This article aims to answer the question, “How can a visual culture jam be utilized to foster Culturally Responsive Art Education (CRAE)?” My master’s research project provides the data needed to approach this question. I conducted my project during Fall 2012 at a mid-Atlantic research-based university as an assignment in a pre-service art education Capstone course[1]. My participants were senior level, pre-service art educators, who were about to embark on student teaching during Spring 2013. The curriculum was centered on a performance-based art project in which participants created “visual culture jams” as a form of critical self-reflections of their own cultural, ethnic, and racial identities. The performance of these visual culture jams disrupted the notion of “essentializing” cultures and encouraged participants to probe their cultural identity (Sleeter, 2012, p. 570). My arts-based research project took place over a period of three class sessions and data includes digital self-portraits, narrative responses, and video recorded performances of my participants’ visual culture jams. Performances will be discussed through the following emergent themes: family as culture, heritage, and other forms of identity. My own reflection on the project will conclude this article and consider whether or not CRAE was successfully implemented.
