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Wellbeing education (WE) is increasingly offered among secondary schools internationally to promote the physical, social, emotional and mental health of young people. Current and emerging evidence proposes that scope exists for the enhancement of universal WE, and that arts-based approaches have significant potential for school programmes in enhancing the effectiveness of WE. This sits alongside a growing body of international literature that connects arts engagement with positive mental wellbeing across age groups. Existing research also shows that the evaluation of the goals, pedagogy and student engagement within WE from the perspectives of teachers is uncommon. To this end, this qualitative research investigated teacher perspectives on the potential for arts-based WE. Through an asynchronous group interview, 10 Australian secondary school arts teachers with expertise in a variety of visual and performing arts education reflected on current WE in light of their arts teaching practice, exploring possibilities for enhancement through art-based practices. Thematic analysis using a socio-ecological framework reveals strong support for arts-based WE, noting positive potential for arts engagement to facilitate increased teacher and student autonomy, relationship building, safe and inclusive environments, and enjoyable, embodied learning within WE.

Although visual arts pedagogies are considered central within early childhood education programs, teacher self-efficacy has a direct impact on the quality and delivery of visual arts curricula. Until recently, the visual arts self-efficacy, pedagogical knowledge, and practice of in-service early childhood teachers have remained largely unexplored. The authors of this paper present a qualitative, iterative re-analysis of their three PhD studies which broadly focussed on early childhood visual arts praxis and specifically examined the visual arts beliefs and pedagogy of early childhood teachers in Australia and New Zealand. A thematic analysis of the intersecting self-efficacy findings raised in the three studies identifies the powerful influence of self-efficacy on teaching practice in the visual arts domain and offers new understandings about visual arts self-efficacy amongst early childhood teachers. The combined findings reveal several factors that restrain or enhance teachers' visual arts self-efficacy across time, including the impact of childhood experiences, pre-service training and epistemological beliefs. The paper also identifies several enabling conditions that appear to support teachers to develop and maintain positive visual arts self-efficacy beliefs, including practical engagement with materials, sustained professional learning, relational trust and intentional leadership. These enabling conditions offer practical strategies and research recommendations in service of positive visual arts self-efficacy to enhance quality visual arts teaching in early childhood contexts.

This paper introduces the life and work of art educator and designer Kurt Rowland (1920-1980) who authored the first set of textbooks on visual education and played a role in the shifting world of art and design education in post-war Britian. We detail the foundational experiences of his extraordinary life in the first half of the 20th century including surviving the Spanish Civil War and "La Retirada," being a 'friendly enemy alien', and becoming one of the Dunera boys forced into Australian internment camps. He later went on to develop a new aspect of art and design education he called visual education. We explore Rowland's notion of a visual education, explicating its features, appraising its import, and situating Rowland's ideas to those of his contemporaries. We explore his motivations and how his work advanced art pedagogy. Finally, we argue that Kurt Rowland has been absent in recent literature on art and design education and that his work, which contains elements that have continued relevance today, should not be overlooked.

We compare epistemologies and aesthetics in the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme and the Australian New South Wales Stage 6 Visual Arts Syllabus, focusing on curriculum content, pedagogical praxis, and assessment strategies. Both curricula feature making, reflexivity, and critique. International Baccalaureate components are Exhibition, the Process Portfolio, and the Comparative Study. In New South Wales Visual Arts they are the Body of Work and Visual Diary. Issues are the teacher as curriculum; uneven resources; shifting contexts and formulating standardized expectations. In both, qualitative assessment and examination are achieved via articulating criteria and levels of achievement, and examiner training. In International Baccalaureate, what counts as good work can vary in relation to Principal Examiner standards, particularities of context, pedagogy, and resources, with work ranging from sophisticated installations, to anime, to the school art style. In New South Wales Visual Art aesthetic conventions are reinforced because the system is less distributed than International Baccalaureate, where aesthetics become engrained, perpetuating conventions around what counts as good art. In spite of supervening assessment structures, teaching, learning, and assessment in visual arts education is always highly qualitative, unfolding, and rooted in the situated shifting conditions and ways of being in the world of each teacher, student, artwork, examiner, artist, and scholar.

There is a critical need to consider ways to enrich the educational experiences and well-being of adolescents when the lack of empathy in the world is high. This paper presents the concepts of "Artful Empathy" and "Artful and Empathic Learning Ecology." The concepts are exemplified from a multi-site case study within Australian secondary visual art studio classrooms. The article demonstrates how learning and making art in an artfully empathic ecology can support the legitimacy of diverse and marginalized voices. Arts-based performative approaches may facilitate empathic knowing across disciplines with global traction.

