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

ART, DESIGN AND ENVIRONMENTAL PARTICIPATION
The Norwegian educational system and its content
The Norwegian educational system is guided by national curricula. Both
primary and secondary education received new national curricula – named
Kunnskapsløftet [Knowledge Promotion] – in August 2006. The teacher
training education is also guided by national guidelines.
Primary and lower secondary education
Norway is the only Scandinavian country where art, design, architecture
and craft are merged into a single broad subject in the primary and lower
secondary school. This merge was executed in 1960 for the subject now called
Kunst og håndverk [Art and Crafts]. The national curriculum is being
renewed approximately every tenth year, and it mirrors the changes to the
prevailing ideas about what is actual and needed for the contemporary period
and for the future.
Art and Crafts
(1997)
Forming
(1960)
Drawing Textile Woodwork
Figure 3. Drawing, Textile and Woodwork [Sløyd] were introduced in the national curriculum
for primary and lower secondary school in the late 1800s. These three subjects were merged
into one subject, Forming, in 1960. In the period from 1960 to 1997 the paradigm of selfexpression
influenced the subject. After 1997, when the subject changed name to Art and
Crafts, the focus has been moved towards visual communication, design, art and architecture.
Today the subject Kunst og håndverk contains four main areas, they being:
Visual Communication, Design, Art and Architecture. Within these four fields
the children are supposed to work in the studios and combine their practical
work with reflection, thus building a new insight in visual and material
culture in perspective both of personal, local and global sustainability. From
128 NORDIC VISUAL ARTS EDUCATION IN TRANSITION