Syntegration or Disintegration?
Models of Integrating the Arts across the Primary Curriculum
Deirdre Russell-Bowie
University of Western Sydney, School of Education, Australia
Citation: Russell-Bowie, D. (2009). Syntegration or disintegration? Models of integrating the arts across the primary curriculum. International Journal of
Education & the Arts, 10(28). Retrieved [date] from http://www.ijea.org/v10n28/.
Abstract
In a time when schools are focussing on increasing their numeracy and literacy
scores, teachers are often required to spend the majority of their time teaching
Mathematics and English and have little time left for the arts and other subjects.
This has led to some teachers developing integrated programs in order to cover all
the required learning experiences. However, practitioners and researchers have
found that in many cases, integration results in superficial learning with few
subject-specific outcomes being achieved. This paper presents three models or
levels of integration (service connections, symmetric correlations and
syntegration) where curriculum subjects can work together to achieve subjectspecific
as well as generic outcomes, then gives examples of how these models
can be used within the primary school curriculum. It concludes with a real-life
example of a syntegrated learning project.
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