Contact

rfendler@fsu.edu

About

Rachel Fendler, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Art Education at Florida State University where she serves as Director of Teacher Certification in Art Education. She currently serves as Chair of the Art Education Department.  She received her BA in Art History from Smith College, an MA in Visual Culture Studies and an MA in Arts and Education from the University of Barcelona. She received her PhD in Arts and Education from the University of Barcelona.

Dr. Fendler has developed projects in a number of informal educational environments that combine creative practice, new media, and collaboration with teens. She is Co-Chair of the Art Education Research Institute (2021-2022) and past Secretary of the Arts Based Research SIG of the American Educational Research Association. She has been an invited keynote speaker in international conferences on visual studies and arts based research, in Uruguay and Mexico. She has presented and published at the state, national, and international level. Her research and curriculum development consider how creative practice and place-based inquiry may offer young people, and their communities, opportunities to reimagine their modes of being together. This research is interested in the ways that art making may generate a sphere of action for youth civic engagement, both in and outside schools.

Education

PhD, University of Barcelona. Arts and Education. Supervisor: Dr. Fernando Hernández Hernández.

MA, University of Barcelona. Arts and Education. Supervisor: Dr. Judit Vidiella.

MA, University of Barcelona. Visual Culture Studies. Supervisor: Dr. Fernando Hernández Hernández.

Teaching Areas

Art for Life (ARE5358)

Critical Analysis (ARE5641)

Doctoral Seminar: Social Foundations of Art Education (ARE6937)

Doctoral Seminar: Philosophical Structures (ARE6937)

Research Survey (ARE5745)

Seminar in Professional Practices (ARE5950)

Special Topics: Cultural Politics & Public Pedagogies (ARE5930)

Special Topics: New Materialisms & the Arts (ARE5930)

Social Reconstruction in Art Education (ARE5650)

Research Areas

Affect theory, civically engaged art education, arts-based educational research, curriculum and pedagogy, poststructural theory in education, teacher education, youth participatory action research

Select Scholarly/Creative Works & Awards

• Shields, S. S., Fendler, R., & Henn, D. (2020). A Vision of Civically Engaged Art Education: Teens as Arts-Based Researchers. Studies in Art Education, 61(2), 123-141.
• Fendler, R., Shields, S. S., & Henn, D. (2020). # thefutureisnow: A Model for Civically Engaged Art Education. Art Education, 73(5), 10-15.
• Fendler, R. (2019). Desire Paths: A Reflection With Preservice Students in the Eventful Space of Learning. Studies in Art Education 60(4), 275-286.
• Fendler, R. & Hamrock , J. (2018) Feeling Free? Learning and Unlearning in the Enabling Constraints of an Art Education Summer Program. Art Education 71(4), 22-28.
• Fendler, R. (2017). Resignifying the negative space: Revisiting the representation of learning. International Journal of Education & the Arts 18(33), 20.