The impact of digital technologies in education has been the subject of numerous studies. The findings have produced mixed results, highlighting the high degree of complexity involved in teaching and learning and the uniqueness of school settings. Continuous and rapid technological developments present educational communities with opportunities to solve numerous academic challenges. Current trends reveal a move towards the seamless integration of digital technologies into learning spaces to complement face-to-face teaching and learning. This study used Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis to understand an Art teacher's lived experiences as her classroom was transformed into a smart teaching and learning space using a combination of technologies to increase efficiencies in the delivery of the curriculum and address individual learning needs. The case study indicates that transforming traditional classrooms into smart learning spaces using a combination of technologies: uses time more effectively by automating the distribution of a range of educational resources; enhances teaching and learning by blurring the boundaries between physical and digital spaces; increases flexibility, mobility and creates extra opportunities for learning; frees up teaching time to address individual needs; enhances time on task and students' focus on the learning intention; and, encourages students to self-regulate their learning.

This article presents an adaptation of an arts-based research method usually reserved for child-focused research to examine organizational processes. We developed Draw, Write, Reflect (DWR), advancing a known method, Draw and Write, for investigating phenomena relating to child participants, to explore a new context: adults engaging in academic careers. This article reports on the rationale behind the novel use of this research method, outlines a DWR procedure for future research, and contains reflections of both the researchers and the respondents regarding their experiences participating in DWR. Offering participants a combination of visual and oral methods allowed the researchers to obtain data in a more individualized approach steered by participants' preferences. The multidimensional insights obtained through DWR would not have been attainable through each method on its own. Furthermore, we argue arts-based research can serve as a vehicle for disseminating academic work beyond conventional academe to a growing, nonacademic audience.

In the present moment, art educators need to facilitate high-quality online learning experiences through the integration of collaborative learning, peer-based feedback, and effective educational technologies. In practice-based visual arts courses, it is also essential to focus on student engagement with the studio processes and material outcomes at the core of emerging arts practices. As such, online practice-based arts learning presents unique challenges for students attempting to learn processes to produce resolved outcomes. While the implementation of Padlet as an online collaborative tool was motivated by the COVID-19 pandemic, its tangible impact on student engagement will see the platform remain a permanent part of the visual arts program at the University of Southern Queensland (UniSQ). Padlet allows students to build creative communities; it facilitates peer feedback and personal reflection; and it enhances resilience, skill development, and artist identity. The researchers affirm the potential of Padlet as an online engagement tool that can support creative practice and exchange.

The aim of this study was to understand the school and life experiences of refugee young women and to explore the ways in which they individually and collectively cultivated their resilience. It identified the challenges and resources they encountered when negotiating different home and school cultures and the impact on their resilience. It used mixed-methods that incorporated visual approaches to elicit culturally relevant accounts of their home and school lives. The findings suggest that the resilience of these young girls involved a particular set of resources and challenges which oppose the often normative and value laden perspectives that arise from Western constructions of resilience. The recommendations propose the need to reinforce culturally appropriate ways of fostering the capacities of the individual, family and school to enhance the resilience of refugee young women.

The historically male-dominated discourse encompassing artistic creativity has often failed to acknowledge the voices and contributions of women. Female artists continue to face barriers in terms of accessing opportunities, attaining positions of prominence, and earning potential, in comparison with their male counterparts. This inequality is deleterious to female artists and society. Therefore, it is important to understand the relationship between artistic creativity and gender, with a particular emphasis on elite female artistic exemplars. The present qualitative study utilized in-depth semi-structured interviews, in accordance with the methodology of Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis, to explore the role of gender in relation to artistic creativity among 10 eminent Australian female visual artists. Findings indicated that participants were affected detrimentally by gender-based inequality on personal, professional, and sociocultural levels. Their experiences as women, however, also inspired and informed their artistic creativity aesthetically and conceptually. The findings challenge patriarchal conceptualizations of the "male artistic genius" by presenting a female-focused counternarrative. Implications for educating, supporting, and empowering current and emerging female artists to excel are discussed.

