Research in Visual Arts Education - The National Society for ...

INTRODUCTION
The present report had in its inception the provisional title of “Nordic
Research in Visual Arts Education Revisited”. In 1998, I edited an anthology
called Nordic Visual Arts Research: A Theoretical and Methodological Review 1 .
In 2006, I invited Associate Professor Helene Illeris, The Danish School of
Education; Adjunct Professor Marjo Räsänen, University of Turku (Finland);
and Professor Liv Merete Nielsen, Oslo University College (Norway), to join
me in identifying and comment upon Nordic studies of visual arts education,
published during the last decade. In 2007, Assistant Professor Rósa
Kristín Júlíusdóttir, University of Akureyri (Iceland), joined the group.
Doctoral student Anna Ekström helped me with logistics and editing.
The need for an up-to-date knowledge base, with essays on national
trends and profiles, was felt by all of us. During the review national differences
appeared, which were unexpected to some of us. It was found that
the vocabulary that each reviewer used to describe the visual arts education
research and its development during the last decade, varied from country
to country. The Finnish report is characterized by an art discourse with
a frequent use of expressions such as artistic, arts-based, multicultural and
contemporary art.
Artistic as a generic term is also quite common in the Swedish report;
however, more specific references to the art world are absent. Some kind
of process (e.g. creative and/or learning process) is referred to both in the
Swedish and the Finnish reports.
An effort to define aesthetic learning is a salient feature of the Swedish
discourse. The concept became central in Denmark in the 1990s and found
its way to Sweden primarily by official reports advocating the integration of
the visual arts and other aesthetic activities, in the general curriculum.
Visual culture is a central concept in the Danish report, together with
media and contemporary art. In the Norwegian report, design stands out as a
key concept, supplemented with environmental participation. Environmental
education is also a research focus at one of the major sites for teacher training
in Finland. As far as Iceland is concerned, research is spread over a broad
range of topics, although most studies are in one way or another connected
to curriculum issues.
1
Lindström, Lars (Ed.) (1998). Nordic visual arts research. A theoretical and methodological review. Stockholm
Institute of Education (HLS Förlag). (Stockholm Library of Curriculum Studies, 2). See also: Keifer-Boyd,
Karen (2003). A review essay: Nordic visual arts research. Studies in Art Education, 44 (2), 178-183.
10 NORDIC VISUAL ARTS EDUCATION IN TRANSITION