Discourse and Practice in the Art Curriculum and the Production of the Pupil as a Subject

The development of enquiry into language this century has implications for pedagogy. This development concerns the transition from viewing language as a transparent medium, identifying an external objective reality, to a view in which language constitutes reality as we understand it. The paper begins by outlining some contemporary theoretical developments concerning the ‘productive’ or material nature of discourse. The paper shows how particular curriculum practices in art can be viewed as discursive sites which perpetuate particular discourses in which the pupil as art practitioner is produced. By focusing upon drawing practices the paper shows that the notion of ‘ability’ does not refer to some absolute skill possessed by pupils, but to particular ideological interpretations through which ability is conferred. However, such interpretations do provide us with stable forms which allow us to act as if they were absolute. Such interpretational states reveal the circular structure of interpretational practices such as evaluation and assessment. The paper shows how the reflexive nature of hermeneutic analysis can be helpful in providing a suitable space for reflection when such interpretational states break down during the practice of teaching art. By analysing a series of pupil's drawings the paper discusses how our interpretational discourses identify the pupil's ability and constitute the pupil as a subject in the ait curriculum. The paper forms part of a larger body of work in which the author is exploring how different practices in the art curriculum constitute discursive fields within which pupils as subjects are produced.