Semester of Graduation
Summer 2026
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts in Art and Design
Department
School of Art and Design - Geer College of the Arts
Committee Chair/First Advisor
Dr. Kyungeun Lim
Second Advisor
Dr. Diana Gregory
Third Advisor
Ricky Lee Garner
Abstract
Art education is often treated as marginal within formal schooling, valued as enrichment rather than recognized as a vital contributor to students' intellectual, cultural, and emotional development. Funding and policy decisions made by state and local bodies produce significant regional disparities in access to art education across the United States. This thesis examines how transcultural approaches to art education can respond to increasingly diverse, post-migrant school communities. Using a comparative qualitative case study design, the study analyzes program structures, partnership models, and pedagogical practices at Birmingham Arts School in the United Kingdom alongside schools within Fulton County and Atlanta Public Schools, drawing on Culturally Responsive Pedagogy, Restorative Practices, and theories of transversality and identity formation. Findings suggest that transcultural art programs succeed when they combine sustained community partnerships, storytelling-based curricula, and structural supports such as dedicated staffing and cross-institutional collaboration, conditions captured in a proposed Six C's diagnostic framework for evaluating transfer readiness. Programs lacking these structural enablers, despite strong pedagogical intentions, struggled to sustain transcultural practice over time. The study concludes that art education can serve as a meaningful space for dialogue, hybridity, and belonging, cultivating students' identity development and intercultural understanding, but only when supported by intentional institutional structures rather than individual teacher effort alone. Implications for policy, funding, and cross-institutional collaboration between Birmingham and Atlanta-area schools are discussed.
Included in
Art Education Commons, Art Practice Commons, Other Teacher Education and Professional Development Commons