Visual Education: repositioning visual arts and design: educating for expression and participation in an increasingly visually-mediated world

Visual Education is emerging as a field of education driven by changing practice, contemporary society and technology. It recognises that today’s students have an increasing need to be visually proficient within an understanding of aesthetic, artistic and cultural concepts, in order to effectively express themselves and communicate in the contemporary world. Visual Education essentially extends and repositions visual arts and design education with other traditional and emerging disciplines that are unified by the primacy of the visual. Since the educational field is emergent, the nature of Visual Education is powerfully revealed by attending to the practices, thoughts and ideas of those working in the area. In Australia, the team of researchers who conceived of Visual Education have assembled a suite of case studies that are based on classroom observations of pedagogical practices that were conducted across the country. In this paper, the concept of Visual Education is further developed and elucidated through case studies that reveal pedagogical practices used by exemplary visual educators who are committed to visually educating students across all years of compulsory schooling.