The scope of digital image media in art education

Abstract

In this case study of forms 7–9 in a Swedish school, the subject conceptions of and teaching practices in art subjects of schoolteachers and pupils are studied, in particular with regard to digital media. How the core content of a subject is conceived is compared to the importance of digital media in the teaching practice. For three years a class was followed whose teachers taught the pupils in both the art subject and in a local optional subject called Media. The method of triangulation involving participant observations, focus talks, interviews and questionnaires was employed in order to study the role of digital media in different subjects and their actual use by pupils. The results show that the school subject paradigm in the subject of art is chiefly connected to image production for developing aesthetic-practical skills. Traditional manual production is encouraged, thereby contributing to the limited use of digital media in the subject of art. Frame factors such as time and material also contribute to the limited use of digital media in the subject of art. Unlike the subject of art, the optional subject of media is conceived of more as a communication subject, and digital technology for image production is encouraged. In general, the use of digital media in the school is mainly guaranteed by the school's media plan. The role of the art subject is not prominent in this plan, but its teachers are active in implementing digital media in other contexts than within the framework of the art subject. In this study the representatives of the subject of art hardly used digital image processing at all in their teaching, but did so to a great extent in the optional subject of media. This made it clear that digital media in the subject of art in this school are not regarded as a prioritised media-specific competence. Offering and being able to provide a larger repertoire of digital media in the teaching of art could contribute to a change of the subject paradigm in a more clearly communicative than aesthetic-practical direction.

Introduction

This long-term case study discusses how digital media is implemented in relation to art education. In the Swedish school system the first nine school years are compulsory. The subject of art is one of the compulsory subjects and comprises about 60 min of lesson time per week in forms 7–9, and is marked from form 8 onwards. Within the framework of the schools there are also optional subjects that are not given a mark, which the pupils choose from among the choices offered by each school. These optional subjects may be organised as short courses that are exchanged once or twice per semester (the pupil's optional choice) or as fixed optional subjects that are selected for up to three years. In this school, which is a lower secondary school in a middle-sized town in northern Sweden, a permanent optional subject called Media was introduced 2007–2010. The optional subject is taught for three years. It is not a subject for which marks are given, like certain other options based on short courses chosen by the pupils themselves.

This case study investigates in particular teachers' and pupils' conceptions of and use of digital media in the subject of art in comparison with some other subjects. By way of comparison, conceptions and practice are paid particular attention to concerning pupils' and teachers' experiences and uses of digital media in the compulsory subject of art. The importance of the school subject paradigm for teaching practice in art and media is analysed with the support of current research on school subjects (John, 2005; Marner & Örtegren, 2003; McCormick & Scrimshaw, 2001; Sutherland et al., 2004).

The curricula of Swedish primary and lower secondary education state that the subject of art deals with our visual surroundings, not least as they are represented in image media (Skolverket, 2000). Digital media exert a great influence on visual culture including consumption, production and dissemination. Art in a Swedish school context was associated especially clearly with free creation in the 1950s and three decades following. This was in strong contrast to the period before 1950 when imitation, linear drawing and technical drawing were the most important factors for considering the subject justified (Åsén, 2006). As Åsén has pointed out, elements of several different subject conceptions can be discerned in present-day education. Against this background, it is of interest to study what role digital media have in the teaching of art.