2025 Theses Doctoral

The Role of Sustainability in the Future of Art Education

Asin, Ivan Daniel

Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) has emerged as a concept in education that aims to promote values, knowledge, and skills necessary for individuals to contribute toward a sustainable future. In recent years, I have grown increasingly interested in understanding the role of sustainability in the future of art education. In this interview-based study, I examined the insights and professional trajectory of five art educators and five scholars.

The narratives collected from the interviews and the supporting literature and documents formed a detailed profile of each participant that served as a framework for understanding their worldviews, backgrounds, and motivations. Aside the personal profiles that I was able to construct, I cross-studied the conceptualizations of the participants in (a) their definition of sustainability as a self-standing concept in art education, (b) their thinking about ideologies and paradigms of our time, (c) their thinking about the materials artists and art students use for expressive purposes, (d) the sustainability of our artistic and cultural practices, (e) the knowledge they highlighted that art educators need or desire, and (f) their opinions about the availability of resources and knowledge about art and sustainability to art educators.