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Previous studies (Lindström, 2009) have mapped research in the field of visual arts education in the Nordic countries and found that the countries differ somewhat in terms of focus and areas of interest. One of the aims of the development project is to similarly map both educational programmes and research at the participating higher education institutions in order to gain a picture of the current situation and to find possible entry points for increased collaboration. For example, the type of theories and methods used and the concepts emphasised in education and research. However, participating institutions come into the project from different angles and with different interests and needs. A potential challenge for the project is therefore to balance two objectives that may clash. How do we identify common denominators that can enable exchanges of various kinds in both research and education, while at the same time allowing for the differences that exist between the countries and educational programmes? Diversity, we think, needs to be embraced as it offers different perspectives that can enrich our respective practices. But how can we, as a large and heterogeneous group, reach consensus on certain issues and what we want to achieve?  Do we need to think and act alike? In order to collaborate we also need to adjust to formal educational requirements. A possible risk of collaboration is that programmes become more standardised to enable exchanges. Is there a risk that something will be lost? How can we recognise our differences in a way that offers us the opportunity to test and rethink our practices. In this presentation we share some reflections based on ongoing analysis of our research and study programmes at Umea university, as well as discussions from the project start-up meeting in Helsinki in August 2024.

Reference: 

Lindström, L. (Ed.) (2009). Nordic visual art education in transition. A research review. Swedish Research Council.

The “academic drift” of professional education is an international phenomenon typically associated with the 1960s and 1970s and reflects an approach to problem-solving whereby science is regarded as the single-most important element while solving practical problems. Specifically, we focus on how esthetic school subjects from our media ecology perspective are challenged when some mediations, both theory- and script-based, are rewarded at the expense of action-based knowledge forms. In the study, we consider Official Reports of the Swedish Government (SOU), a type of authoritative policy text intended to influence an activity, but which govern less formally than “governing policy texts”, such as bills, which are legislative in nature. Our study shows that scientifically based content obtained greater space in various Techer Education programmes, while at the same time practical issues were theorized and given greater prominence. We conclude that the mentioned reforms have challenged the subject paradigm, and future subject ecology, involving changed recruitment patterns of teacher educators and shorter preparation studies for teacher students in the practical/esthetic subjects but also opportunities to develop new content and new methods.

Presentationen fokuserar en delstudie av det VR-finansierade projektet Estetikens ekologi: akademiseringen och digitaliseringen, eller ”amatörisering” av skolämnena bild och slöjd. Syftet med delstudien, som är av utbildningshistorisk karaktär, är att beskriva och analysera den ”akademiska drift” (Kyvik 2007; Kyvik & Skodvin 2003) i svensk lärarutbildning som började i och med 1946 års skolkommission (SOU 1948:27) och de konsekvenser som det innebar för lärarutbildning i estetiska ämnen. Våra frågeställningar är: Vad motiverade förslagen att akademisera lärarutbildning efter 2:a världskriget? Vilka principer föreslås av 1946 års skolkommission och hur görs de mer konkreta i senare utredningar? På vilka sätt utmanas lärarutbildning i teckning (bild), musik och slöjd av reformförslagen i utredningarna? I delstudien görs en kritisk diskursanalys av fem av statens offentliga utredningar, från tiden mellan 1946 och 1972, som föreslår reformer av skola och lärarutbildning. Statens offentliga utredningar betraktas som en typ av auktoritativ policyskrift avsedd att påverka en aktivitet, men som styr mindreformellt än propositioner, som har en lagstiftande karaktär. Vår studie visar att vetenskapligt baserat innehåll föreslogs få större utrymme i olika lärarutbildningar, samtidigt som praktiska frågor kom att teoretiseras. Vi drar slutsatsen att de reformersom föreslås i utredningarna har utmanat ämnesparadigmen och förändrat utbildningsekologin inom estetiska ämnen, vilket här inbegriper förändrade rekryteringsmönster och mindre förberedande studier i praktisk-estetiska ämnen, genom att göra lärarutbildningen mer teoretisk och likriktad.

