alternatives to canon – theoretical and methodical approaches to an empirical fundamental research on knowledge structures in art education

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Katja Hoffmann
• Subject Area: General and Domain-Specific Teaching and Learning ; Art History
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 536223986

The network’s core concern is to develop theory-driven analyses with nuanced research methodology to address reflective ways of engaging with canonical orders of knowledge in art education contexts. The research material will be various visual and text-based configurations in their relational, context-bound – and thus situational – practice. Aspects concerning the construction of difference within the framework of canonical orders of knowledge, as well as practices of inclusion and exclusion, will be examined through the prism of theory and analysed in terms of their methods. The network’s activities will consist of analysing situation-specific, art-pedagogical educational settings on the basis of digital and analogue visual materials within diverse visualisation practices, as well as investigating the institutional frameworks and practices involved. Taking as the point of departure art education and art didactics as the disciplinary focus of this research undertaking, interdisciplinary research perspectives from art, cultural and media studies (a.o. visual culture studies) as well as from the education sciences and (cultural) sociology will be included. The aim here is to differentiate scholarly discourse concerning approaches that reflect on difference in addressing the constitution and validity of visually based orders of knowledge in art education settings. Through reflection on practices aspects e.g. of inclusion and exclusion as well as of tacit and explicit knowledge can be investigated. In terms of methodology, canonical orders of knowledge and their epistemic structures will be explored by drawing on qualitative empirical visual and text-based surveys. In addition, quantitative studies will be integrated (e.g. frequencies, modes of repetition). Theoretical approaches (e.g. difference reflexivity, representational critique, »new materialism«, »situated knowledge«), as well as approaches that reflect on research methodology (related to practice theory, action research, discourse analysis) will provide the underpinning for multi-perspective analyses of knowledge orders in art education contexts. The research network serves in particular to promote the next generation of art education researchers as well as the disciplinary and interdisciplinary strategic networking. The aim is to focus on interdisciplinary, research-based discourse on knowledge systems and the validity of knowledge in art education. The long-term goal of flanking reflection-driven professionalisation through the network’s activities is also linked to the objective of reflecting on alternatives, i.e. transforming potent/powerful orders of knowledge – also in context of social transformation processes arising from digitalisation, various migratory flows, and current global crises.

• DFG Programme: Scientific Networks
• Co-Investigator: Professorin Dr. Magdalena Eckes