Norwegische Perspektiven auf ästhetische Bildung und die zeitgenössische Auffassung von „cultural literacy“ als Bildung (‚danning‘)

Abstract

This article aims at describing a Norwegian contemporary context as basis for developing a perspective on aesthetic education. The Norwegian concept for Bildung is ‘dannelse’ or ‘danning’. The notion of cultural literacy will be considered as one contemporary conception of Bildung in a Norwegian context. The article consists of three parts. In the first part recent developments of the understanding of what ‘danning’ implies in Norwegian educational context are presented, with special focus on the dynamics between the general and the individual. As the second part of the article a study of arts and culture in Norway is presented briefly. In the third part Gunther Kress’ (Literacy in the new media age, 2003; The conference reading images: multimodality, representation and new media, 2004; Contemporary issues in educational studies and research. An exploration in the frame of a social semiotic multimodal theory of meaning-making, 2012) theory of multimodality, and the concept ‘literacy’, including cultural literacy is introduced. Cultural literacy is suggested to be a concept describing ‘danning’ from the perspective of late modernity. The fourth part of the article comprises the presentation of a few research and development projects focusing on arts, culture and aesthetic education in Norway—with a side glance to Sweden and Finland. The examples illustrate more concretely what an aesthetic education might be. The competence of the teacher is underlined as a prerequisite for qualified teaching of arts subjects, as well as for teaching with an aesthetic perspective as a leading thread in all teaching. Through the focus on meaning making, the aesthetic approach may contribute to the qualification of a conception of ‘danning’ as cultural literacy.