Martha Taunton is Coordinator of the Art Education Program and an Associate Professor of Art Education in the Department of Art Archecture and Art History at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Her research and writing have focused on the artistic and aesthetic development of young children, art classroom research and art curriculum development. She has published in Art Education, Studies in Art Education, the Journal of Aesthetic Education, AERA Handbook of Classroom Research and Childhood Education.
Dr. Taunton received a BA in Art Education from Baylor University and an MA and EdD from the University of Illinois at Champaign - Urbana. She taught art at the elementary and middle school levels in public schools and was a faculty member at the University of Iowa before joining the Department of Art Archecture and Art History at Amherst. She conducts workshops and is a frequent speaker at regional and national conferences on development in the visual arts, classroom research and the relationship between art and other areas of curriculum. Her current work focuses on classroom practice and the symbolic development of young children, and children's changing questions and conceptions about art, artists, and art making.