The History of Arts Integration: Its Not As Old As You Might Think

Sasha Newman
February 24, 2015
Summary
Today, the concept of arts integration seems to be everywhere. It is
discussed as if it is on the cutting edge of education practices; however, this
idea has a rich history, dating back to the early twentieth century. Although
arts integration has been around for over a century, it is rarely discussed or
linked to modern interpretations such as STEAM. This concept has faced
many challenges in each decade of the last century, causing it to wax and
wane in popularity. Often the push to integrate art program has fallen behind
more accessible and easy to implement education movements. So if the
concept has failed so often in the past, why the does it keep reemerging?
The greatest benefit of a curriculum integrated with the arts is a more
complete model of education for a more whole student. Art is also
suggested to help students make better connections, problem solve, and
creatively discover answers across education. Integration today is a popular
subject because it helps to keep art in schools at a time when funding is
being cut to all arts programing, not just visual art. This paper aims to
explore these sentiments throughout the twentieth and into the twenty first
century. It will also highlight important figures in the movement such as
Victor DAmico, Leon Winslow, Sir Herbert Read, Manuel Barkan, and Elliot
Eisner for their opinions on integrating art into other subjects in the
twentieth century. By analyzing the earliest attempts and ideas behind arts
integration one can gain better understanding of why the movement has
gained and lost popularity over the years.
Key Moments
The origins of arts integration began in the 1920s and 30s as
Progressive Education was sweeping the country. Referred to as
correlation, the goal of arts integration was to align related themes and
topics so that they would be taught in tandem, thus enabling the child more

easily to make sense of school subjects (Stankiewicz, 2001, p.38). Victor

DAmico emerged as an early voice in support of this ideology, arguing, in
schools where the work is well related to other subjects, the work gains
momentum and enthusiasm and shows a greater range of individuality and
spontaneity (Stankiewicz, 2001, p. 40). Unfortunately the greatest
challenge facing correlation was the complaint that it often made art
subservient to other subjects. These challenges grew as teachers became
more unwilling to cooperate. As a result, the push to integrate art with other
subjects struggled.
By the 1930s the practical arts such as home economics and shop
were adopted into school curriculum. These subjects offered stimulating
hands on skills that the rest of the curriculum could be built upon. Mays
(1933) explains, the inherent character of all the practical arts is such that
they impinge on the territory of many important divisions of knowledge (p.
53). The belief was that the skills learned through these classes touched
upon other subjects, i.e. connections between cooking and chemistry or
carpentry and math. This form of integration would help students create a
path of study based on an art form that they genuinely valued, rather than
simply collecting fragmented sets of facts and skills. Championing this idea
was Leon Winslow who believed in using art to facilitate education, as a more
whole and relevant experience. He states, from the standpoint of the school
curriculum, art should serve to motivate and enrich the entire curriculum,
and it should contribute generously to the integration of the school
experience (Winslow, 1939). Though art was respected for its enriching
qualities, it was not integrated into the curriculum as a conscious effort. Art
education continued to stand alone.
The 1940s saw little in the way of moving art integration forward and a
divide grew between what was considered fine versus practical arts. By
the 1950s the multifaceted components of childrens lives had become so
separated that it was now the role of education to make up for the
differences and effectively provide opportunities to solve the problem of

living (Barkan, 1955, p. 43). Manuel Barkan called for revisiting the idea of
integration. He argues, for an experience to be integrating, both the idea
and the style of the art form must be harmonious and related to one another.
This relationship leads to new insights within the individual who is
participating in the experience (Barkan, 1955, p. 66). Barkan also believed
that integrating subjects would assist students in building more fluid
relationships with their lessons and help them to make connections within
themselves. To this end Victor Lowenfeld added, art in art education should
be a means to holistic development, never an end in itself (Stankiewicz,
2001, p. 38). These authors and educators viewed art as part of a much
larger whole; once again arts integration became the route to a more whole
person and healthier personality.
Barkan and Lowenfelds theories persisted into the 1960s, while Sir
Herbert Read emerged as a new voice in the call to integrate classroom
subjects. Read agreed with Barkan and Lowenfeld that the study of art could
make a student whole. His 1963 book, Education Through Art, discusses the
belief that the arts are vital to human development. Read argues, we can
only realize ourselves adequately if we know how to express ourselves
significantly (Keel, 1966, p. 16). These sentiments engendered support for
arts integration until the 1970s, when familiar challenges arose once again.
Art educators worried that art would be lost to other subjects and its
importance neglected. Furthermore, in the 1960s and 1970s, the major
function of the arts in our schools was to provide youngsters with
opportunities to express themselves, to have creative experiences, and to
find relief from the pressures of the tough academic subjects (Eisner,
1987, p. 40). By the 1980s integration lost momentum to Discipline Based
Art Education (DBAE) and the Excellence in Education Movement, which
called for the arts to be viewed as its own educational discipline, focusing on
art in terms of production, art history, criticism, and aesthetics. However, in
the late 1980s, Elliot Eisner helped reconnect DBAE with integration, arguing
for the total improvement of education through the arts. With this new

