ABSTRACT
This chapter provides some reflections on the potential of the arts for navigating the complex realities of contemporary education, steering a course in between the Scylla of the high instrumentalisation of the arts in education. The educational significance of the arts, and perhaps the educational urgency of the arts, lies in art education beyond expressivism and creativity. The argument about the potential disappearance of art from art education is relatively easy to establish, as it is visible in the ongoing presence of instrumental justifications for the arts in education. Education should be concerned with questions about the right voice, the right creativity and the right identity, but an entirely different matter to determine what would count as right. In some cases religious and spiritual powers were supposed to be able to provide final answers to questions about life, living and human destiny.
