Department of Education, University of Oxford’s Post

We’re very excited to take part in Picture This: The Robson Orr Visual Literacy Research Initiative. 👁️ 🖼️ This research project, funded by Sybil Robson Orr and Matthew Orr, in collaboration with the Government Art Collection, Art UK and the Department of Education, University of Oxford, will measure how the observation and discussion of artworks in schools can support the development of visual literacy and oracy skills in students. The project will also evaluate how these skills – the ability to critically observe, analyse, question and interpret images – enhance students’ potential for success in life in an increasingly image-saturated world and fast-changing workplace. The mission of the report is to provide academic research to support the establishment of visual literacy as the fourth pillar of education. The initiative will also compare the effects on visual literacy skills and wider learning outcomes of using original artworks versus digital images in educational settings. Over the three years of the study (2025–7), Art UK and the GAC will work with the research team from the University of Oxford’s Department of Education and Oxford Gardens Libraries and Museums (GLAM) to engage with several thousand students and hundreds of teachers in primary and secondary schools across the UK. The work targets areas of low engagement with the creative arts, including priority education investment areas, primarily in England, but including Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The study will track student progression from primary to secondary education and propose best practice models to improve students’ visual literacy and support school professionals and collections across the UK to bring artworks into their schools. #PictureThis

We’re very excited to take part in Picture This: The Robson Orr Visual Literacy Research Initiative #PictureThis 📣 This research project, funded by Sybil Robson Orr and Matthew Orr, in collaboration with Government Art Collection, Art UK and the Department of Education, University of Oxford, will measure how the observation and discussion of artworks in schools can support the development of visual literacy and oracy skills in students. The project will also evaluate how these skills – the ability to critically observe, analyse, question and interpret images – enhance students’ potential for success in life in an increasingly image-saturated world and fast-changing workplace. The mission of the report is to provide academic research to support the establishment of visual literacy as the fourth pillar of education. The initiative will also compare the effects on visual literacy skills and wider learning outcomes of using original artworks versus digital images in educational settings. Over the three years of the study (2025–7), Art UK and Government Art Collection will work with the research team from the University of Oxford’s Department of Education and Oxford Gardens Libraries and Museums (GLAM) to engage with several thousand students and hundreds of teachers in primary and secondary schools across the UK. The work targets areas of low engagement with the creative arts, including priority education investment areas, primarily in England, but including Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The study will track student progression from primary to secondary education and propose best practice models to improve students’ visual literacy and support school professionals and collections across the UK to bring artworks into their schools. Read more 👉 https://lnkd.in/eWfsgN6N Workshop leader Silje, Picture This workshop 📷 Crown Copyright

8th International Conference of Visual Pedagogies and Research, 2025 Visualising Environments, Imagining Sustainable Developments: Place/visual media/art/technology for sustainable futures. 11th – 13th June 2025, University of Lancaster, Lancaster, United Kingdom. Interested in or working with diverse visual media in your methods? Join the AVP in the picturesque, historic city of Lancaster to explore the use of visual media in education about major environmental and social challenges of our times. These challenges include but are not limited to using visual media in methods and pedagogies to tackle: sustainability, AI, climate change, teaching about poverty, inequality, diversity, wellbeing, place-based and object-based learning, visual utopia and dystopia, posthumanism and sociomateriality, digital environments, waste and housing crises, circular fashion and associated approaches. We warmly invite delegates to consider these concepts concerning their contexts, and from across various visual pedagogies. Additionally, as always, we welcome papers that critically engage, with visual and image-led pedagogies and methods. Call for papers now open. Submission deadline: February 24th, 2025. For more information, visit: https://lnkd.in/eadMEdwr

Very proud that Art UK will be alongside the Government Art Collection in a major research study around visual literacy that will be carried out by Oxford University’s Department of Education. It is being generously funded by Sybil Robson Orr and Matthew Orr. Picture This: The Robson Orr Visual Literacy Research Initiative is a three-year study which in the words of the funders aims to “…provide academic research to support the establishment of visual literacy as one of the key pillars of education. The project will measure how the observation and discussion of artworks in schools can support the development of visual literacy and oracy skills in students. It will also evaluate how these skills – the ability to critically observe, analyse, question and interpret images – enhances students’ potential for success in life in an increasingly image-saturated world and fast-changing workplace.” Art UK's Superpower of Looking visual literacy programme in primary schools, (which is being funded by Freelands Foundation) will form a core part of the research study. Read more here: https://lnkd.in/eWfsgN6N

Super excited about our latest article exploring ecoscenography pedagogies:)

Seeing (and reading) this article excited me! Visual literacy is essential in today's image-saturated world. It empowers us to interpret, create, and communicate through visual means, enhancing not only artistic skills but also broader cognitive abilities. By integrating visual literacy into education, we’re preparing future generations to engage thoughtfully with the world around them. More of this, please! #VisualLiteracy #ArtEducation #CriticalThinking

Visual literacy is crucial in today's image-driven world, benefiting both the young and old. Implementing similar initiatives in state schools to enhance visual literacy skills is vital for navigating our saturated media landscape. Let's prioritize equipping students with the tools to critically analyze and interpret visual information.

