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

MEDIATED ACTION AND AESTHETIC LEARNING
Themes in Swedish studies 1995–2008
Lars Lindström
Introduction
Contemporary education of visual arts teachers in Sweden can be characterized
in terms of two trends: decentralisation and academisation. In the 1960s,
when the shift from an art-based conception of the subject to visual communication
took place, all art teachers were trained at the University College
of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm (Konstfack) (Nordström 1994).
In 1976 Umeå University in Northern Sweden began to train art teachers as
well (Eklund, 2002). Since 1994, however, each institution of higher education
can decide which courses they want to teach. As a consequence, today
at least nine universities and university colleges offer curricula designed for
training art teachers . Since 1988, training in art education
has to be combined with preparation for teaching another school
subject as well. Therefore, a degree of bachelor of education in the visual
arts (Sw. bildlärarexamen) no longer exists.
Only Konstfack includes work samples as a requirement for being accepted
into the programme. At other schools for education, the artistic training of
students before entering the programme varies a lot. The decentralisation
of art teacher training has consequences for the identity formation of art
teachers. As with music teachers (Alexandersson, 2007), teaching art tended
to be a way of life rather than a profession. Art teachers accepted or even
appreciated being defined as “outsiders” in the school community. The present
generation, trained in pictorial studies combined with another school
subject at institutes all over the country, increasingly look upon themselves
as any other category of teachers (Marner, 2008).
As a result of more than half a century of reforms, teacher education
has step by step been integrated into the university. The latest step in that
direction was taken in 2007 when the Stockholm Institute of Education,
preparing one fifth of all teachers in the country for their profession, was
closed down as an autonomous authority and absorbed by eight departments
of educational sciences erected at Stockholm University. A Department of
52 NORDIC VISUAL ARTS EDUCATION IN TRANSITION