In our paper we engage with issues of “cultural otherness”, identity/subjectivity, sexuality and gender that are contextualized within social and political reality (Fulková, Tipton, Ishikawa 2009). As art educators we take our research inspiration for teaching innovations from contemporary art practice and its changing position. Since the 90´s the concept of an artist converted from a post-modern cliché into a less showy position of social activist, visual ethnographer or body /media experimenter (Bourriaud, 2002). The artworks concern not only with actual issues but also with ways of content mediation, “languages” of representation or processes of interpretation. Intertwining artistic, research and teaching/didactic approaches (Irwin, 2004) make a challenging curriculum content.

We would like to introduce 3 teachers´ ways of working with issue-based images, namely gender issues that are the topic of our latest unpublished research. Our intention is to present 3 case studies based on teachers´ voices (including verbatims) from classroom practice of general schools and gallery education programs dealing with visual gender stereotypes. The teachers propose model strategies for critical perception and analytical distance from artworks which - paradoxically – strengthen and deepen emotional reception. Since visual analysis and critical thinking are competencies of visual literacy which is one of the key goals of visual art education, the study shows also didactic strategies leading to critical interpreting of visual artefacts and simultaneously encouraging the issue – based art making.

The study is based on previous quantitative research (Svatošová, 2011, 2017) which showed that issues are often present in teaching, but teachers do not pursue them deliberately. In this follow-up study we use qualitative methods of interpretive analysis (qualitative analysis/coding participants' responses) and discourse analysis to reveal power-related dynamism of social/educational practices (10 deep interviews with art teachers of general schools, pupils aged 12-18, 2016-17). Interview entries were: art teaching practice, theme of gender, general teacher's understanding of the educational goals and teachers´ ability to reflect art education referring to articulation of social problems, prejudices and stereotypes). 150 pages of interview transcripts were analyzed using MAXQDA software. The research approach combines diverse theoretical positions such as discursive analysis and theory of ideology, critical theories of subject, gender and sexuality, non-linear modelling of culture and basic concepts of visual studies and visual literacy.

Current research findings show specific educational approaches and tactics, as well as the extent of discursive contexts of art education. The findings confirm that art education is able, through its focus on the development of functional visual literacy, to provide a suitable didactic tool for reflecting social and cultural stereotypes. Art education, aiming to developing functional visual literacy, creates an educational environment that does not support un-reflected stereotyping and teaches to work with stereotypes in a creative way. Art-making in art education is understood as a tool and medium of an active grasping the world around us, which might be seen as complex, fuzzy, non-transparent and uncertain.

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