D’Olimpio offers a deep investigation into the role and value of aesthetic education introducing the reader to multiple defenses for its value in the K-12 curriculum including those made by Elliot Eisner and Maxine Greene. She successfully argues that the intrinsic value of the aesthetic experience is fundamental to the well-being and overall education of students and that including aesthetic education into the curriculum does not require any further extrinsic reasons.
D’Olimpio offers a deep investigation into the role and value of aesthetic education introducing the reader to multiple defenses for its value in the K-12 curriculum including those made by Elliot Eisner and Maxine Greene. She successfully argues that the intrinsic value of the aesthetic experience is fundamental to the well-being and overall education of students and that including aesthetic education into the curriculum does not require any further extrinsic reasons.
Advocates of arts education tend to speak in platitudes. This book moves firmly beyond the platitudes by providing a rigorous defence of the necessity of aesthetic education in terms of both its intrinsic value and extrinsic benefits. Written with gusto and persuasion, this work serves both as a formidable philosophical treatise and an inspired manifesto. I particularly recommend Chapter 7 on the complex relationship between aesthetics and ethics. A delightful read.
Laura D’Olimpio is Associate Professor of Philosophy of Education at the University of Birmingham, UK, and author of Media and Moral Education: a philosophy of critical engagement (2018). She is co-editor of Educating Character Through the Arts (2023) and co-editor of the Journal of Philosophy in Schools.