Artistic creativity has long been associated with physical and psychological suffering. This phenomenon has also been the subject of empirical research. The anguished "artistic genius" stereotype is ubiquitous, and there is evidence to suggest that artists may have heightened susceptibility to psychopathology. The present qualitative study utilized in-depth semi-structured interviews, in accordance with the methodology of Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis to explore inter-relationships between artistic creativity, and physical and mental health among 10 eminent Australian female visual artists. Results revealed complex, reciprocal interactions whereby physical and mental health impacted creativity and vice versa. Physical and psychological illnesses were found to either diminish or stimulate creativity due to the interplay of biological predispositions, personal vulnerabilities, and environmental factors. It was also revealed that immersive creative engagement could have therapeutic, cathartic effects and facilitate post-traumatic growth. The stressors and demands of professional creative practice could, however, also have a detrimental impact upon artists physically and psychologically. These findings contribute to existing understandings regarding the intricacy of the relationship between creativity, physical and psychological health. They highlight the need to challenge romantic societal mythologies regarding the impact of suffering on creativity in the visual arts and explore these issues in a nuanced manner to best support those in creative industries.

This research reports the impact of changes made to an Arts education module in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Histories and Cultures within a Bachelor of Education degree, and the learning and experience of pre-service teachers in response to these changes. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander music and visual arts making was presented in the module as rich and abundant material to be reflected on and introduced in the classroom. The authors showcased the transformative possibilities for pre-service teachers of studying, reflecting on, and learning about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Arts practises. The authors who crafted the module regarded it as a way to encourage two-way (or both ways) learning in which the celebration of Aboriginal creative knowledges in teaching was encouraged. Pre-service teachers were surveyed, interviewed, and asked to reflect on their exposure to Aboriginal music and visual arts in their learning. The research mapped the growth in respect and understandings that studying Aboriginal arts and Torres Strait Islander creativities developed in pre-service teachers. The research showcased visual arts making from non-Aboriginal students that was produced in response to Aboriginal music and that demonstrated high levels of empathy and understanding.

Projects assisting Aboriginal youth to acquire attributes for effective learning require community or elder mentoring, to ensure learning about culture and history will connect with the skills of the planned project. A Koorie art class at a secondary college in north eastern Victoria, Australia, relies on the positive attributes of mentoring in guiding young students to understand themselves as well as learn skills in Aboriginal art-making. The aim of this article is to discuss the positive attributes of the Koorie artist, since these attributes are crucial to the success of the program. A qualitative study of interviews with class teachers, a deputy principal, a Koorie artist, and students was undertaken as part of a larger project. Participants articulated the essential and positive attributes needed for a Koorie artist or mentor. This article helps understand what particular interpersonal skills, specific knowledge and applied skills are necessary for such a learning project.

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 realities. Vision and visibility, seeing and being now dominate how we inter-subjectively recognise ourselves and perform our world. We also find our aesthetic and embodied self increasingly constituted within imaging acts that are relational. Visual culture may have colonised the self and learning, but imagination is without borders. The current pictorial turn opens possibilities to explore truth in flux through visual artistic acts. This article embeds Deleuzian method, which is one of intuitions, going beyond the actual, or our limited forms of representing life, to recognising that life has future imaginative potential forms and is always becoming. The article discusses an arts-based inquiry project for gifted artist visualiser/learners at an Australian regional university who are given broad topics on science phenomena and asked to give them expression. It suggests that pedagogies of the visual with their performative acts can prise open curriculum where an art-science interchange between two disciplines is made difficult by the current siloed nature of curriculum knowledge. Drawing on an analysis of Anika's and Joel's artworks and visual diaries it aims to reveal how their learning events dwell and are performed in aesthetic borderlands and how visual pedagogies forge new fluid visual borderlands and new learning.

The creation and maintenance of inclusive learning environments is a key responsibility of all teachers working in Australian schools. Most Australian universities embed inclusion education training for pre-service teachers (PSTs) in coursework. There is an implicit assumption in these arrangements that the study of inclusion and of special needs education completed at university will translate into practice when PSTs are working in schools. This phenomenological mixed methods research design investigated how effectively inclusion education translated into practice. The results revealed that while PSTs were aware and supportive of inclusion, no clear links were made between theory and practice.

Ten years have passed since the first meetings of Arts advisors to start identifying the priorities and approaches that the Arts may take when formalised into a national curriculum structure. Now the time has come for reviewing the past to inform the future. Now is the time for reviewing, interrogating and challenging the "Australian Curriculum: The Arts" for a socially just world. The purpose of this paper is to focus on the process of positioning Visual Arts in the curriculum and the role of Visual Arts to meet social justice imperatives. The paper presents a critical discussion of the Arts and a critical consideration of my role in the writing of the shaping papers. This approach allows an identification of some highlights and challenges along the way. The more philosophical part of the discussion addresses the politics of curriculum and the politics of knowledge through Visual Arts, as it situates the underpinning principles of aesthetics and meaning-making through the Arts. The paper shows how acts of hospitality disrupt practices of domination and marginalisation; and how such acts activate ethical practices of social justice in the Arts, and Visual Arts in particular. The paper claims that Visual Arts as a learning area has a potent role in reflecting and shaping attitudes to social justice, and that education in Visual Arts may contribute to authenticating and legitimising one's place in the world based upon credible ethical foundations.

