교육이란 인간으로 하여금 자신에게 주어진 상황 속에서 자신을 변화시키며 주체적으로 자기 자신을 정립하고 실현해나가도록 돕는 것이라고 볼 수 있다. 이는 세계 속에 자신의 존재, 그리고 자신과 타자를 둘러싸고 있는 해석적 상황에 대한 이해를 통해 실현 가능하다. 그러므로 교사가 어떤 지식을 가지고 학생들을 가르치는 과정은 교육적 해석 행위의 과정이라고 할 수 있으며, 이러한 교육적 해석 행위를 통해 이루어지는 미지의 세계에 대한 교육적 체험은 이해의 이전구조 속에서 자신과 타인, 그리고 세계와의 관계를 형성하는 정체성 형성의 과정으로 볼 수 있다.
Hermeneutic inquiry into art education provides a variety of theoretical tools and interpretational strategies to employ when we interrogate why we teach art in the way that we do, and thus, for example, expose the cultural bias of art practice and understanding. This study explores three different hermeneutic approaches to teachers’ identities constructed in art education based on the three categories: conservative hermeneutics, moderate hermeneutics, and critical hermeneutics. These hermeneutic understandings have an important implication for identity formation in art education: how different identities are formed within different hermeneutic frameworks. From the point of view of conservative hermeneutics, an interpretation reproduces precisely the meaning intended by the author/artist, and it supports the essentialist idea of identity. In moderate hermeneutics the interpreter is involved in a negotiation between the object to be interpreted and his or her contextual horizon which forms a fore-structure for meaning and sense to form. This implicates that identities are diverse and changing, in the symbolic systems through which we make sense of our own positions. Critical hermeneutics attempts to reveal systematic prejudices and biases or ideological positions that act to celebrate and include particular art practices and cultural identities, but in doing so exclude others which are equally legitimate. Therefore hermeneutic inquiry of identity formation provides an important implication to expose ideological interests and political forces embedded within institutionalized art education.