Student Docent Projects as Socially Engaged Art History

In this chapter, the authors discuss how projects designed to train undergraduate students as art docents is an example of socially engaged art history that can change art historical praxis. The authors track their development and implementation of two distinctive undergraduate student docent projects—one designed for students within a university art museum and one designed to engage non-art major undergraduate students with their university’s public art collection. The authors argue that student docent projects offer a sustainable and socially engaged pedagogical possibility in art history curricula. More importantly, student docent projects have the potential to produce confident and knowledgeable citizens, able to facilitate meaningful discussion of social issues in art long after they have left the art history class.