Portraits of Quality Arts Education in Australian Primary School Classrooms

Abstract

The status of arts education in primary schools is, according to the extant literature and popular commentary, infrequent and substandard. A small number of studies reflect on what actually occurs when arts education is taught in primary school classrooms. This thesis presents thick, rich, descriptive portraits of the nature of quality arts education occurring in Australian primary school classrooms. Two case sites were involved in this study – one primary school in Victoria, one in Queensland. Working within the interpretivist paradigm, portraiture methodology was employed, supported by a case-study approach. Crystallization was used as a methodological referent to ensure the validity and reliability of data collection and representation. The nine domains of Bamford and Glinkowski’s (2010) Effect and Impact Tracking Matrix (EITM) acted as a scaffold to inform instrument development, data collection, and subsequent data organisation of completed portraits of quality arts education in Australian primary school classrooms. Arts education was found to be happening in the primary school classrooms involved in this study, within generalist as well as specialist classrooms. It was asserted that the nature of quality arts education needs to be defined broadly. Such a broad definition is presented.