This article presents the story of one elementary school teacher's shift in art praxis through her involvement in a research project aimed at facilitating participatory arts-based communities of practice. Qualitative methods and social constructivism informed Professional Learning Interventions (PLIs) involving: (1) a visual arts workshop, (2) facilitations with academics within the teacher's classroom context, and (3) semi-structured discussions to study and curate the teacher's lived experiences. A teacher-facilitator-interviewer triad co-researched the meaning of "quality" in relation to: Learning, Pedagogy, Environment, and Community Dynamics (L-PEC). Adapted from Seidel et. al (2009) L-PEC was a theoretical lens to guide inquiry and action specific to the teacher's (i.e., Ali's) classroom. Ali's evolving praxis served as a source of inspiration for the other Grade 3-4 teachers in her school who formed their own community of practice to support student learning through the visual arts.

This article reports on an exploratory study that addressed the low confidence levels of 80 generalist primary student teachers enrolled in a mandatory visual arts course. Previous studies in this area have found that a cycle of neglect exists in Australia, as a result of educators' lack of confidence in their ability to teach visual arts. This is believed to create a knock on effect whereby generalist primary student teachers enter mandatory tertiary visual arts units with little belief in their own art ability. This exploratory study centred on proactively applying the Tomlinson Model of differentiation in an effort to raise student confidence levels. By providing students with multiple avenues to access essential course understandings, students' perceptions to teach visual arts changed significantly by course completion. This research has significance as there is a paucity of research re the implications of implementing a differentiated model of instruction at the tertiary level.

Visual arts provisions are central to children's holistic, play-based learning, yet the visual arts self-efficacy beliefs and subject content knowledge of early childhood educators influence pedagogical choices. When early childhood educators lack the visual arts confidence, skills, and knowledge required to effectively support children's visual arts learning and engagement, children's learning in the visual arts domain may be restricted; resulting in a negative cycle of influence whereby the next generation are denied their right to access visual languages. Qualitative case study research explored the visual arts beliefs and pedagogy of 12 degree qualified and vocationally trained early childhood educators. The conceptual framework, designed to to interpret and analyse the research data, aligns Dewey's philosophies of democracy, education and art with the philosophy and visual arts praxis of the Reggio Emilia approach to early childhood education. The research findings suggest educator's low visual arts self-efficacy beliefs develop during childhood and are not improved by pre-service training, resulting in limited visual arts skills and knowledge. The research participants' visual arts pedagogy appeared to be strongly influenced by the experiential 'baggage' they carried into their pre-service training and practice contexts, by the participants' theoretical beliefs about children's development and by a range of divergent beliefs about the purposes of visual art in the early childhood context. Although training has the potential to broadly inform knowledge and practice, this study suggests that unless limiting visual arts self-efficacy beliefs are disrupted by constructivist theoretical knowledge and combined with practical skills and knowledge, the visual arts curriculum offered to children may be significantly compromised.

The relationships between RE leaders in Catholic education and their schools and their religious communities may be ambiguous. RE leaders often appear disconnected from both 'ordinary' teacher issues and 'ordinary' leadership issues because of their religious responsibilities. In this innovative research project, the authors have explored RE leader connectedness and disconnectedness in Catholic schools around the world. Visual research methods are used, as respondents make use of artistic representations of both connectedness and disconnectedness, to describe (by explaining their choice of picture) the nature of their connectedness. Responses from Australia, Hong Kong in China, the USA, the UK and Germany are presented here, generating an initial account of the lived reality of RE leaders in Catholic schooling systems. Responses range from those who seem to integrate their accountabilities to school and church systems to those who seem more 'torn' between those systems and disconnected from one or both of school and church. The authors suggest this has implications for practical-empirical theology, and education more generally, based on the idea of the 'bi-dimensionality' of the RE leader role in Catholic schools, and on the role of the school in Catholic theology which, according to D'Souza, 'cannot help but be one of the intersecting points where the problems and challenges of society are encountered'.

Artistic practice has a well-established presence in graduate research training. Extant writing on creative arts doctorates considers various issues, ranging from policy and process requirements to programme design, and the nature of the text itself. In the disciplinary domain of music, narrative accounts are often employed to explore doctoral candidates' decisions to pursue practice-based doctorates. This article builds on this approach by comparing and contrasting the experiences of three creative and performing arts doctoral candidates from Australia. It describes their attraction to the doctorate and their motives for undertaking doctoral study, with the aim of enhancing our understanding of arts industry professionals as graduate research candidates.

