Aesthetics-based Arts Integration in Elementary Education

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Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to examine how different aspects of aesthetic theory can be utilized in education so as to contribute to a workable, coherent, and multifaceted arts integration approach in elementary education. The authors begin by presenting specific aspects of aesthetic theory as indicative of the basic theoretical and philosophical approaches to the phenomenon of art. They then refer to examples of activities designed on the basis of these different aesthetic aspects, and finally, they present the findings that came out of these activities’ pilot implementations in preschool and school classrooms. Based on the methodological analysis of these implementations, the authors examine the benefits of the activities deriving from each of the different aspects of aesthetic theory; how they differ depending on the aspect from which they arise; and how the implementation of these types of activities as multi-theoretical sets can reveal a new way to design a coherent and multifaceted arts integration curriculum. What the authors attempt to do is show that the variety of approaches to the definition of art and the analysis of aesthetics can be the touchstones for organizing arts integration in elementary education.