Representations of Working in Arts Education : Stories of Learning and Teaching (Hardcover)

Arts education provides students with valuable opportunities to experience and build knowledge and skills in self expression, imagination, creative and collaborative problem solving, communication, creation of shared meanings, and respect for self and others. Engagement in quality arts education has also been said to positively affect overall academic achievement, engagement in learning, and development of empathy towards others. The integration of the arts in education is an internationally recognized phenomenon: it is a modern trend to organize the curriculum in an integrated and interdisciplinary manner.

The ‘Arts’ is seen to encompass different things in different contexts, including but not limited to the performing arts (music, dance, drama, and theatre), visual arts, media, industrial arts, and literary arts. Currently in Australia, each educational jurisdiction has developed its own frameworks and repertoire of describing what happens in arts education learning. In this book arts education is used as an encompassing umbrella term referenced to The Arts learning area in the Australian curriculum.