Skolämnena slöjd och bild genomgår ständig förändring i takt med samhället och nya policydirektiv, men vad olika förändringar leder till i förlängningen är svårt att förutse. I det pågående fyraåriga forskningsprojektet Estetikens ekologiundersöks hur förändringsprocesserna akademisering och digitalisering skapar nya förutsättningar för det svenska slöjdämnet och bildämnet samt den handlingsburna kunskap som karaktäriserar ämnena. Akademiseringen av lärarutbildning har bidragit till vetenskapliggörande av undervisning, stärkt vetenskaplig grund och breddad forskningsanknytning men också kommit att förstärka den textburna kunskapen i ämnena i grundskola och lärarutbildning. Digitalisering och ökad digital verktygsanvändning påverkar undervisningens innehåll och form och när användningen av digitala verktyg ökar och tid omfördelas till reflektion och vetenskaplig skolning från utveckling av kunnande i hantverk så förändras slöjd- och bildämnenas förutsättningar. Projektets och presentationens övergripande syfte är att ur ett utbildningsekologiskt perspektiv belysa och diskutera hur nya förutsättningar skapas och vilka konsekvenser de får för ämnesinnehåll och slöjd- och bildlärares arbete. Projektet vilar på en mixed method design och i presentationen ges en första inblick i två av projektets delstudier, en enkätstudie och en intervjustudie med verksamma lärare i grundskolan. Presentationen fokuserar lärares uppfattningar om kursplanernas skrivningar och olika direktiv, hur de tänker om akademisering och digitalisering, förutsättningarna för undervisningen samt hur de beskriver sitt arbete med eleverna. Preliminära resultat visar exempelvis hur såväl akademisering som digitalisering tar både explicita och implicita uttryck och hur en likriktning av utbildningssystemet får långtgående konsekvenser för ämnenas förutsättningar. Delstudiernas informanter tenderar att anamma nya arbetssätt, men inte på en nivå där deras uppfattningar om ämnet och synen på kunskap utmanas. En fråga blir hur man kan tänka om den balans mellan motstånd och acceptans som lärarna beskriver och vad det betyder för ämnenas innehåll och likvärdighet? Projektets kunskapsbidrag rör hur lärarutbildningens omvandling och förändringar i policy också förändrar förutsättningarna för kunskapsutveckling i enskilda ämnen som slöjd och bild, och vilken betydelse det kan få för estetiska ämnen i skola och lärarutbildning.

While Swedish schools and teacher education under global influence adapt course content and teaching to what is measurable in internationalknowledge tests, other processes are proceeding, partly in the opposite direction. This project intends to address two of these oppositeprocesses: the academicization and the digitization of school and teacher education, and in particular their impact on the school subjects Art andSloyd.

The academisation of teacher education has created a broader research connection and a stronger scientific basis for school, supported by theSwedish School Act (Erixon Arreman 2008; SFS 2010: 800). This has led to a strengthening of text-based knowledge in both Art and Sloyd,subjects previously primarily based on action and experience-based knowledge (Borg 2007; Lindgren 2008; Carlgren 2015), in which the abilityto process, investigate and form material develops over time. Also, and unlike most other school subjects, Art and Sloyd are not connected to anacademic discipline. Therefore, the scientific basis for them is not clearly defined, and therefore more vulnerable to external pressure.

When more and more of the content of school subjects in the academisation process is mediated by written text, or when screen and keyboardreplace paper and pen, school subjects like Art and Sloyd change more than school subjects already strongly mediated by text. From aneducational ecological perspective (Bateson 1972; Goodlad 1997), the situation can be described as disrupting the ecological balance in thesubjects.

