RESEARCH
PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
This study will explore the development of a curriculum that provides educators with tools and practical strategies for increasing the interest of BIPOC students in visual communication. The tools will help these young scholars tell their stories, using visual communication methodologies they are familiar with as a gateway to studying design. The hope is that the strategies will benefit Black and indigenous people of color (hereafter referred to as BIPOC, an umbrella term for non-white people including the Latinx and Native American populations) students in three ways:
demonstrating how the development of conceptual ideation and artistic hand skills—through studying graphic design—can translate into legitimate professional endeavors;
enabling students to understand that they can make a difference in the world by utilizing their creative talents; and
aiding students to realize the power of their voices.
The desired visual communication solution will need to overcome pedagogical, cultural, and economic hurdles to increase the number of high school students of color who matriculate and pursue a design education at the university level.
ABSTRACT
Based on the 2010 Census data, Black and Latinx people accounted for 13 and 16 percent of the United States population, respectively (US Census). However, BIPOC are underrepresented as college and university students in the visual arts compared to US society as a whole, despite White and non-White high school students engaging with the arts in similar percentages (Charland 116). Furthermore, Black and Latinx people accounted for only 3.7 and 13.1 percent, respectively, of all arts, design, and media professionals occupationally (US Bureau of Labor Statistics).
The purpose of this study is to develop an educational tool that fosters the interest of BIPOC high school students in visual communication. By creating a curriculum allowing these students to tell their unique counter-stories or unique perspectives (Bell 113) using hiddenstream forms of visual expression such as graffiti art.
Class assignments will take inspiration from art techniques employed by marginalized cultural groups, including graffiti art (Eldridge 21) and murals (Villafranca-Guzmán and Tortolero 88). Qualified design educators who introduce multicultural art perspectives that supplement and challenge European design influences—such as the International Typographic Style, Bauhaus, and De Stijl—will present the curriculum to BIPOC students in educational forums that travel to students, making them more accessible (Walker 92).
This study will measure short-term success by creating tools and a framework for educators to better engage with students of color who wish to study visual communication. Long-term goals will include increased participation rates, enrollments, and matriculation from college-level visual communication programs among Black and Latinx students.
“The purpose of this study is to develop an educational tool that fosters the interest of BIPOC high school students in visual communication.”
STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
In addition to access and awareness issues, Black and Latinx students face cultural barriers from family and friends that prevent them from exploring educational and vocational opportunities in the visual arts to pursue a career in graphic design (Charland 122‒26). BIPOC students do not enter collegiate art programs in part because they feel the weight of influence from people they respect and peer groups who view art as having little to no value. Many communities of color perceive artists as poor and unable to provide for themselves or their families. In addition, some communities may view the arts as effeminate, frivolous, contrary to machismo attitudes, or having little to do with the affairs of serious business, epitomized by the saying, “Let men construct and women decorate” (Rand 67).
For students of color, the societal pressure to conform to what is accepted by one’s community is a significant challenge. Often families and peer groups strongly discourage students from academic and vocational pursuits that are viewed as culturally incompatible with the norms and values of their community (Charland 120). Students of color would benefit from a relatable and engaging art curriculum since much of what academics consider good design is rooted in Modernism imported from European traditions of the early twentieth century—including the Bauhaus, De Stijl, and International Style. While the United States has embraced European design aesthetics as the pedagogical basis for visual communication curricula, educators must be mindful of the limitations these Modernist schools professed—namely, the “one size fits all” lens of universalism which is not necessarily compatible with the multicultural artistic contributions of Black, Latinx, and other non-White cultures to the discipline of graphic design (McCoy 354).
CONCLUSION
The pedagogical basis for educational tools that increase the number of Black and Latinx students in VisCom must utilize a form of artistic expression that fulfills two main requirements. First, the artistic expression must be relatable to students of color, and second, it must have aesthetic correlations to graphic design. The research demonstrates that graffiti art satisfies these requirements as the artistic basis for fostering BIPOC interest in graphic design.
Additionally, graffiti art as an educational tool helps overcome one of the most significant cultural barriers preventing young males from studying art—namely, the perception of art as a feminine discipline. First and foremost, most “writers” do not consider themselves artists, even though spray can art is a form of self-expression. Secondly, graffiti art appeals to young males because of its daring, risk, rebelliousness—especially in its more illicit forms—and because it challenges social conformity (Monto, et al 260–270).