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

BETWEEN VISUAL ARTS AND VISUAL CULTURE
Comments on the list of Danish publications
The list of Danish publications includes almost 200 references to texts published
between 1995 and 2006 and written by almost 80 different authors
from within the field of visual arts education or affiliated areas. The texts
represent different genres of literature from classical Doctorate theses,
which are the results of almost life-long investigations, to reports and articles
written by teachers and educators who conduct research based investigations
into actual art educational projects.
The variety of material shows very well how the field has expanded in
many different directions. Relatively new areas of research such as visual
culture, ICT and new media, sensory experiences, contemporary art practices,
gallery education, and children’s culture receive much attention in
these texts, but also more “traditional” issues such as children’s picture production,
aesthetic learning processes, curriculum studies etc. continue to be
explored from new angles and in the light of new practices.
If one should focus on what is missing from the list, I would point to a
curious lack of publications about multicultural art education (a couple of
Mie Buhl’s texts address this important issue, but they seem to stand quite
alone) and to the relatively few texts about design and architecture (in this
area Ingelise Flensborg seems to dominate with her profound insights into
spatial perception).
Both the selection and the categorisation of the texts enclosed in the list
are of course the result of choices that could have been made differently. In
addition to texts written as direct contributions to the field of visual arts
education, I have chosen to include texts from other areas, which for different
reasons have affiliations with the more restricted field. Most of these
texts are included because their theme relates to visual arts education, but
some texts are also included mainly because they are published in books and
journals from within the field or because the author(s) is related to the field.
On the other hand, textbooks directed at students have been excluded
together with non-research-based texts, describing, for example, an innovative
project or lesson in art education, e.g. many articles in Billedpædagogisk
Tidsskrift. These exclusions have been made because the aim of the list is to
present an account of research-based publications, and not a comprehensive
overview of all publications in the field.
More than half of the texts in the list are journal articles, and a majority
of these have been published in Billedpædagogisk Tidsskrift. The importance
of this journal for Danish visual arts education can therefore not be underestimated
as the place where the interests of teachers, teacher trainers and
researchers are represented side by side.
NORDIC VISUAL ARTS EDUCATION IN TRANSITION 89