In "Arts Nation" 2015, the Australia Council documented the current landscape of artistic endeavour in Australia, acknowledging that there are still gaps that need to be filled to build a greater public understanding of the arts in Australia. The contribution of Australian universities to the arts is one such lacuna. This paper seeks to expand this understanding by considering the contribution that the university sector makes to visual and performing arts outside its traditional teaching role. It draws upon data contained in university websites and through interviews with practising artists employed as academic staff in three case study universities. It explores how and why these contributions remain largely hidden in reports on artistic endeavour and concludes by suggesting that a greater recognition of the role that universities play in Australia's "Arts Nation" will deliver benefits to artists, audiences and to Australia's artistic and cultural heritage.

As school education systems worldwide adopt standardized performance measures, teacher effectiveness frameworks have become more influential. This article draws on Australian mixed methods research that aimed to understand the processes behind quality arts pedagogy. Following an in-depth quantitative study, nine high-performing case study arts classes were selected, spanning dance, drama, media arts, music and visual arts. The Quality Teaching Framework (QTF), based on authentic pedagogy, was used to observe and to analyse twenty-seven arts lessons, three per case study. This framework, trialled and validated in prior large-scale research, was adopted by the New South Wales public education system. While the framework's categories were useful in detecting aspects of quality arts pedagogy, we also observed shared practices that were absent from the QTF. The article focuses on these absences. To support the creation of original work, these classes included generative processes not adequately explained by the framework, which made no direct reference to creativity. This led the research team to: (1) question the extent to which generic standardized (GS) teaching frameworks explain the dynamics of arts classrooms, and (2) reflect on whether certain processes are not easily categorized within standardized measures and whether this can lead these processes to be undervalued.

Teaching in secondary visual arts classrooms is complex and challenging work. While it is implicated in much research, the complexity of the lived experience of secondary visual arts teaching has rarely been the subject of sustained and synthesized research. In this paper, the potential of practice as a concept to examine and represent secondary visual arts teaching is investigated. A range of practice theories are first examined to identify common themes and principles. From this conceptual foundation, four theoretical principles are developed as a framework to consider the classroom-based complexities of secondary visual arts teaching. A methodological design is then derived from this conceptual foundation. In conclusion, the potential of applying this practice-based framework to the study of secondary visual arts classrooms is considered in relation to empirical research undertaken with teachers as co-researchers.

Many studies have highlighted the capacity of community arts programs to re-engage those young people considered at-risk of disconnection from future education and/or employment. "Evolution" is an artist-guided visual arts program established for young people challenged by mental health and social issues that aims to foster re-engagement in education and training. It was founded by a community-based youth arts studio, Signal, and in a partnership with a youth support service, has developed into an effective, strength-based model of practice that focuses on the young people's existing capacities and positive qualities rather than setting out to improve perceived deficits. Central to the success of this program has been the commitment to relationship-building, mediated through art practice, and the opportunities afforded to connect positively with others. This paper reports on research during the formative years of this initiative and outlines the conditions that framed and impacted upon participant engagement in the Evolution Program.

This paper explores how aligned arts and play experiences can extend child and family engagement in a public outdoor space. The importance of outdoor play for children is strongly advocated and in response local governments provide playgrounds and recreational open spaces. To extend further the experiences afforded in such spaces some local governments now employ "play workers," whose role is to prompt exploration and facilitate connections. With the intention of animating an uninviting and underused outdoor public space, the ArtPlay Backyard program presented a series of artist-facilitated experiences that encouraged children and families to explore, interact and transform. Research into this program, undertaken through observations and in-situ interviews, mapped the views and actions of children, parents, early childhood professionals and artists. The study concluded that the program was highly engaging to families who were animated by "artful play": experiences guided by artists, who, acting like "play workers," stimulated imaginative, aesthetic, creative and social encounters with people, place, and materials.

This article reports on the implementation and outcomes of a visual art pilot program undertaken at Connell State School in creative partnership with a research team from Griffith University's School of Education and Professional Studies. Employing a framework of the four lenses developed by Seidel et al. (2009)--(learning, pedagogy, community dynamics and environment), this article investigates the notion of excellence as understood by decision makers associated with the pilot program's design and implementation. The overarching implications arising from this project transcend the nature and ability of "art making" in and of itself to "produce" excellence in the young. Instead it sends a strong message to the decision makers involved in future creative partnership projects to ensure a clear alignment of understanding between the program's purposes and understood visions of excellence that drive programmatic decisions and ultimately the success of the partnership and program.

