MAPPING CONTESTED IDENTITIES IN DOMINICAN ART EDUCATION: AN HISTORICAL INQUIRY
Open Access
- Author:
- Rodriguez, Felix
- Graduate Program:
- Art Education
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- May 08, 2019
- Committee Members:
- Mary Ann Stankiewicz, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
Mary Ann Stankiewicz, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Graeme Sullivan, Committee Member
B. Stephen Carpenter, II, Committee Member
Judith Sierra-Rivera, Outside Member - Keywords:
- art education
art education history
Dominican Studies
Dominican Republic
vocational education
globalization
imperialism
history
caribbean
folklore
Freire
Sandoval
identity
blackness - Abstract:
- This dissertation focuses on the development of art education in the Dominican Republic from the modernization of the school system introduced by Eugenio Maria de Hostos in the 1880s, to the educational reforms of the 1990s. This historical inquiry relies chiefly on primary sources accessed from archives in the Dominican Republic and New York City; and, to a lesser extent on interviews with art education supervisors. Drawing from the theoretical work of Paulo Freire and Chela Sandoval, I examine how ideological, economic, and political conditions that created hierarchies on the basis of race, gender, geography and socioeconomic status influenced what functions art education served in general education. I examine the development of Dominican art education through four major themes: (1) the influence of positivism and republicanism brought about by Hostos to drawing education and manual training; (2) how reforms seeking to nationalize education between 1930 and 1960 impacted art education; (3) what role art education played in equipping a workforce demanded by industrialization and shifting economic structures throughout the 20th century; (4) the appropriation of neglected folklore to resist globalization after the 1980s. I argue that Dominican art education has been complicit with symbolic and material forms of oppression, including rendering the arts and culture of rural and popular groups as inferior to those of the elite; discriminating against Black Dominicans through national reforms, where the country’s African heritage was excluded; limiting women, the rural, and urban poor to inferior educational opportunities from those available to the urban elite; producing conciliatory versions of culturally inclusive curriculum that downplayed the problematic nature of Dominican racial history. I identify theoretical principles from Freire and Sandoval’s work I contend can inform historical inquiry in art education. By addressing issues of globalization, race, nationalism, and social relations as components of discourses of identity activated in children’s art making, this research brings a new perspective to Dominican Studies. This research expands the discourse of international histories of art education by making visible the story of a Latin American country. I argue this research can inform current educational reforms in the Dominican Republic.