Studies in Art Education 251 Social/Ecological Caring with Multicultural Picture Books: Placing Pleasure in art Education

This study explores the concept of finding pleasure in social and ecological caring from the a/r/tographic stance of the author as artist, researcher, and teacher. I combine place-based and visual culture art education with multicultural children’s picture books to promote more connection and pleasure in the teaching and learning process. The article also provides an exploratory model for art education reform, encouraging art teachers to participate in pleasurable forms of social and ecological caring by becoming art educator activists. We live in a fragmented and disconnected global culture, alienating us from each other and our environment (Bowers, 2005; McLaren & Houston, 2004a, 2004b; Orr, 1992). The American model of education reinforces this fragmentation with the discrete parceling of subject matter and students as separate from each other and their environments (Dewey, 1891/1980, 1921; Gruenewald, 2006; Reisberg, Brander & Gruenewald, 2006). While changes in art education have been initiated by visual culture and by social reconstruc-tionist art educators specifically addressing diverse disjunctions (Blandy &amp