A new Education Law passed in Spain at the end of 2020. In the months leading up to it, art education teachers at university and secondary level mobilised to ensure that this field of knowledge was among the curriculum's compulsory subjects. They organised a constant and effective campaign in the media and social networks to highlight the importance of this field of knowledge for students and society. This campaign's promoters enumerated arts education benefits for physical and mental health, economic development, and social equity; in making people more sensitive and caring; and the importance of arts education in fostering imagination, creativity and other skills bring benefits to individuals and society. Arts education also appeared in their claims as a way of promoting solidarity and the development of a critical attitude. This list of advantages also included arts education contributions for balanced development in childhood and the value of documentation and visual methods to follow educational processes.  And its active role at museums, art centres and all kinds of artistic manifestations. In addition, they point out art education can contribute to improving the whole educational system as a conveyor for interdisciplinarity and teach and learn any knowledge in a multimodal way.

On the other hand, there is an increasing interest to work with creative methods in the fields non-strictly related to arts. From social and health fields in education and research creative methods are been introduced as a tool that enables see, talk, and share experiences and thoughts that otherwise would not be possible.   

All these circumstances seem that ask to focus on “how research can improve practice and expand what is known about the nature and reach of art education as it is engaged in different places, contexts, and educational sites” (O’Donoghue, 2020, p. 188). The idea of research for improving practices makes it necessary explicit, as Jörissen, Klepacki & Wagner (2018) claim, the kind of research referred to by the term “research in arts education”. What “can only be grasped appropriately by examining the socio-cultural and historical influences, the subject-related influences, as well as the politico-normative influences, patterns, and guidelines both of the social scientists involved and of their analytical practices” (p.2).

Therefore, it is necessary to link each of these statements to questions - to what we do not know and want to understand - that lead us to research to support them. With this support, the need to be recognised acquires a foundation, which completes the one derived from experience.  Hence the interest in sharing and discussing, as this symposium intends to do, questions: what do creative methods in research and training practices contribute to a better understanding of educational and artistic phenomena? What knowledge derives from these methods that, thanks to them, would otherwise remain invisible? How are artistic methods linked to research on multimodal learning (Norris, 2004; Martinec & Salway, 2005; Singh, & Chrysagis, 2019)? 

Considering the above issues, it might lead us to follow the invitation of Dónald O ' Donoghue (2020): "to think about what (we) are doing when (we) conceptualize, plan, and pursue inquiry and share research outcomes" (p 187, paraphrased). By following this aim, this symposium could be "an opportunity (…) to scholars in the field to reflect on questions of intention, purpose, attachment, curiosity, and habits of inquiry, meaning-making, and representation" (idem) which guide and focus the research on and from arts education. It is also an invitation to explore the connection between arts, education, and research reflected in these papers. What onto-episte-methodological and ethical understanding and research questions are identifiable in these contributions?

Jörissen, Benjamin; Klepacki, Leopold & Wagner, Ernst (2018). Arts Education Research. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.013.31 Martinec, R. & Salway, A. (2005). A system for image-text relations in new (and old) media. Visual Communication, 4 (3), 337–371. Norris, S. (2004). Analyzing multimodal interaction—A methodological framework. Igarss 2014. http://doi.org/10.4324/9780203379493 O’Donoghue, D. (2020). Orientations, Dispositions, and Stances in Art Education Research and Scholarship, Studies in Art Education, 61:3, 185-194. https://doi.org/10.1080/00393541.2020.1809216 Singh, J.P. & Chrysagis, E. (2019). Understanding Multimodalities in Arts and Social Sciences, Arts & International Affairs, 3.3/4.1, Winter 2018-2019. https://theartsjournal.net/2019/03/28/editorial-2/