Program Overview

Art Education Ph.D.

Doctoral Degree (Ph.D.)

Program Type

• Major

Format

• On Campus

Estimated Time to Complete

• 3-6 years

Credit Hours

• 42 (with Master's)

Program Description

The Art Education Ph.D. program at the University of North Texas is designed to prepare innovative arts education professionals for a dynamic educational landscape. Through critical inquiry, creative research, and acts of transformative making, students explore intersectional perspectives and implications for just and sustainable futures.

Why Earn a Doctorate in Art Education?

To become a leader in the fields of art and education in higher education, museums, and non-profit organizations both nationally and internationally. The program is highly individualized, enabling students to explore in depth their areas of research in relation to the field and faculty expertise.

Marketable Skills

• Academic writing
• Analysis of primary and secondary sources
• Qualitative and quantitative research methods
• Origination of innovative educational theories
• Multicultural/diversity competencies

Art Education Ph.D. Highlights

• Students work closely with faculty and advisors to design innovative and original research projects that make significant contributions to the theory and practice of art education.
• Students are mentored by caring faculty through professional development opportunities such as presentations, publications, and research collaborations.
• Students get the opportunity to collaborate with the Onstead Institute for Education in the Visual Arts and Design.
• UNT offers unique opportunities to collaborate with the African American Museum of Dallas, Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Crow Museum of Asian Art, Dallas Museum of Art, Kimbell Art Museum, Meadows Museum and Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth.
• State-of-the-art facilities include the Visual Resources Collection with 65,000 digital images and more than 1,000 films; Computer labs with new technology and cutting-edge hardware and software; and 150,000 square feet of specialized classrooms, studios and galleries.
• The program offers financial support through competitive scholarships and teaching assistantships and fellowships.

Career Outlook

Our graduates further their careers by becoming leaders in the fields of art and education in higher education, museums, and non-profit organizations both nationally and internationally.

Art Education Ph.D. Courses

• Visual Culture Theories and Pedagogy (3 hrs) Examination of theories, concepts, practices and debates that frame contemporary understandings of visual culture and visual studies education through a wide range of images, sites, films and media culture/technologies.
• Politics of Aesthetics (3 hrs) Examination of aesthetics in the visual arts through visual discrimination and critical thinking in relation to the historical and sociopolitical influences.
• Curriculum Theory in Art Education (3 hrs) Processes for developing and sequencing the curriculum and methodologies for the assessment of educational programs and student learning in art for elementary and secondary public schools and higher education.
• Advanced Research Methods in Art Education (3 hrs) Students conduct an in-depth investigation of a research methodology used by art education and education researchers, including epistemological, methodological and ethical issues and debates that surround it.
• Theory and Research of Lived Experience for Art Educators (3 hrs) Specially designed for art educators. Introduces students to basic phenomenological theory, key philosophers within the phenomenological field, and methods of descriptive analysis with particular emphasis on phenomenology’s own relationship to the arts.
• Critical Art Education (3 hrs) Introduction to theoretical frameworks and current research in critical art education, with particular emphasis on the relationship between art education and social inequality and change.