ABSTRACT
Through a historical analysis of art education, the position of critical and contextual studies (CCS) is identified across compulsory- and post-compulsory education, predominantly in the UK and USA, with a view to contextualising current constructions of CCS. This chapter is divided into some chronological models, using De Duve's shifts in art education to frame the discussion. Staff and student readers might consider these shifts in relation to their own experiences of art and design education, the identity of their own course cultures and their own teaching and learning. Drawing upon Bernstein and Goodson, the chapter aims to make sense of the 'shape' of CCS within, alongside and sometimes in conflict with art and design. The shift to 'attitude' over 'talent' or 'creativity' in the 1970s provided student artists with a critical vocabulary to inform and shape their practice. This turn to theoretical discourse, including, for example, Marxism, feminism, semiotics, psychoanalysis, structuralism and post-structuralism, 'displaced – sometimes replaced – studio practice'.