Theoretically, the project is based on an ecological perspective on education (Bateson 1972; Goodlad 1997). We consider the Aesthetic subjectsArt and Sloyd as living ecologies in interaction with surrounding parts of an extensive education system. The ecology, or ecosystem, consists ofinstitutions with special functions, rules, activities, goals, and people with different roles. An ecological way of understanding change considersthe procedural process and the fact that parts of the system always interact and affect the system as a whole in ways that may not initially beobvious. Overall, the concept of boundary crossing (Akkerman & Bakker 2011) is used to analyze how transfers of epistemologies andknowledge, under the influence of academia and digitalisation, occur across boundaries in educational ecology and the consequences it has (cf.Svenkerud et al, 2018). Furthermore, the project is based on media ecology as a way of understanding the impact of digital technologies ineducational contexts (Erixon 2015). New technology not only add something, but change the entire environments (Postman 1970); reshapesthinking and perception as well as what roles and actions are possible. At the same time, new and old technologies interact like different speciesin the ecosystem and compete for space. Changes in the ecosystem, evolution, occur not as one might think gradually, but in more unexpected,punctuated equilibrium, which violently displace the balance, in analogy with Kuhn's paradigm shift (Eldredge & Gould 1972; Erixon 2015).

In summary, the purpose of the project is to study how academicization and digitization of education create new conditions for the schoolsubjects Art and Sloyd, in compulsory school and teacher education. The aim is broken down in the following research questions:

1. What characterizes the processes of change in academia and digitization in the subjects Art and Sloyd?

2. What consequences will the academicization and digitalisation have for the subject content in Art and Sloyd?

3. What possible teacher positions are created by the academicization and digitization of Art and Sloyd?

4. What space is there for aesthetic and practical forms of knowledge in today's educational ecology?

Methodology or Methods/ Research Instruments or Sources Used: Neither quantitative nor qualitative data per se is sufficient to capture the complexity of the problem area. Therefore, several methods will beused, in a mixed methods sequential explanatory design (Ivankova, Creswell & Stick 2006). The study is based on three sub-studies: In the firstsub study (1), a document study, the background of the academicization and digitization of the Swedish education system (from compulsoryschool to teacher education) is mapped and analyzed, with a focus on significance for the subject’s Art and Sloyd. The method is criticaldiscourse analysis (CDA) (Fairclough 2010) and the material consists of policy documents and debate articles from teachers' union journals anddaily press. The second sub study (2) a survey study, aims to map the Art and Sloyd teachers' perceptions of what characterizes the changeprocesses academicization and digitization of the respective school subject, as well as the consequences the change processes have for thesubject content in Art and Sloyd. Quantitative data is then collected and analyzed to identify relationships and provide a general understanding ofthe research problem. The results are then used to design a qualitative case study, which can explain, develop and deepen the quantitativeresults. A case study involves an exploration of a system or one (or more) case over time, through a detailed, deep data collection using multiplesources of information, rich in context (Merriam 1998). The third sub-study (3) is an in-depth multidisciplinary study based on interviews (rhetoric)and observations (practice). Semi-structured interviews are conducted with 15 teachers from each school subject. The intention is to gather in-depth descriptions of the impact of academia and digitalisation on teaching and content in each subject.

Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or Findings: Our research issues are for instance derived from our own experiences as University teachers and lessons learned from two previously fundedprojects by the Swedish Research Council. The first concerned digitalization, School subject paradigm and teaching practice in screen culture(2010-2013), studying how school the subjects Art, Music and Swedish L1 change when digital media have a great influence (Erixon 2015). Thesecond project concerned academicization, the Struggle for the Text (2012–2016), and was about the requirement for academisation andacademic writing in relation to other and more practical parts of teacher education (Erixon & Josephson 2017). Also, in previous studies, participants in the research group have been concerned with digitalisation, showing that teachers in Art and Sloydrespectively to varying extent make use of digital tools in their teaching, and that resistance to digital tools is a common attitude among many ofthe teachers (Jeansson 2017; Wikberg 2017) as well as the students (Westerlund 2015). Ongoing pilot studies show that Sloyd teachereducators perceive digital tools and materials as a completely new area to acquire. Also, when it comes to academisation and a school on scientific basis, the spoken and written language tend to take oven and teachers who wish to develop other mediations are discouraged bystructures (Westerlund 2019). It is clear that development is taking place in different places and appears to be divisive, which shows therelevance of taking a comprehensive approach to the change processes that affect the school subjects' Art and Sloyd in different, and sometimescontradictory, ways.The project provides general knowledge about how teacher education’s transformations and changes in policy documents change the conditionsfor knowledge development in different subjects in different ways. 

