Art educators claim that Visual Culture Art Education (VCAE) can facilitate students' critical thinking skills and creativity. This article explores a study conducted in Hong Kong senior secondary schools that analysed the extent to which VCAE promotes creativity and critical thinking skills using both quantitative and qualitative approaches. The discussion identifies the ways that VCAE students made connections between their everyday life experiences, social lives, and culture and in the process developed their creativity and critical thinking skills. Copyright © 2021 Art Education Australia.

There is a lack of empirical research into group dialogue and questioning - the most basic component of teaching in art lessons. This study investigated the dialogues conducted by primary school visual arts teachers with their students. Eight teacher participants were observed and their teaching was examined against a theoretical framework constructed from a spectrum of dialogue and questioning strategies proposed by various theorists. From the observed dialogues, it was found that most teachers focused primarily on the observation and visual analysis of artworks. They also introduced some essential contextual knowledge to their students. However, interpretations of artworks were rather limited. Lastly, the development of students' personal connections with and judgment of artworks were ignored by most of the teachers. The study is particularly meaningful given the increased emphasis on learning art criticism in the new visual arts curriculum and amidst the latest cultural developments in Hong Kong. Copyright © 2019 Australian Institute of Art Education.