Monica Lindgren

Institution/Department: The Academy of Music and Drama
Previous studies: Luleå University of Technology, University of Gothenburg
Thesis: Bringing order to aesthetics in school. Discursive positioning with teachers and head teachers.
Research area: Arts and education
Current research: The research project revolves around issues of artistic and pedagogical identity creation in relation to knowledge production within diverse arts subjects. The study views the meaning ascribed to an artist’s work as strongly related to learning within the respective genre. The way in which people within widely divergent fields of art define art, themselves and their own artistic activity thus becomes of interest from a pedagogical perspective. Central issues are how artistic work processes within different artistic genres are perceived, and what abilities are presented as important. These issues concerning the nature of knowledge also lead into issues of how practitioners within different arts subjects verbalise teaching and learning. What is conveyed as central in artistic learning? What choice of content and form respectively are assumed to promote knowledge formation? What are the aims and objectives of the teaching? Also central in these contexts is to investigate which ideas predominate with regard to quality and which judgements seem to govern the teaching and how they can be related to the pedagogic and/or artistic identities. The aim of the research study is therefore to analyse constructions of identity and knowledge within higher arts education and to problematise them with the point of departure in power and control. Participants in the research are artists/teachers and students from the arts subjects music, theatre and the field of image and form.

Email address: Monica.Lindgren@hsm.gu.se