Summary

Den kulturelle skulesekken (DKS) is a program aiming to bring professional artists into Norwegian schools. One of the areas is Visual art that corresponds to the subject Art and Crafts (A&C). Thus, the ‘art world’ and the ‘school world’ represented by artists and A&C teachers are brought together in an educational context where the different values and perspectives they bring to the collaboration are visible in narratives of justification of professional practice. These narratives exist at all levels in the DKS program, told by teachers and artists in the practice, but also exist at document level, in evaluations performed, official documents and in media coverage. The questions addressed in this thesis are:

What narratives of professional choices and justifications by teachers of Art & Crafts and artists within DKS collaborations are communicated to the public?

How and why can these narratives affect the collaborations and the professional jurisdiction in the Art & Crafts school subject and the DKS program?

The DKS program has set the stage for an interesting polarisation of interests. If the strongest arguments – predominantly those that are based in the constructed media stereotypes and myths — are accepted in place of the evaluation results, it would herald changes for the DKS program, but also for the A&C teachers and their jurisdiction of the A&C subject.

The media narratives, and the subsequent construction of stereotypes and myths reveal quite fundamental differences in how the ‘art world’ and the ‘school world’ view children, relevant content, quality and education, and also the positioning of the DKS program in relation to the school context. This has in turn influenced the professional boundaries within DKS, and the media stereotypes introduced to the public have contributed in substantiating a claim of ownership.

The future of the program, in terms of collaborative efforts rather than myth based work-division within the program, is discussed as an option, and questions of content and quality within an educational context and subject-matter learning aims are addressed.