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This paper presents an on-going research project that study the implementa-tion of a particular “core content” in the Swedish syllabus for visual art (Bild)in secondary school: the students are suppose to produce narrative pictures, orpictures that tell stories, about their own experiences and opinions. This seem-ingly simple content and knowledge aim is actually a complex one, combiningseveral aims in the subject. The students need knowledge of different tech-niques and materials, as well as compositional knowledge. They also need a ba-sic understanding of visual communication and the characteristics of differentkind of pictures and genres. The emphasis on students’ own experiences andopinions, which is expressed in the syllabus, contributes to yet another levelof complexity. Previous studies have on one hand highlighted the potential toaddress issues on gender, identity, ethnicity etcetera in the subject, but on theother hand research have also identified a link between an individual-centereddiscourse in the subject and gender-specific expressions; meaning that whenstudents are asked to relate to, or express, their own identity in their art work,the pictures tend to become more gender stereotypical. An assumption is that working with narrative pictures in an educational setting accentuates values inrelation to knowledge, democracy, subjectification and socialization. The aimof my thesis is therefore to examine how visual arts education in secondaryschool creates conditions for narrative picture production, and which normsand values that thereby are constructed and reproduced.