The Potential of Increasing Intercultural Understanding through Critical Analysis of Children’s Cultural Images.

In the Province of New Brunswick global education concepts such as intercultural understanding are influencing the content of elementary school programs. At the start of this research, however, art as a subject area at the elementary level did not have a global perspective and had not developed strategies for increasing children’s intercultural understanding. Although the analysis of visual images has been identified as an appropriate means of increasing intercultural understanding, strategies in art criticism have not been developed and implemented in art at the elementary level in New Brunswick. To address the problem of art curriculum development and reform, action research, based on the theories of Elliott, Carr and Kemmis, was adopted for this study. This action research took place in three cycles and involved (1) the collection of New Brunswick children’s cultural images for a Visual Resource, (2) three Professional Development Sessions designed to provide four teachers with models of image analysis and instruction, and training in visual awareness, and (3) testing out the teachers’ instructional strategies in art criticism in four classroom settings. Data collected from teacher and student response forms, interviews, audio-tapes of the Professional Development Sessions and observation field notes was analysed and evaluated to determine the effectiveness of the art criticism method and children’s cultural images as a Visual Resource for increasing intercultural understanding. Key findings of this action research were that the Visual Resource was effective as a stimulus and art criticism as a method of analysis did encourage meaningful discussions about children’s cultural images. The four elementary teachers who participated in the study, however, required preliminary training in visual awareness and global education concepts such as intercultural understanding. Action research proved to be an effective means of addressing art curriculum development and reform