Artistic learning and identity in Higher arts education: A critical discourse approach

• The paper draws upon semi-structured interviews involving artistic professors/ teachers in higher arts education in Sweden. Approaches influenced by Foucault’s theories of discourse, as well as the tools of discursive theory and discursive psychology, are used to identify and analyse constructions of artistic knowledge and identity within higher arts education. The findings indicate that meaning ascribed to an artist’s work is strongly related to constructions of teaching and learning within the respective discipline. The ways in which artistic professors, within widely divergent fields of art education, construct art, themselves and their own artistic activities are very personally related and govern their pedagogical approaches. Methods for learning are strongly connected to personal feelings, inner thoughts and the construction of the self. Correspondingly, the construction of the teacher, as an unquestioned expert in directing artistic learning processes, is legitimized by one ́s own personal experiences as an artist. This introspective discourse of artistic learning is complex and unclear, as it is drawing on a range of other discourses, which often convey contradictory ideas of value. It is argued that this view of artistic education could be seen as limiting in the creation of a critical reflective community in artistic education.

Subject headings

HUMANIORA  -- Konst (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Arts (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Utbildningsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Educational Sciences (hsv//eng)

HUMANIORA  -- Språk och litteratur -- Studier av enskilda språk (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Languages and Literature -- Specific Languages (hsv//eng)

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kon (subject category)