This course provides a philosophical realist framework for understanding critical issues and practice in contemporary visual arts education. It covers the content of constraints on art and art education including the importance of belief and conceives of practice as institutionally related and socially constructed in real time. Then it examines developmental constraints on students’ reasoning in art education focusing on empirical studies that identify how students’ knowledge and cognitive abilities function in their critical and practical reasoning. The course then critically examines curriculum design, implementation and assessment in NSW Visual Arts syllabuses with special attention given to key syllabus concepts including the frames and body of work while also identifying problems of authenticity in the assessment of students’ artworks. It then identifies the myths that surround visual literacy and visual culture before examining the complex issues, politics and practices of recent draft Australian curriculum development in the Arts with a focus on Visual Arts. It concludes with international comparisons in curriculum development.