Sharpen your pencils for today's World Creativity and Innovation Day 🎨 Creativity and culture play a key role in our modern-day society, enabling individuals to express themselves freely while building a sense of community and belonging. Creativity is indeed a driving force in acting towards more social inclusion and development. ➡️ Hence today is the perfect day to introduce you to one of the embodiments of creativity and innovation for us: the visual journal 📖🖌️. It is an art-based tool open to each and everyone of us, a notebook in which participants are invited to express themselves through word and drawing or other forms of image. This tool helps to reconnect with one’s own resources, to self-soothe, self-regulate and de-stress, if necessary, to get in touch with one’s emotions, understand them better, and figure out what we need. The practice of visual journaling is particularly helpful for students of all ages. Dr Lucia Capacchione, psychologist and art therapist, author of numerous books on child therapy and self help, declared that visual journaling helps students get prepared and ready to learn :  " The process helps them to open up to a new world as they draw their challenges out, and it expands their mind. The students feel renewed.”    🖍 The Red Pencil advocates for and strongly encourages the use of visual journaling in schools. Last year, we asked a group of migrant students who participated in one of our school projects to talk about their experience with the visual journal. This creative tool helped them communicating their experiences and hurdles, as well as liberating their feelings. Through artistic mediation, it encouraged autonomy and self-confidence.    🎬 Watch our video to learn more about the project and the students' feedback on the visual journal !   

🎉 Excited to share a major milestone in my academic journey! 🎓 I have completed my Masters in Art Education under the mentorship of Dr. Delene Human. Name: Jean-Marie Willemse Supervisor: Dr. Delene Human Qualification: Masters degree in Art Education Abstract of the Study: Exploring First-Year Visual Arts Education Students’ Perceptions of Creativity This study explored how first-year Visual Arts education students perceived creativity. The focus was on visual arts in the first semester of the students’ first year of study, that is, the Visual Arts practical module JKU 101 at the University of Pretoria. I examined these students’ perceptions of creativity by taking influences like family, social background, gender, age, culture, other individuals in the individual’s life, and background information gathered through questionnaires into consideration while analysing their first artwork created during their first semester. There have been many studies on creativity and how it exists, but not many of these have discussed how individuals perceive creativity. Generally, the focus has been on the perception that individuals need to be creative to experience creativity but excluded those who do not identify as creative. In my study, to address this gap, I relied on existing studies to guide me while analysing the artwork of selected first-year Visual Arts education students to identify how they perceived creativity. I further relied on the “thinking hats” theory developed by de Bono in 1985 and the triarchic theory of human intelligence developed by Sternberg in 2003 to explore the creativity of those who did not identify as creative. De Bono’s lateral thinking method (the “thinking hats” theory) states that all individuals, no matter the influences or their skills, still experiences creativity. My findings showed that all the students in the study, irrespective of their skill set or level of creativity, experienced creativity, and that their ability to experience creativity was based on both internal and external influences. Nonetheless, at times, creativity in some of the individuals went unrecognised because it was identified differently. Consequently, I surmise that creativity and critical thinking are not limited to “special people” or “special occasions”, but that all people experience creativity in different ways. I'm eager to contribute to the discourse on creativity and education, emphasizing the inclusivity of creativity in all individuals. #ArtEducation #Creativity #MastersDegree #Research #AcademicJourney 🎨📚

'Speculating on the Futures of Art Education' was a recent keynote by SWISP Lab (delivered by Kate) at the International Society for Education through Art (InSEA) Asia Region Congress at the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute in Chongqing, China (23-25 September, 2024). In our abstract we asked: Do we know what art education’s future(s) might be? We set ourselves a complex challenge - to speculate on the futures of art education. Why? We know that art education can make a difference by teaching being and becoming in the world, in relation.    We live, learn, teach, and research in a global community where Western discourse often prevails, and shifting political agendas influence the art world in ways that are more to do with “jobs and growth” than community, creativity, complexity and collective imagination. Young people today are globally connected and understand their place in the pluriverse from multiple connection points. Still, the place of art education in society and how it should be valued is contested.    In this keynote, we explored the question:  How does art education contribute to the multiplicity of knowing, being, and doing?  We responded to this question through the big ideas of co-creation, complexities, creativities, and challenges:  1. Co-creation: The essence and power of human, more-than and non-human collaborative creation in art education.  2. Complexities: Navigating the intricate and sometimes contradictory multiplicities of global art education.  3. Creativities (Pluri): Embracing multiple forms and expressions of pluricreativities in art education.  4. Challenges: Identifying and addressing barriers in art education.    We proposed a shift from outdated constructivist epistemology to connectivism, emphasising entanglement with cyber social literacies to position art education as co-creative, unlimited, unbound, and collaborative. SWISP Lab are uniquely positioned to comment on Art Education Futures due to our engagement with complexities, creativities, and challenges in our living lab where we facilitate unlimited co-creation.    We concluded this invited keynote at the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute (SFAI) and School of Arts Education of SFAI by reaffirming the transformative potential of art education for fostering a pluriverse of knowing, being, and doing.