NEWS

NaJuana Lee

Graduate Student Excellence-in-Research Award 2012

NaJuana Lee, a recent doctoral graduate in art, researches art education pedagogy as a means of addressing implicit and explicit racism. For her dissertation, Lee used a mixed-methods approach with both quantitative and qualitative methodology to develop a transformative pedagogy through which students’ implicit and explicit attitudes about race and racism were positively impacted. She designed a taught a studio-based course, which was structured to include critical readings on racial issues and class discussions to explore racial attitudes, and she concluded through testing, interviews, observation and analysis of student visual responses that it is possible to positively change student attitudes about race and racism. Her research has great significance, as the participants in her class are studying to become teachers of art in K-12 schools, and they will be teaching children of diverse racial and cultural backgrounds. Lee has presented her research in a variety of professional venues, and she has one article based on this work published, two in press and two more in process.