The aim of our article is to discuss the potential of art education to enhance children’s culture. In so doing, we are contributing to a debate that began at the InSEA congress in Rovaniemi (2010) during the symposium on cultural diversity. The article is based on recent research
and art pedagogy projects conducted by the writers in five European countries: Finland, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Sweden. When comparing and evaluating these projects, we focus on the space given to children’s culture and on the power art has in constructing childhood as a social and
cultural phenomenon. It was evident from the projects that enhancing children’s culture can be achieved in multiple ways, as cultural dialogues that can produce new understanding and places for further cultural encounters. The projects also made visible how childhood can be constructed
and reconstructed through art both by and for children. The projects emphasized the responsibility art educators have for organizing art education that enables the social and cultural participation of children.
The aim of this research was to find the structures affecting the construction of an arts educators' identity. We compare the subject areas of visual art and textile craft in three different teacher education programmes: the kindergarten teacher, classroom teacher and textile teacher
education at the University of Helsinki. Drawing from critical pedagogy, we approach teacher identity as a subject position constructed discursively in particular social and historical contexts. Our data consisted of 152 essays and portfolios from pre-service teachers. Using articulation as
our research strategy, it was possible to identify two (meta) discourses positioning an arts educator: the discourse of technical knowledge and skills, and the discourse of self-expression. We suggest this tensioned discursive space could serve as a starting point for further research, and
that the critical engagement with meta-level knowledge of the subject areas should be given more attention in teacher education.
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