Reconsidering the Role of Artists in Initial Teacher Training

Abstract

This article is concerned with the role that artists might have in the process of preparing teachers of drama in the UK. It considers the ways in which culturally held values, which in the West create a distinction between school-based art-making and the professional arts, might be challenged and developed. It proposes a critical understanding of the field of cultural production to explain this divide, and greater consideration of the models of artistic practice that student teachers experience. The article suggests that initial teacher education has a role to play in this process and draws upon a small-scale research project, which proposes a conscious engagement of particular kinds of artistic practice in Initial Teacher Training (ITT) .