The ongoing marketisation of education is a great loss for visual arts education since explorative learning processes are marginalised in favour of more goal-oriented learning. The empirical material analysed in this research derives from the visual art portfolio of a student from an elective university course in visual arts education. Working…

Creative thought leaders and educators have readily invited and challenged humans to harness the imagination as a way to envision otherwise. Ethical teaching and learning processes demand creating equity along a continuum of critical and creative practices (Freire, 1970/2014; hooks, 2009; Love, 2019). Some in the field of art education have taken…

Effective arts learning requires the development of important literacies. While investigation of discipline-specific literacies has filtered the literature, it is unclear if these literacies are acknowledged, understood, and/or taught. In this paper, we share the classroom discourse of two arts teachers in early and middle years across visual art…

The image is the raw material of the twenty-first century. Images infiltrate all social and cultural spaces. Its digital-mediated realities drive communication, industry and knowledge. Images saturate life and adolescent learners are familiar with the participatory nature of image production and its social, educational and personal communicative…

During a classroom-based study, eight- to ten-year-old students had multiple opportunities to develop their knowledge and understanding about semiotic resources for meaning-making in picturebooks and graphic novels. Instruction during the study included a variety of activities that focussed on a selection of elements of visual art and design, and…

This issue explores the nature of childhood by offering selections that re/imagine the idea of the child as art maker; inquire about the relationships between children and adults when they are making art; and investigate how physical space influences approaches to art instruction. Readers are invited to join a dialogue that questions long-standing…

This is a quasi-experimental mixed methods study of a curriculum intervention focused on the interdisciplinary teaching of history, literacy, and the visual arts. In this study I address three questions: (1) How does students' learning in history change following their participation in an interdisciplinary history-literacy-visual arts…

Today with teacher cutbacks looming, and more integration units, general teachers might be required to teach the visual arts. Therefore, teachers need a clear definition of the discipline of art and personal exposure to aesthetic experiences. Many references are made to classic art education research. When lesson plan formats are generic it…

This article looks at the ways in which people learn informally through artistic expression such as dance, drama, poetry, music, literature, film, and all of the visual arts and how people access this learning through their emotions. The author begins with a look at the limitations of relying primarily on technical-rational learning processes.…

The goals of visual literacy experiences are to give the student skill in "reading" visuals and in expressing himself and communicating through visuals. (JH)

This book explores how the arts, with their focus on aesthetic ways of knowing, impact the learning of our college students. Chapter 1, "Jamie: A Learner Profile," profiles the learning of Jamie, an elementary art teacher who was a student in a 2-week summer courses. The book starts with this profile to metaphorically prime the pump with images,…