ABSTRACT
The landscape and intellectual terrain of arts education is introduced in this chapter. It includes an account of relevant major shifts in educational policy in Australia over the last ten years including the introduction of the national curriculum (2014). It reviews prior arts research, particularly in Australia. A primary purpose behind this chapter is to establish where the unresolved issues exist in a field that has perhaps overly relied on statements made about the ‘supposed’ gains from arts education without robust research to support and validate such claims (Gadsen, 2008; Hetland and Winner, 2001). The chapter points to the value of using combined quantitative and qualitative methods to identify, measure and then examine best practice in arts classrooms.
