Hitting the street: The legitimation of street art in visual arts education in New Zealand

Abstract

Over the past decade, the phenomena known as 'street art' has flourished in the art world and become a prominent international art movement. My thesis explores the possibilities of legitimating street art as knowledge in visual arts education in secondary schools and tertiary institutions in New Zealand. I locate this exploration through a critique of the literature about the origins, developments, and definitions of street art, and through an examination of the historical moments and contemporary developments that have shaped visual art education, internationally and in New Zealand. Insights about street art are articulated through the perspectives of five street artists, including myself, from data collected through interviews and observations. Further insights are provided from interviews with two secondary school art teachers and focus group discussions with nine of their senior art students. Data were also collected from two tertiary lecturers and seven of their art students. These encounters with the participants have led to understandings about how street art is produced, the social contexts that underpin its production, and various educational discourses that affect knowledge, curriculum, and pedagogy in relation to street art. Positioned within a qualitative realist methodology, I draw on three key theoretical frameworks for this research: Bernstein's (1999) knowledge types, Maton's (2009) 'Legitimation Code Theory' and dimension of specialisation codes, and Green's (2005) theory of musical meaning. Each of these frameworks provides a theoretical lens through which to understand the data. I conclude the thesis with a discussion on the role of visual arts educators in legitimating knowledge, and put forward potential possibilities and achievable strategies for teaching street art in visual arts education. My final gesture is an artwork that symbolises my learning from this research. It reflects the ideological contestations of power that transpire through curricula, schools, teaching programmes, student interests, and the significant role that visual arts educators play in recontextualising knowledge in education.