I meet in my work as art teacher many students of different descent, were they, or their parents, have different school experience than the Swedish. This, in combination with therecent discussion after the Muhammad caricatures about the banning of images in Islamic religion, made me curious to study what art education in a Muslim country looked like. I went to visit the Maramra Egitim Köyü school in Istanbul, Turkey, and especially their art classesfrom grade five to eight, which are the same age of students that I have been working with thelast ten years. This was my first visit to Turkey.The question I ask is: What does the practice of Turkish art education look like, using the Marmara school as an example. Which discourses can I identify in the art teacher practice? What surprised me the most was the frequent visual exposure of the founder of the Turkishstate, Kemal Atatürk. He was on display both in two- and three dimensional form in schools, other public places and in the art classes. It also surprised me that there were many pictures that had connotations to the Christian Christmas celebration, such as Santa Claus, reindeers, Christmas trees etc. Islamic ornamentation and decorative patterns, which are so common in both historical monuments and souvenir shops all over Istanbul, was harder to find in the art class room or on display in the school. I did find that students worked with decorative patterns and small pictures, like miniatures, that were both realistic and abstract, in a way I am not familiar with from my own Swedish art class practice. The curriculum states that student shall study the national heritage; with examples like mat weaving, tile patterns etc. Despite this, the schools I visited failed to do so, perhaps because they have shortened the time for the art subject for the last years. The curriculum also states that you in art class shall "do work to celebrate the nation" and this is done; with pictures of Atatürk and the flag that are then on display in the school. I have found in my study a competing discourse where "National culture" is the key word. It is clear that" national culture" on Marmara school is the culture of Atatürk, and not so much of the traditional culture before 1922.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:konstfack-3907 |
| Date | January 2010 |
| Creators | Låby, Elin |
| Publisher | Konstfack, Institutionen för Bildpedagogik (BI) |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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