Critical discourse analysis in art education: bridging theory and practice

Abstract

The following article investigates CDA as a methodological tool in the teaching of art. CDA moves educators and students beyond formalist pedagogies and solely aesthetic paradigms. This enables students to investigate the interrelationships between language, power, and ideology within artistic contexts. Drawing on Foucault, Fairclough and Wodak, the theoretical discussion positions discourse not as an innocently reflective representation of reality but as a social practice that constitutively helps create it. The applied section outlines a classroom model for performing CDA in the context of art education, framed by a view to developing students' critical thinking competencies. Given this context, learners practice dismantling dominant narratives and questioning institutional matrices of power. Special emphasis is placed on examining how artistic practices can either reproduce entrenched social hierarchies or work to unsettle and resist them. This orientation reconfigures art education itself: instead of merely receiving artworks, students act as investigators who trace how art legitimizes or undermines particular worldviews. The article concludes that embedding CDA in art education is more than a pedagogical preference; it is a necessary condition for nurturing critically engaged, socially responsive artists and audiences.