method, educators were able to rethink the importance of what art could
help students achieve.
Elliot Eisner continued to be an outspoken supporter of arts in
education. He wrote extensively on the benefits of teaching through the arts
and indebted himself to Sir Herbert Read for his many contributions and
opinions on arts ability to balance and complete education. Eisner (2009)
argues, education can learn from the arts that open ended tasks permit the
exercise of imagination, and the exercise of imagination is one of the most
important of human aptitudes. It is imagination, not necessity, that is the
mother of invention (p.9). Finally by the mid 1990s, drawing on the impact
of art curriculum, well-funded projects began to develop around arts
integration. Transforming Education Through the Arts Challenge (TETAC)
began in 1996 and was supported by the Getty Education Institute for the
Arts. This project aimed to increase the attention paid to interdisciplinary
teaching and create guidelines for designing a truly integrated curriculum.
TETAC developed the concept of enduring ideas to center lessons on basic
human issues that all disciplines could relate to. These improvements saw a
major step forward in methods of creating theme-based curricula that could
easily lead to arts integration. Changing Education Through the Arts (CETA)
emerged in 1999, providing professional development to assist teachers in
utilizing the arts in their teaching methods. The program, funded by the
Kennedy Center, still helps to connect professional arts organizations with
schools as well as placing arts specialists as leaders of arts integration.
Today, arts integration has once again swept the educational world.
Combining science, technology, engineering, and math with the arts has
created STEAM, the most recent interpretation of arts integration. The
benefits are still extremely similar to those cited in the 1920s with supporters
stating, arts integrationensures that students become productive,
democratically minded, globally educated, and emotionally sound members
of society. (Miller, 2015). Arts integration has gained momentum and is
making its strongest push forward since its origins in the 1920s.

Conclusion
Arts integration has waxed and waned in popularity through the
decades for many reasons. The ideology of integration is grounded in
creating an education for students to learn more completely and through
methods that interest them. This makes a strong case for why arts should be
brought into other subjects. However the same challenges crept up each
decade, not allowing the practice to take hold. Educators fear that art will
become secondary to other subjects, and often arent willing to dedicate the
time, energy, and money required to truly integrate curriculum. These echo
the same challenges faced in the 1930s. In order to succeed, arts
integration must be a conscious and desired effort for all parties. To support
or renounce integration is up to each school and teacher, but understanding
the depth and history of this controversial subject can help us to move
forward and determine whether it will be the most effective model of
education in the future.
References
Barkan, M. (1955). A foundation for art education. New York: Ronald Press
Changing Education Through the Arts (CETA). Retrieved from
https://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/educators/how-to/series/artsintegration/changing-education-through-the-arts
Eisner, E. (1987). Educating the whole person: Arts in the curriculum. Music
Educators Journal
73(8), pp. 37-41.
Eisner, E. (2009). The Lowenfeld lecture 2008: What education can learn
from the arts. Art Education, 62(2), pp. 6-9.
History of Art Education Timeline University of North Texas. Retrieved from
http://www.art.unt.edu/ntieva/HistoryofArtEd
Keel, J. S. (1966). Sir Herbert Read and the discipline of art. Art Education,
19(1), pp. 14-16
Mays, A.B. (1933). The practical arts and integration of the curriculum. The
School Review 41(1), pp. 51-55.

Miller, S. (2015, February 9). Arts integration is a win-win for everyone.

Retrieved from https://www.graphite.org/blog/arts-integration-is-a-winwin-for-everyone
Saunders, R. (1978). The arts: Working together to make education work: An
idea whose time has come. Studies in Art Education, 19(3), pp. 14-20.
Stankiewicz, M. A. (2001). Freeing the child through art. In M. A.
Stankiewicz, Roots of art education practice (pp. 25-43). Worcester,
MA: Davis Publications
Stewart, M., & Walker, S. (2005) Rethinking curriculum in art. Worcester, MA:
Davis Publications
Winslow, L. L. (1939) The integrated school art program. New York, NY:
McGraw Hill Book Company, Inc.