References: Akkerman, Sanne F., & Bakker, Arthur. (2011). Boundary Crossing and Boundary Objects. Review of Educational Research,81(2), 132–169. Bateson, Gregory. (2000/1972). Steps to an Ecology of Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Björck, Catrine (2014). ”Klicka där!” En studie om bildundervisning med datorer. Stockholm: Stockholms universitet. Borg, Kajsa (2007). Akademisering. En väg till ökad professionalism i läraryrket? Pedagogisk forskning i Sverige, 12(3), 211–225. Carlgren, Ingrid (2015). Kunskapskulturer och undervisningspraktiker. Göteborg: Daidalos. Cuban. Eldredge, Niles J. & Gould, Stephen J. (1972). Punctuated equilibria: An alternative to phyletic gradualism. I: Thomas J. M.Schopf. (red.). Models in paleobiology (s. 82–115). San Francisco: Freeman Cooper. Erixon Arreman, Inger (2008). The Process of Finding a Shape: stabilising new research structures in Swedish teachereducation, 2000-2007. European Educational Research Journal, 7(2), 157–175. Erixon, Per-Olof (2015). Punctuated equilibrium – Digital Technology in Schools ́ Teaching of the Mother Tongue. ScandinavianJournal of Educational Research, 60(3), 337–358. Erixon, Per-Olof & Josephson, Olle (red.) (2017). Kampen om texten. Examensarbetet i lärarutbildningen. Lund: Studentlitteratur. Fairclough, Norman (2010). Critical Discourse Analysis. Harlow: Longman. Goodlad, John I. (1997). In Praise of Education. New York: Teachers College Press. Gouseti, Ivankova, Nalaliya, Creswell, John W. & Stick, Sheldon L. (2006). Using Mixed-Methods Sequential Explanatory Design: FromTheory to Practice. Field Methods, 18(1), 3–20. Jeansson, Åsa (2017). Vad, hur och varför i slöjdämnet. Textillärares uppfattningar om innehåll och undervisning i relation tillkursplanen. Umeå: Umeå universitet. Lindgren, Bengt (2008). Forskningsfältet bilddidaktik. Rapport från Institutionen för pedagogik och didaktik, Göteborgsuniversitet. Merriam, Sharan B. (1998). Qualitative research and case study applications in education: Revised and expanded from casestudy research in education. San Fransisco: Jossey-Bass. Neave, Guy (1979). Academic drift: Some views from Europe. Studiesin Higher Education, 4(2), 143–159. SFS 2010:800. Swedish School Acto [Skollag] 1 kap. 5 §. Svenkerud, Sigryn., Ballangrud, Brit., Madsen, Janne. & Strande, Anne Lise. (2018). Ecology and Boundaries: Methaphors inSustainable Education. Paper presentation at symposium, ECER 2018: Inclusion and Exclusion, Resources for EducationalResearch?, Bolzano Westerlund, Stina (2015). Lust och olust – elevers erfarenheter i textilslöjd. Umeå: Umeå universitet. Westerlund, Stina (2019). Career Teachers in Sloyd – Assignment, Contradictions and Dilemmas. Wikberg, Stina (2017). Visual Art Education in Primary School: Between Pottering, Paraphrases and Digital Media. Paperpresented at E17 – Nordic Research Conference on Aesthetic subjects, Umeå 31 okt – 2 nov 2017.