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The Education Departments of Tate Modern and Goldsmiths College collaborated with a group of teachers to find out what they understood by the term ‘contemporary art’ and to discover the conditions that enable contemporary art practices in the classroom. We explored questions with eleven teachers, from both primary and secondary schools, during the Autumn of 2004. Although the cultural/ethnic context of the schools the teachers worked within was diverse, they shared a commitment to working with contemporary art in the classroom and exploring new pedagogies in this field. Their engagement with contemporary art and their revealing and compelling experiences are documented, contextualized and summarized. Samples of the discussions form the substance of this article. This is preceded by an analysis of the success of socially‐orientated contemporary art in the wider global context and its contrast with the omission of these practices in many schools. Conclusions have been tentatively drawn about how the curriculum may be better served by the use of contemporary art, as well as the means by which new learning methods may be facilitated.

The Future Something Project (FSP), a two-year action research project, was devised to nurture the creative and technological talent of small groups of young people at risk by creating a structured network, mentored and driven by creative professionals exploring innovative ways for the two distinct target groups to work together. The project practice is located within the new field of Interaction Design and takes a social and critical approach to Art and Design pedagogy. The external research team found that one valuable way of looking at the FSP enterprise was through the social theory of communities of practice (CoPs) developed in the 1990s by Lave and Wenger (1991; Wenger, 1998). The creation of a learning community as a pedagogical strategy is central to the conception and practice of this project. This paper, therefore, sets out to apply an existing theory to a new art and design context together with more general thoughts on learning communities. It explores the potential of new technologies and different settings to effect learning within structured networks and local and virtual communities of practice. IntroductionThe Future Something Project (FSP), a two-year action research project devised and delivered by Artswork [1], aimed to develop a programme that could nurture the creative and technological talent of small groups of young people at risk. This was approached by creating a structured network, mentored and driven by creative professionals. An overall aim was to explore innovative ways for two distinct target groups to work together to be called mentors and participants. The project practice is located within the new field of Interaction Design and takes a social and critical approach to Art and Design pedagogy (Atkinson & Dash 2005). Emerging technologies, specifically information technology, precipitate reaction and ongoing curriculum development within the field of art and design education. They may require new forms of understandings of teacher and learner identities, learning communities and situations of learning. This paper explores the complex project ecology (Harrington 1990) which brings together the themes of identities and trajectories within learning communities, new pedagogical practices and learning in different settings, through new technology and interaction design. While the details and outcomes of the project are specific there is scope for reflection on the broad themes identified above which are relevant to art and design pedagogy in both formal and informal contexts with diverse populations.

This article looks at the concept of Black History Month and its implications for teaching and learning in art and design education. It argues that the concept of Black History Month should be discarded because it tends to promote a separatist notion of culture and that it deflects from an understanding of culture as a plural and intermeshing process. The paper interrogates history as a discourse, problematising our use of the word. The article then looks through the eyes of two groups of African Caribbean young people at Black History Month, as a curriculum initiative. The first group was interviewed at a south London gallery and the second at a conference for African Caribbean learners in Oxford. Two art and design educationalists who participated in the research project that included the south London young people make a significant contribution to the paper. It concludes with a personal interpretation of movements in art and the practice of a contemporary artist whose work endorse the key philosophical position posited in the text that culture is always a process on interweaving.

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