Appointed InSEA Archivist (2011-2021)

InSEA President (1993-1996)

Dr John Steers was General Secretary (Chief Executive) of the UK’s National Society for Education in Art and Design (NSEAD) for 30 years until December 2011. In the 1960s he trained initially as a painter and potter and then as an art and design teacher at Goldsmiths, London. He was awarded the degree of Doctor in Philosophy by the University of Liverpool in 1994. He taught art and design in secondary schools in London and Bristol between 1966 and 1980. He was a member of the editorial board of the NSEAD’s International Journal of Art and Design Education (iJADE) from its inception in 1981 until his retirement in 2011. He has served on many national committees and as a consultant to government agencies. He has published widely – principally on curriculum, assessment, history and policy issues including, recently, two chapters for the forthcoming International Encyclopedia of Art and Design Education (Wiley).

He was the 1993-96 President of the International Society for Education through Art (InSEA) and served on its executive committee in several capacities between 1983 and 2005. He was the 1998 recipient of the Edwin Ziegfeld Award of USSEA and in 2011 he was awarded InSEA’s Sir Herbert Read Award for significant lifelong contributions to art education in the UK and internationally. In 2019 he was elected as a Distinguished Fellow of the National Art Education Association (NAEA) in the USA.

He was a director and past chair of the Council for Subject Associations (UK)between 2008-2016 and a visiting Senior Research Fellow at Roehampton University, London from 1997-2007.

Currently he is enjoying semi-retirement whilst continuing as a trustee of the Higher Education in Art and Design Foundation and a member of the Advisory Committee of the National Arts Education Archive, Bretton Hall. He is a consultant for the Welsh Joint Education Committee and occasionally for Cambridge International.

Herbert Read Lecture by John Steers at the 33rd world Congress, Budapest 2011

Dr John Steers, NSEAD Conference 2012 - Art and design education at the crossroads

INSEA: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. BY JOHN STEERS (2006)