For some time, the research literature has laboured on an unsteady relationship between the arts and literacy in schools across a number of contexts including the UK (Adams, 2011), across Europe (Chabanne et al., 2017; Østern, 2016), the USA (Baker, 2012; Sabol, 2010), Canada (O’Neill & Schmidt, 2017) and Australia (Barton, Baguley & MacDonald, 2013). Largely resulting from mandated strategic policies and directives to raise standards on high stakes testing in developed countries, the provision of quality arts education in schools is reported to be at an all-time low (Barton & Ewing, 2017). This situation is despite the extensive body of research that acknowledges the importance of aesthetic-artistic, creative and design thinking, skills often learnt in the arts, needed for the 21^st century and beyond. The presentation therefore focuses on the topic of the arts and literacy in schools. It explores how the relationship between the arts and literacy can be both dissonant and harmonious depending on conceptual and pedagogical approaches adopted by administrators and educators. The presentation therefore aims to answer the questions: What relationship currently exists between the arts and literacy in schools? and How can this knowledge influence future classroom practice?

The main objective of the research was to address the commonly reported issue that the provision of quality arts education in schools are gravely impacted on by literacy education and in particular standardised tests such as Pan-Canadian Assessment Program (PCAP) in Canada, Scholastic Aptitude or Assessment Tests (SATs) in the UK and USA, National Assessment Program: Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) in Australia and the international regime Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) (see Barton & Ewing, 2017 for example). The research therefore aimed to reveal both the tensions and harmonies that exist between the arts and literacy in contemporary classroom practice across the arts forms including: dance, drama, music and visual arts. It also endeavoured to investigate how educators feel about the relationship between the arts and literacy. It aimed to identify not only how literacy education practices in schools are impacting on the arts but also the distinct and inherent literacies that are present in the arts.

Barton’s (2014) work shares a definition of literacy as “interpretive and expressive fluency through symbolic form, whether aural/sonic, embodied, textual, visual, written or a combination of these within the context of a particular art form” (pp. 3-4). This view of literacy takes into account the need to value other modes of communication other than just linguistics or language via written text, which is often privileged in educational curriculum, assessment and reporting. It acknowledges the fact that the arts have unique literacies that are not found in other content areas that comprise of artistic-aesthetic elements and forms. It argues that students of the arts are both interpreters and creators and that the process in becoming arts-literate involves deep investigations of others’ artforms and of oneself (Barton, 2014). Informed by a multimodal, semiotic approach this project aimed to identify a common language for both arts and literacy educators in the attempt to highlight a positive partnership rather than the usual picture painted; that of marginalised and narrow practices. It also however, recognises that the arts have instrumental and intrinsic values found nowhere else. The aim is to bridge the unsteady relationship between the arts and literacy with the view to empower and transform students’ lives.

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