progress as it pertains to social and economic mobility in conjunction with fine art education. Strategies to create equity and inclusion for the low-socioeconomic status learner are shared.
Session Description
The fetishization of poverty is rife in both academia and art. As a result, art educators are often less aware and empathetic to the gaps in knowledge that may result from a student’s lack of exposure to social and academic norms due to economic status. These environments are clouded with assumptions. Privilege and poverty elicit assumptions. College and classism elicit assumptions. These can manifest as assumptions about what it is to be an art student and assumptions about what an adult learner’s goals might be. This presentation encourages attendees to challenge some of those assumptions.
I attempt to illustrate the reality of these assumptions, biases, and the subsequent effects on the adult learner’s progress as it pertains to social and economic mobility in conjunction with fine art education. I use self-reflection to explore anecdotal and personal experience in order to connect it to wider meanings and understandings. This presentation is intended to act as a starting point from which adult educators may navigate the messy and imperfect systems that are fine art education and the low-socioeconomic status adult learner in the classroom.