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

ISSUES IN VISUAL ARTS EDUCATION
The conceptual framework (Miles & Huberman, 1994, pp. 18-22) displayed
in Figure 2, is not intended to be complete, to summarize a specific Nordic
perspective, or to propagate a particular philosophy. Below, in exemplifying
the concepts chosen, there is a bias towards Swedish and American studies,
i.e. those bodies of research with which I am most acquainted. Researchers
with another intellectual background would probably have organized the
knowledge base differently. However, regardless of whether one finds the
design of this map useful or not, it may stimulate the reader to articulate his
or her own preferred way to understand the knowledge resources of visual
arts education. Indeed, the framework should be thought of as a dynamic
structure, which can be elaborated in many directions for multiple purposes.
Arts education policy
Arts education policy occupies a central position in the map and is a natural
starting point as we move clockwise around the core of visual arts education.
Policy documents usually relate what happens in school to a wider
arena of cultural and educational policies, linking art education to democracy,
multiculturalism, creative and critical thinking, etc. In the Swedish
national curriculum (Skolverket, 2000), for example, visual arts education is
explicitly linked to civil rights:
Knowledge about pictures and visual communication are important conditions for an
active participation in the social life. An advanced capacity to make pictures facilitates for
children and youth to exercise their cultural freedom of speech, which includes the right
to formulate opinions of one’s own as well as having an influence. The school supports
the right of children and adolescents to be full participants in the art world and cultural
life, and warrants them, together with the society’s cultural life within and outside its
institutions, the right to multiple forms of expression (p. 8).
In the Norwegian national curriculum, the field of art and design education
in the compulsory school is linked to the idea of democratic participation
in developing the local environment. Participation assumes skills and knowledge
since decisions are often made on the bases of pictorial representations,
such as architectural drawings (Nielsen & Digranes, 2007).
Child and youth study
Child and youth study has deep roots in the field of art education. From
about 1885 to the 1960s interest mainly focused on children’s drawings.
Until the 1920s, many attempts were made to classify children’s drawings
18 NORDIC VISUAL ARTS EDUCATION IN TRANSITION