Christina Hanawalt
Position
Associate Professor of Art Education
Area Chair Art Education
Academic Area
Art Education
Office Hours
By Appointment
Location
Lamar Dodd School of Art, Main Building | N321
Email
hanawalt@uga.edu
Research Focus

Christina’s primary research is situated within the context of early career art teaching, especially as understood through arts-based methodologies and poststructural and posthuman theories. Through this work, she both interrogates and intervenes in the complex network of relations that exists at the intersections of art education and the current climate of public education in the US, which is significantly impacted by practices of accountability and compliance. Through on-going work with early career art teachers, Christina aims to locate spaces of possibility where art teaching, mentoring, and professional learning can be imagined and practiced anew. In addition to her work with early career teachers, Christina pursues historical research of women art educators in the US. 

Research Interests:
Early career art teachers, mentoring, professional learning, audit culture and accountability practices in education, women art educators (past and present), arts-based research (especially as theorized through collage/assemblage), post-qualitative research, poststructural and post-human theories.

Christina Hanawalt earned a B.S. in Art Education from The Pennsylvania State University, after which she taught high school art in Fairfax County Public Schools in Northern Virginia. While teaching, Christina earned her M.A. in Art Education from the Maryland Institute College of Art. After moving back to Pennsylvania, Christina taught introductory art history and art appreciation courses at several colleges and universities. In 2016, Christina earned her PhD in Art Education with a minor in Curriculum and Instruction from The Pennsylvania State University. Christina’s doctoral research examined the experiences of new art teachers using a theory of collage as critical practice as a framework for generating new understandings of what it means to be an art teacher in contemporary public schools, especially given their entanglement in the widespread audit and standardization culture of education. 

Christina is Director-Elect for the Higher Education Division of the National Art Education Association and an Associate Editor for the International Journal of Education and the Arts. She has published in journals such as Studies in Art Education, Visual Arts Research, and The Journal of Social Theory in Art Education.