The "academic drift" of professional education is an international phenomenon typically associated with the 1960s and 1970s and reflects an approach to problem-solving whereby science is regarded as the single-most important element while solving practical problems. Specifically, we focus on how esthetic school subjects from our media…

This article seeks to provide a framework for recognizing and realizing the pedagogical potential of arts-science integration in early childhood. Herein, I present five ways of positioning arts vis-à-vis science and associate them with different learning opportunities. I have analyzed if and how these positionings come into play in teachers'…

Drawing on convention theory and sociology of critique, this article examines how teachers at a Swedish folk high school coordinate students' activities through tests. Through ethnographic descriptions of exercises, assignments, presentations, and exhibitions that test students' engagement, it is shown how the teachers seek to depart from the…

As a result of international neoliberal and neoconservative trends, the status of the arts has been devalued in secondary school curricula. This paper examines why the arts are not considered core educational knowledge in pedagogic discourse arising from the New Right policy agenda. In a case study analysis of Swedish educational policy debates,…

There is little room left for doubt or even debate at the severity of the ecological, indeed planetary crises that we find ourselves in during this period coined the Anthropocene. As educators working in the face of these crises, we have asked ourselves the question 'how do we carry on?' We reflect on a set of sensory, multimodal, meditative and…

This paper explores the declining trend of fine arts education in secondary schools. We examine mechanisms that may explain this phenomenon on structural levels of policymaking and policy implementation in different areas of the education system. What will be defined as the "selection device" refers to the structurally determined…

The article problematizes conditions for visual arts education in Swedish compulsory school. This, by discussing the syllabus for visual arts (Sw. Bild) and through giving examples of teaching in the subject, based on interviews with visual arts teachers, carried out in connection with the production of two Assessment Guides on behalf of The…

This article is based on a meta-approach to the results of two separate studies and concerns the areas of STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) and STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, mathematics) in early childhood education. One of the studies focuses on how preschool teachers understand STEM and how it is taught in the…

Design and craft education, like that of the Swedish school subject, Sloyd, has great potential for Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). With so many possibilities, it is relevant to investigate what teachers teach about sustainability, and how. Therefore, the aim of this article is to examine what Sloyd teachers express that they do as…

Sweden's Art and Music Schools (SAMS) have assumed some responsibility for facilitating refugee children's social inclusion. This article investigates how the inclusion of refugee children in SAMS is introduced by leaders as well as how the theme is constructed and addressed as a topic in policy documents (related to the national policy process…

The intersection of arts education and special education as a field has been described as lacking in unity, partly because the practices of its different stakeholders are embedded in either special education or arts education. This paper investigates how principals prioritise teachers' qualifications when organising arts education in compulsory…