By Mark Selkrieg
How “creative” language has colonized cultural policy, while arts education falls further into crisis: What cultural policy should do next
Australia’s next cultural policy is now being developed. Suggestions are open. Time to ask this question: Has the rise of “creative arts” language really harmed art education? This distinction is critically important.
What current cultural policy ‘revival’ says it will do and what has happened.
In 2023, the Australian government released revive: A place for every story, a story for every place. It celebrated the arts as “central to Australia’s future” and pledged $2.6 million to specialist arts education programs in schools. It said that “career paths in cultural and creative fields begin with art education.” This sounded like a promise. But look closely at the language, and a different picture emerges. when revive As celebrated, creative arts enrollment has collapsed. Research crisis documents by Gattenhof and Saunders, viz Enrollment in year 12 arts subjects fell by 21 per cent nationally, while at university level, creative arts enrollments fell significantly.. Many universities have closed degrees. revive This did not cause the crisis. But failed to admit it. It celebrated the arts while ignoring or attending to the structural barriers associated with arts education that created government policies.
Cultural policy that ignores educational policy is not cultural policy. This is a press release.
Language change: “art” to “creative”
Over the past decade or so the language has changed, for example, the Australia Council for the Arts has become Creative Australia. Arts Victoria became Creative Victoria. Across government, “arts” has been systematically replaced with “creatives”. It is not semantic. It is ideological.
When you change the names of departments and institutions, you signal that art is no longer about disciplines—dance, drama, music, visual arts—but about a common quality called “creativity” that can be extracted, measured, and deployed throughout the economy.
This is important because it enables the separation of art education from art policy. Education ministers and industry ministers no longer speak the same language. As researcher Dan Harris points out, there is a Fundamental tension between Jason Clare (education) and Tony Burke (art).—They don’t agree on what arts education means or how it should be funded. When “art” becomes “creative”, this confusion disappears. It is possible to celebrate “creativity” in cultural policy while art education is denied in educational policy.
how revive Arts reframe education as workforce development
revive The phrase “creative arts” is used 47 times. It only uses “banana education” 12 times. When arts education is discussed, it is almost always in the context of “career pathways” or “workforce development.” Note: “Career choice in Industry” – “Not in Education”. This represents a fundamental change. revive The arts make education instrumental—a means of developing creative workers. Not intrinsic – valuable in itself. Arts education becomes a pipeline, not a public good. It becomes staff development, not human development.
When we think of arts education as workforce development, we reduce it to economic terms. We lose the spiritual and existential dimension that makes art education valuable in itself. A narrow focus on material needs—on jobs and economic returns—ignores the dimension of spiritual freedom, a basic existential freedom essential to human flourishing.
Why creative arts and art education are not the same thing
When you think of art as “creative art,” you’re asking a different question than when you think of art as “education.” A creative arts approach asks: How do we develop a creative economy? How do we support creative workers? What is the return on investment? An arts education approach asks: How do we teach young people to think creatively? How can we develop artistic discipline? What is the inherent value of the arts in human development?
A creative industry approach is market driven. It expects the sector to be self-financing. It focuses on extracting skills. It then claims an immediate return on investment. An arts education approach treats art as a public good. This requires public investment. It focuses on discipline based learning. And it understands that building cultural competence takes time.
This framework is inconsistent. Justin O’Connor argues, Culture and the arts require a renewed social contractIt must shift from the economy to the public sphere of care, commons and service provision. This is what art education requires. It should be considered a fundamental part of democratic citizenship—a public good—not a sector developed for economic returns.
revive Art uses the language of education but places it in the service of the logic of creative art. This allows policymakers to claim that they support arts education while implementing policies that undermine it. This is a policy conflict enabled by language colonization.
The Inconvenient Truth: Slippage and Impoverishment
Slippage of terms is a significant concern. A gradual shift from “art” to “creative arts”. The slow replacement of “arts education” with “workforce development”.
This slippage is not accidental. The “creative arts” language sounds progressive. But in the process, we lose something essential: the idea that arts education is a public good. It has inherent value. That young people have the right to learn artistic disciplines.
As argued in a previous blog, Current trends in learning – with an emphasis on testing, measurement and “21st century skills” – have led to poorer approaches to arts education.. When the arts become “creative skills” to be extracted and measured, the depth and rigor of the artistic discipline is lost. Art education becomes about developing general skills rather than teaching young people to think, create and express themselves through specific artistic forms.
When you stop noticing this slippage, you end up with a cultural ethos that celebrates the creative economy while diminishing arts education. This is it reviveAnd if we are not careful, it will happen again revive 2.0
what revive 2.0 will do differently
This is a moment to make a choice: will we repeat its mistakes? revive 1.0, or will we finally acknowledge the tension between creative arts and arts education?
most importantly, revive 2.0 art must be considered education, not art. It means public investment. This means a coherent national approach to arts education. And that means making sure education ministers and industry ministers come together. It also means recognizing that you cannot have a thriving creative sector without a functioning arts education system.
But it also means being careful about language. This means noticing when “arts education” crosses over into “workforce development.” This means resisting the colonization of the language of art education by the logic of the creative arts. And that means asking: are we talking about the arts as a public good, or the arts as a sector to develop?
revive 2.0 is now in development, suggestions are open, until 24m may and provides an opportunity to address a gap and make some careful choices or distinctions. Because the language we use will shape the policies implemented, which will determine whether young Australians have access to arts education, or whether we continue to celebrate the creative economy while arts education crumbles.
Mark Selkrieg is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Melbourne. Her research and scholarly work focuses on the changing nature of academics’ work, their identities and lived experiences of these phenomena. He has been the recipient of awards for publications in the field and is recognized for his leadership, outstanding work, and support for arts development and education. Mark is on LinkedIn.
This article was originally published Edu Research Matters. read on Main article.
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