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

BETWEEN VISUAL ARTS AND VISUAL CULTURE
introduction of the transdisciplinary educational approach of visual culture
seems to encourage continuous and fervid debates among researchers,
teacher trainers and teachers in the visual arts.
Visual arts education in the Danish educational system
The general structure of the Danish educational system differs from the
other Nordic countries, and from most countries in the world, because the
training of school teachers for the compulsory school is separated from universities,
and placed in eight “Professional University Colleges” (Professionshøjskoler).
This construction, which is intimately related to the Danish tradition
of a decentralised educational system, forms one of the four separate
Danish subsystems of education: the compulsory school system, the upper
secondary school system, the system of professional university colleges, and
the university system.
Compulsory school in Denmark is constituted by the nine years of the
public municipal school (Folkeskole). The Folkeskole is a comprehensive
school in the sense that it includes both primary and lower secondary education
in forms 1 to 9. Most Danish children attend compulsory school from
the age of six, when they enter the voluntary preschool year, to the age of
fifteen. In the Folkeskole visual arts is a compulsory subject from forms 1 to
5 and in most schools it reappears as an optional subject in forms 8 and 9.
The subject is separated from the handicrafts of needlework and woodwork
(Sløjd), which are normally taught in form 6. Visually oriented sub-disciplines,
such as picture analysis and the understanding of film and media are mostly
taught in the subject of Danish, especially in the higher forms.
In Denmark upper secondary education covers three years of study and it
is divided into general and vocational programmes. Until the latest reform,
visual arts was considered a natural part of the Bildung (formation) which
general upper secondary educational programmes are expected to provide.
From 2006 visual arts has lost much of its status by becoming an optional
subject. Furthermore, no Danish upper secondary educational programmes
are specialised in visual arts or handicrafts while several general upper secondary
schools offer specialisations in music. The lack of compulsory art
lessons after form 5 in the Folkeskole therefore has the consequence that a
considerable number of Danish young people do not receive any specific
visual arts education after the age of 11.
While art teachers in upper secondary schools generally hold a university
M.A. in art history or art theory, visual arts teachers in the Folkeskole hold
a practice-oriented “professional B.A.” (professionsbachelor) in education
NORDIC VISUAL ARTS EDUCATION IN TRANSITION 81