This paper presents a theorised classroom-based account discussing the author's interdisciplinary approach to engaging first-year teacher-education students in self-critical inquiry using creative writing techniques as an entry point into Arts-based three-dimensional storytelling. Via an interpretation of Lacan's "speaking subject"--combined with theories of the postmodern "self"--the discussion explores the creative potential of autoethnography as a practice of self-reflection, writing, artistic expression and three-dimensional storytelling. Here, particular examples of students' works are provided to exemplify the power of this interdisciplinary Arts/English methodology to facilitate students' opportunities to: a) self-narrate and self-examine personal experience with a view to understanding and visually expressing the personal and public self; and b) utilise creative writing techniques in tandem with Arts-based forms of visual expression to raise questions about how language, dimensionality, and the Arts might intersect to construct and narrate individual subjectivity, and the implications for understanding professional identity.

This paper reports on a study conducted into how one cohort of Master of Teaching pre-service visual art teachers perceived their learning in a fully online learning environment. Located in an Australian urban university, this qualitative study provided insights into a number of areas associated with higher education online learning, including that of assessment, the focus of this paper. Authentic assessment tasks were designed within the University's learning and teaching framework of constructive alignment and were sequenced across the three semesters of the visual art program. Analysis of data collected through a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews revealed that participants largely held very positive attitudes about the suite of online assessment tasks, particularly in light of (a) the collaborative learning that took place, (b) the nature, structure and sequence of the tasks, and (c) the ways in which the tasks contributed to their workplace readiness.

The themed presentation at the Sydney Writers' Festival on May 25, 2013 entitled "Creative Writing as Freedom, Education as Exploration" brought together three key players in a discussion about imaginative freedom, and the evidence suggesting that the impact of creativity and creative writing on young minds held long lasting, ongoing implications. This is a particularly crucial conversation given the factors stifling creative writing pedagogies in contemporary classrooms. In contributing to the ongoing dialogue about literary creativity, this theorized classroom-based discussion explores the integration of creative writing as literary and visual arts pedagogy among first year preservice-teachers developing an autoethnographic project. By modifying traditional autoethnographic methodology to include literary and Arts-based approaches to creative writing, the examination argues that, while "Creative writing is more than just words on a page; it's freedom", developing confidence and competencies among first year teacher-education students may prove important to the educational futurity of that philosophy.

The arts are crucial in developing our multi-sensory interpretation of culture. With the introduction of the Australian National Curriculum in the arts, there is cause to reflect on teacher education courses, and pre-service teachers' ability to deliver the new curriculum. Reflection on students' experiences in the arts may provide insight into improving teacher education. A mixed methods study was conducted with first and fourth-year Bachelor of Education primary students at a Western Australian university, to determine students' arts experiences prior to and during the course. Fourth-year graduating students were also asked to reflect on their self-efficacy to teach the arts based on the course. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, and interview observations are presented to contextualise these findings. The research emphasised the importance of building self-efficacy to support ongoing personal and professional engagement with the arts.

High-stakes external assessment for practical courses is fraught with problems impacting on the manageability, validity and reliability of scoring. Alternative approaches to assessment using digital technologies have the potential to address these problems. This paper describes a study that investigated the use of these technologies to create and submit digital representations of practical production work and forms of creative expression for summative high-stakes assessment. The study set out to determine the feasibility of students creating and submitting these digital representations for assessment and to identify which of analytical or comparative pairs scoring generated the more reliable scores. This paper proposes that scoring digital representations of creative practical work submitted by students is a viable alternative to traditional approaches to assessment.

The 'responding' strand of the Australian visual arts curriculum promotes twenty-first century learning skills through students' analytical engagement with artworks and artists. Assessing students' experiences and engagement is one strategy to improve teaching and learning in responding. However, there are no validated, subject-specific student engagement instruments for teachers to use. This study sought to develop a student self-report diagnostic instrument that provides information on past experiences with visual arts and factors affecting both cognitive and psychological engagement, with implications for improving teaching and learning. The instrument was piloted with 266 Year 10 to 12 students, as responding has an approximate 50% assessment weighting in the Australian visual arts course for senior school students. This paper reports on the exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses conducted in the development of the instrument. It adds to the body of knowledge on developing engagement instruments, recognising that student engagement in secondary education is context-dependent.

