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Research topic/aim: Based on the concept of defamiliarization, this paper examines how artistic methods can be used in teaching to explore and challenge different topics and working practices in educational contexts. This is especially relevant in relation to the complexand changing world that schools need to equip students to face. The paper aims to answer the following questions: In what way can defamiliarization be understood as a pedagogical method? And how can defamiliarization be used as a critical perspective in education?

The paper is mainly based on an article about using artistic methods in compulsory school as a way to problematize an anthropocentric perspective (Marklund, 2022), with examples from visual arts in a lower secondary school in Sweden. The paper also includes an example of using art assignments in higher education to explore conceptual themes in visual arts, as well as unconventional methods for teaching.

Theoretical framework: The term defamiliarization derives from Russian formalism and describes when the artistic form, the embodiment or shape of something, is used to make us stop and be surprised, breaking our routines and habitual ways of seeing (Sklovskij, 1971). Here the concept is utilized to test its bearing on concrete situations when using artistic methods in teaching.

Methodological design: The data consists of observation notes, interviews and students' pictures from an art assignment in lower secondary school on the theme of human rights. The assignment concerned aspects of social sustainability with an aim to foster democratic values and ran over an entire semester. The pictures were exhibited in a library at the end of the semester.

Expected conclusions/findings: As a pedagogical method, defamiliarization can be used as an artistic device in production or when experiencing art. Artistic methods can also defamiliarize the forms of teaching in school. The degree of defamiliarization in students’ pictures vary, and using artistic methods does not necessarily mean that the theme or topic of the assignment becomes defamiliarized. In order to use defamiliarization as a critical perspective in education, students need support and guidance in order to ensure a problematization of the subject content. However, students experience defamiliarization in a different way than the teacher.

The result show that a strong formalized and goal-oriented school discourse can hamper defamiliarization, thus changingenvironment or simply providing a different work method can offer a possible change of perspective.

Relevance to Nordic educational research: The result is interesting in relation to several educational contexts, since it highlights the challenges of working in a goal oriented school, while encouraging students to dare to go beyond the expected and think outside the box.