Aesthetic Inquiry in Visual Arts Education of 6th Graders Within the Framework of Maxine Greene's Aesthetic View on Education: An Action Research

Abstract

This study is an aesthetic inquiry, as part of a middle school visual arts class, from the standpoint of Maxine Greene's aesthetic perspective in education. By adopting Maxine Greene's perspective, affective learning comes to the fore along with cognitive learning, and accentuates multiple realities through the imagination through the research experiences of the artist, in the process of aesthetic inquiry. In this context, a research was carried out within the scope of visual arts education course for an improvement in students' interpretation from multiple perspectives with the understanding of aesthetic inquiry. In their processes of aesthetic inquiry, students' were to examine works of art and it was tried to reveal the different realities of these works depending on their imagination. The purpose of this study is to reveal the improvement in students' interpretation processes from different perspectives through aesthetic inquiry in visual arts course. The study uses action research design, one of the qualitative research designs. It covers a 14-week course at a public middle school. Thematic analysis was used to interpret the data and the research findings were presented. According to the findings, it was determined that the students reflected that which they discerned in the course processes, the connections they established regarding their knowledge, emotions and experiences, the differences forming in their ideas and the development they saw in themselves from their personal perspectives. Students showed empathy by seeing different ideas together during the course process and provided new interpretations from multiple perspectives. Under the guiance of the teacher, the students developed self-confidence in the process, expressed themselves by asking questions about what they were curious about and explaining the reasons for their ideas, and made artistic applications. Thus, through aesthetic inquiries, it was possible to reveal the interpretations of students in which they reflect themselves from multiple perspectives, diversify their ideas and develop a clear perspective on what they can do.