Building a sustainable career in the creative industries is a challenging proposition. Creative workers face high levels of employment insecurity and limited career development opportunity. Those working in the sector must build discipline-oriented career self-management skills, while also finding ways to cope with the psychologically demanding nature of precarious work. Two competencies that contribute to creative career success are self-efficacy and career optimism, both of which support resilience and persistence in the face of career obstacles. This study used narrative data from 28 interviews across six creative disciplines to examine how creative workers who work within communities of practice build self-efficacy and career optimism. The findings suggested that, by participating in communities of practice, creative practitioners not only build professional skills that align with their discipline but also gain psychosocial support that promotes resilience. There is an opportunity, therefore, to enhance understanding of communities of practice with creative career development offerings.

This article discusses how a New South Wales (NSW), Australia, visual arts educator, Diane, and her 10th-grade students used art practice as research and visual process diaries to create mini bodies of work. According to Marshall and D'Adamo (2011), art practice as research stresses conceptual and technical skills, uses artwork for interdisciplinary inquiry, is student-driven yet educator guided, and employs concepts that connect to multiple academic fields. Art practice as research acknowledges the creative process as an integral part of artmaking practice; it invites art educators to consider providing students with an ability to articulate creative practice in explicit and knowledgeable ways (Marshall, 2015). It allows students to understand their artmaking processes, how they acquire knowledge, and how to articulate their own belief systems about artmaking, as derived from the synthesis of information (intellectual, emotional, and personal) from their world. The author found that visual process diaries, bodies of work, and art practice as research can serve as exciting and viable models for U.S. art education practice. By investigating and emulating artists' practices and ideas and by metacognitively reflecting on and communicating their own through process diaries and bodies of work, students can use art practice as research to interconnect ideas, link them to their own experiences and the world, and see artmaking as a way of thinking and knowing. Art practice as research helps students to understand their experiences in new ways as they investigate, creatively interpret, and become aware of their thinking.

Researchers navigating the ontological turn in educational research have increasingly looked to art as an alternative to conventional modes of qualitative inquiry. However, the rapprochement between art and post-qualitative research remains problematic. While some see this turn coinciding with established genealogies in arts-based research, others suggest that existing models of arts-based inquiry are largely incompatible with the radical onto-epistemological orientations associated with post-qualitative research. This paper argues that the integration of art into the social sciences is far from settled, while also offering a series of speculative propositions for an inhuman aesthetics that is responsive to the ontological turn. This inhuman theory of art is elaborated through Deleuze and Guattari's philosophy, and extended through an analysis of collaborative artworks produced by undergraduate visual art students. This leads to a consideration of how post-qualitative approaches might enable mutual activations among art, philosophy, and social research.

Forty per cent of new teachers in Australia leave the profession in the first five years (Ingersoll, 2012; Watt & Richardson, 2011; Hartsuyker, 2007). Stress, induction failure and professional isolation have been identified as key attrition factors. Mentoring has been used both internationally and in Australia to enhance induction and reduce professional isolation; however, these mentoring relationships are often fragile and there is a need to establish more effective mentoring models (Paris, 2010; Hartsuyker, 2007). Reciprocal Mentoring (RM) pairs two equal, though differently skilled, experts who act in the role of mentor and mentee to each other for mutual benefit. The RM approach is designed to support beginning teachers as they transition to the profession and to facilitate improved retention. The "Better Transition to Teaching" inquiry was initiated by Edith Cowan University in 2011. It investigated the impact of RM on the first year experience of 11 (visual arts) Western Australian beginning teachers, following their participation in an RM residency in 2010. A major outcome of the research was that at the end of the first year all beginning teacher participants were still working in the profession. All reported experiencing personal/professional challenges during their first year and, importantly, the support of mentors appeared to make a significant and positive difference to the participants' transition experience and their first year of teaching. (Contains 9 tables and 4 figures.)

Innovating in a higher education teaching context is never a straightforward matter. There are many factors influencing how, what, and when we teach, and the students' experiences of these things. This is especially so in the context of pre-service teacher education, forever evolving in response to rapidly changing technological, political and socio-cultural landscapes. In this paper we relate and reflect on the innovation of utilising the 3D immersive virtual world of Second Life in two secondary education units of study. We discuss and interrogate our own and our students' experiences when we used Second Life to teach in during the first unit, and to teach about in the second. (Contains 3 tables and 2 figures.)

