The worth of art education: Students’ justifications of a contestable educational choice

How is art education valued in society? In Swedish public discourse the value of educational trajectories is often equated with their usefulness for employability. With competitive winner-takes-all labour markets for artists, art education is largely perceived as a worthless credential and form of e...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inActa sociologica Vol. 63; no. 4; pp. 422 - 435
Main Authors Fürst, Henrik, Nylander, Erik
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published London, England SAGE Publications 01.11.2020
Sage Publications Ltd
Subjects
Art education
Artists
Autonomy
Compulsory education
Creativity
critique
Discovery
Educational systems
Employability
folk high school
Hegemony
Humanities
Labor market
Markets
Meaning
Personal development
Secondary schools
Sociologi
Sociology
Sociology of Education
Students
Usefulness
Utbildningssociologi
valuation
Well being
art education
critique
valuation
folk high school
employability
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Summary:How is art education valued in society? In Swedish public discourse the value of educational trajectories is often equated with their usefulness for employability. With competitive winner-takes-all labour markets for artists, art education is largely perceived as a worthless credential and form of education. But what kinds of worth does art education have among students themselves? This article draws on the approach of pragmatic sociology and individual and group interviews with 62 Swedish folk high school participants within the arts, to understand the meanings participants assign to post-compulsory education within the aesthetic realm. The students’ accounts belong to three broad themes, where art education is described as: (a) being a ‘stepping stone’ to becoming an artist, (b) allowing them to have ‘unique’ experiences while being in a particular state of creativity or (c) offering them a chance to regain health and general well-being after a difficult period. These results are discussed in relation to the relative institutional autonomy the folk high school possesses in the Swedish education system, as well as the possibilities of challenging the hegemonic ideas of ‘learning for earning’ that largely reject non-instrumental regimes of self-discovery and artistic creativity.
ISSN:0001-6993
1502-3869
1502-3869
2067-3809
DOI:10.1177/0001699320934170