Art Education as a Trap

Art education is often talked about as a general good that will solve problems of every description and meet the most varied current problems. In Finland, for example, art education tends to be seen as something that fosters human growth, teaches aesthetic and ethical values, promotes self‐expression and social skills, and meets the challenges of the media age. Any problems that might emerge stem simply from insufficient resources. Instead of continuing what is, probably, a generally known and shared discussion, we want to ask ourselves and others what are the traps art education might conceal, possibly in part under precisely such rhetoric. Our phenomenological perspective emphasises prese…