The self-efficacy beliefs teachers hold about their ability to teach subjects shapes their competence in teaching. Teacher self-efficacy is defined as teacher beliefs in their ability to perform a teaching task. If teachers have strong teacher self-efficacy in the teaching of arts education, they are more likely to incorporate arts in the classroom. Alternatively, if teachers have weak teacher self-efficacy in the teaching of arts education they are less likely to include aspects of the arts in their curriculum. Little is known about teacher self-efficacy beliefs towards arts education in early childhood education. Since arts education is an important element in the curriculum of any classroom--including all early childhood classrooms--investigation of the beliefs that shape teacher practice is desirable. In 2010, a survey was distributed using convenience sampling to early childhood teachers throughout Queensland. There were 21 respondents, representing a response rate of 27%. Each completed an adapted version of the Teachers' Sense of Efficacy Scale for Arts Education. Perceived competence towards each of the five arts strands (dance, drama, media, visual arts and music) were compared to perceived competence in maths and English. The number of hours taught in each of the arts strands was also investigated. Findings suggest all of the respondent early childhood teachers had greater perceived competence for teaching maths and English compared to any of the arts strands. Some early childhood teachers did not engage with some of the arts strands (particularly drama, dance, media) in their daily classrooms. These findings provide glimpses of the current day-to-day running of early childhood classrooms and the role of arts education in the current climate of policy reform and accountability. (Contains 1 figure and 2 tables.)

This paper presents a story constellation about a beginning teacher (who is also the principal) located in a one-teacher school in an isolated community in Queensland, Australia. The constellation documents the teacher's self-efficacy for teaching the arts (music, dance, drama, visual arts and media). Tabitha, the participant, shares insights about teaching the arts in a rural school and the influence of the curriculum, community and policy that she encounters on a daily basis. The paper also probes those beliefs and values associated with rural stereotypes, teaching the arts and current support structures. Key findings emerge for policy makers, teaching administrators and teacher educators about the complexities of teaching the arts in rural Queensland. (Contains 3 footnotes.)

This paper reports the findings of a study on pre-service teachers' background and confidence in music and visual arts education. The study involved 939 non-specialist pre-service primary teachers from five countries. Initially the paper identifies the students' perceptions of their background and confidence in relation to music and visual arts education. Secondly it examines any differences between the visual arts and music education background and confidence of Australian students and those from the other four countries. Results indicated that 25% of the subjects agreed or strongly agreed that they had a good background in music education and 16% indicated that they had a good background in visual arts education. In relation to confidence, 56% of the respondents indicated they felt confident teaching visual arts and 50% felt confident teaching music. There were also significant differences between countries in relation to background and confidence in the two art forms. (Contains 6 tables.)

This paper examines and reports on beginning generalist teacher self-efficacy, which Bandura (1997) suggests plays an important part in student outcomes. In 2008, 201 beginning generalist teachers throughout the state of Queensland, Australia, participated in a study that aimed to provide a snapshot of current perceptions towards support in schools for the arts. Beginning teachers were asked to rank their school support for a number of different subjects in the school curriculum and provide written justification for these rankings. Results suggest that beginning teachers perceived a general lack of support for the teaching of the arts in their classroom, compared to English and maths. They reported that schools provided greater financial support, assistance and professional development for the teaching of literacy and numeracy with a view to increase school performance in national testing. Findings provide key insights for school administrators and policy makers for the adequate delivery of arts education in Queensland schools, particularly when this task falls to generalist teachers with little or no subject expertise in the arts. (Contains 3 figures, 2 footnotes, and 1 table.)

The 2007 "Top of the Class" report on the Inquiry into Teacher Education in Australia found teacher induction failure and high attrition rates were endemic in most Australian states. Mentoring was advocated as an important mechanism for countering the debilitating drain attrition exerted on the profession (more than 30% within the first years in most developed nations). Reciprocal mentoring represents a departure from traditional mentoring arrangements in that it aligns two professionals with skills of equivalent importance and stature but in different discipline areas/domains. The importance of "reciprocity" in sustaining mentoring relationships is a distinctive theme in the conceptual framework for the model. In 2010 Graduate Diploma pre-service teachers from visual arts, music, drama and mathematics will be matched to mentors in reciprocal mentoring residencies in the first formal study of the mentoring innovation. This paper acts in the capacity of a prolegomena, describing the work undertaken to date and over-viewing the reciprocal mentoring which will occur in 2010. (Contains 2 figures and 2 tables.)

In a time when schools are focussing on increasing their numeracy and literacy scores, teachers are often required to spend the majority of their time teaching Mathematics and English and have little time left for the arts and other subjects. This has led to some teachers developing integrated programs in order to cover all the required learning experiences. However, practitioners and researchers have found that in many cases, integration results in superficial learning with few subject-specific outcomes being achieved. This paper presents three models or levels of integration (service connections, symmetric correlations and syntegration) where curriculum subjects can work together to achieve subject-specific as well as generic outcomes, then gives examples of how these models can be used within the primary school curriculum. It concludes with a real-life example of a syntegrated learning project. (Contains 3 figures.)