Foreword: New Directions for VAR

Now in its 41st year, Visual Arts Research (VAR) is the longest-running academic journal based in an art education program, not just in the United States but also in the world. Visual Arts Research was originally titled Review of Research in Visual and Environmental Education, and its first issue was published in 1973. Its initial purpose was to publish critical reviews of empirical research that examined various dimensions of social behavior related to visual arts, as well as environmental design and planning disciplines. These early issues included criticisms of research that might be considered unsparing in relation to the polite conventions of today’s art education discourse. Stuckhardt (1973), for example, describes Eisner’s “Art Attitude Inventory”—a survey tool for measuring individuals’ affective responses to art—as possessing “several weaknesses which limit its usefulness and effectiveness” (p. 9). He further argues that Eisner fails to provide any theoretical basis for the instrument to permit him the chance to make any substantive criticism! Albeit through the positivist lens of its day, Stuckhardt’s critique illustrates the extent to which the founding editors set out to provide a forum through VAR that would strengthen visual arts research. This critical engagement is an important value to uphold today in the art education field, particularly as art education scholars tend to forsake critique of other scholars’ research and sometimes pursue interior monologues. Our hope is to advance the art education field by supporting a critical, shared dialogue that moves beyond oftentimes idiosyncratic and one-time inquiries toward developing bodies of research that unveil new conceptual and practical possibilities for art education.

As new editors of Visual Arts Research, we plan to realize this vision by building upon VAR’s tradition of critical engagement with art education research. Each one of us—Tyler Denmead, Laura Hetrick, and Jorge Lucero—is presently an assistant professor in the Art Education program at the University of Illinois. And each one of us has taken a recent turn as a guest editor of VAR before becoming co-editors of VAR with this issue. This transition to a new editorial team began two years ago. First, along with jan jagodzinski and Jason Wallin, Laura Hetrick guest edited the Summer 2013 special issue. This issue examined the conceptual tools mobilized by Deleuze and Guattari for art education. Then, in the Summer 2014 special issue, Jorge Lucero considered the pliability of academic publishing itself, selecting over 50 short works that either scholars may have forgotten or that did not cleanly fit into their research portfolios, what Lucero called marginalia. For the Summer 2015 special issue, Tyler Denmead invited scholars in and beyond the field of art education, including sociology, to examine the mutual implications of community-based arts education and pre-service art teacher education. While wide-ranging in their topics and approaches, these three special issues reflect our efforts as scholars, and now as editors of VAR, to broaden the scope, relevance, and possibilities for art education research and practice, while remaining deeply rooted to our commitments to methodological rigor, critique, and invention.

As the new editors of VAR, we are fortunate for the work of Elizabeth Delacruz, who preceded us as the editor from 2002–2014. Delacruz significantly expanded the readership of VAR through establishing a publication partnership with the University of Illinois Press. While still maintaining a print edition, VAR is now available online through multiple digital libraries, most notably Project MUSE and JSTOR. It is included in over 30 abstract and index databases, making the journal widely available for bibliographic search. Through expanding its presence and visibility, Delacruz strengthened VAR’s record as one of the most prestigious journals in the field of art education research. We hope to do the same.

We are excited to consider new possibilities for VAR that build upon our scholarly and pedagogic interests and continue to raise the profile of the journal. In particular, we are now developing innovative strategies to further integrate VAR into our graduate curriculum and expand its online presence. For example, graduate students in the art education program at...