Digital media added on to the subject of Art in secondary schools

Abstract

The aim of this article is to deepen the understanding of how different aspects of the implementation of digital media may be related to subject paradigms and practice in the subject of Art in secondary schools in Sweden. The article is based on observations and interviews with teachers and pupils at secondary schools about their conceptions of the school subject Art and its relation to digital media. The point of departure is a media ecological perspective. Media ecology studies and takes an interest in how different forms of communication media affect human beings’ perceptions, understandings, feelings and values. The results show that in four of nine teaching groups the teachers introduced digital media in small steps, adding on in a teaching environment otherwise completely dominated by analogue tools and traditional image production methods. The subject conception in Art is mainly aesthetic-practical, implying that manual production is given precedence and contributes to the limited use of new digital media in the subject of Art. It is also characterised by the conception of the subject as communicative, while frame factors also play a role in the limited use of new media in Art. The degree and type of digital media implemented are being negotiated through testing in environments chiefly outside the ordinary subject of Art. After that, they might gradually become elements of ordinary teaching.