Research area: Pedagogy/Visual Art and Sloyd
The research subject Pedagogy/Visual Art and Sloyd is versatile communities bringing together researchers working within several research fields.
Visual Art
Key questions within the subject area Visual Art relate to issues such as; how to develop and strengthen the connection between educational research and arts-based methods; how to work through critical pedagogy in exploring questions of alternative modes of education; child culture and children's Rights as part of Human Rights; what power structures are produced and uphold when interacting with refugees and asylum seekers in participatory art interventions.
Other ongoing investigations concerns global perspectives on teaching in preschools, children's access to aesthetic activities in cultural institutions in Scandinavia, and exploratory research into artistic methods and techniques within educational research in connection to situated knowledge, and theories such as posthumanism and critical theory. Researchers within the subject area are also working towards connecting arts educational research with other research fields within the Faculty of Fine Applied and Performing Arts.
Sloyd
The research area Sloyd [swe. Slöjd] includes pedagogical sloyd research on education and learning in activities where materials and tools are included in the production of objects.
Sloyd research can be related to learning processes, materiality, body-based learning and to multimodality and focus on pedagogical, psychological, social, cultural and virtual learning environments both in school and at different levels in the education system as well as in activities outside school.
At the pedagogical unit, pedagogical sloyd research linked to national and Nordic cooperation; the research collaboration is central and opens up for international contacts. Countries' and higher education institutions' variations in conditions for doctoral studies in the field of pedagogical sloyd has both limited and made it possible to obtain a doctorate and thus the prerequisites for further research and applying for research grants.
The Faculty of Arts offers education at postgraduate level in the subject Aesthetic forms of expression with a focus on educational science, which has opened up for further research in the field of sloyd. Over time, pedagogical sloyd research has touched on historical and contemporary aspects in school sloyd and teacher education, in addition, sloyd-related research in craftsmanship, multimodality, gender and sustainable development is developed.
