foundationscoherent system of higher education and research it is also easy to see the institutional
structure and its relevance for the subject.
The second perspective is european. although i will pay some attention to the
debate in australia, i will leave other continents aside. The first reason for this is of
course a lack of knowledge. The second reason, however, is a feeling that the specific
organizational pattern of higher education and research in a country like the united
states gives the subject of ‘university politics’ quite a different meaning than in europe.
despite the fact that european higher education and research is more and more
deregulated it can still be perceived in terms of national systems where general policies
for the sector of tertiary education affect art schools and their programmes for teaching
and research.
art schools and structural reforms of higher education systemsin many countries the issues related to research in the performing and fine arts have
been prompted by changes in national policies in the higher education area. This was
certainly the case for sweden when, back in 1977, the whole tertiary education sector
was subject to wide- ranging reforms.
one part of the structural changes was the integration of art schools into the wider
national system of higher education. some colleges of arts and music were integrated
into universities. others were left with an independent status but still subject to
rules and regulations designed to fit mainstream universities or other research- based
institutions.
in this context a natural question was raised. if research in the classical sense is the
basis for teaching and training in universities, what then is the equivalence for the
teaching and training in art schools? The answer was the creation of a new concept:
‘artistic development’. a policy document written at the time defined this concept as a
means of developing ‘experiment with artistic forms of expression, as well as research’.
it went on to say that some of these experiments could be regarded as research, even if
the line of demarcation could not be clearly described.
art schools were given additional funds for this new activity but there was great
confusion about the content and validity of the new concept. The funds were happily
received but it is obvious from the discussions going on in the 1980s that art schools
were really not aware of what the government was expecting of them in terms of
renewal, development or research. a review made in the early 1990s showed that the
concept of research was emerging in the art schools, although it was obvious that many
teachers in the schools were reluctant to describe anything in their field of activity as
related to research.
in broad terms the situation could be described as a government intervention in the
life of the art schools. They were encouraged to define their activities in terms of the
historical and general academic distinction between teaching and research. once this
problem was put on their agenda the discussion about the foundations of the teaching
led to an ‘academic drift’ in the search for a research equivalent. Further on in this
chapter i will try to discuss the implications of this in a longer perspective.
a similar development could be seen in relation to a structural reform in the tertiary
education sector that was initiated in australia in 1987 (The unified national system).