International Journal of Education & the Arts

Citation: Hotko, K, Lasczik, A, & Hudson, S. (2025). Creative self-beliefs and the ecologies of a/r/tographic knowing: Generalist primary teachers developing praxical creativity. International Journal of Education & the Arts, 26(22). http://doi.org/10.26209/ijea26n22

This paper explores a study that investigated the creative self-beliefs of 20 generalist primary teachers and how these beliefs might impact their delivery of high-quality art experiences in their classrooms. The study aimed to gain greater insights into primary teachers’ self-beliefs about their own creativity and artmaking agency and how these beliefs are impacted through focused artmaking in a studio environment with others. Building on the strong history of a/r/tographic methodology, this paper examines the potentialities of the ecologies of a/r/tographic knowing, namely poiesis, praxis and theoria and how these ways of knowing increase creative self-belief. This study found that artmaking impacts teachers’ creative self-belief in positive ways and expanded understandings of creativity and art practice. This was demonstrated in ongoing self-reported changes to pedagogical approaches in the teachers’ classrooms as well as shifts in more positive attitudes and personal artmaking praxis.