ABSTRACT
As a Korean-born immigrant and art teacher educator at a US higher education institution, I have come to see how my personal and professional identities have been shaped, to different degrees, by dominant Americentric master narratives about art education and the achievement of an advanced degree in a Western academic institution. In my counter-story, I critically explore these identities and the assumptions I internalized in my years as an art education student and art teacher educator. Because such assumptions reflect an ideological hegemony in the art education field, counter-storytelling has enabled me to create alternatives to this dominant reality. In questioning the master narratives of my early academic experiences and later professional encounters, I discuss how they can suppress the expression of the values and standards of me and other minority groups, thus inhibiting the development of diverse theories and practices.
