Ingimar Ólafsson Waage defends his doctoral thesis

Teaching art as an approach to moral education: An autobiographical review of my research project

Ingimar Ólafsson Waage is defending his doctoral thesis in the Department of Subject Education at the University of Iceland.

The defense will take place on Tuesday, November 4th at 13:00 PM in the Banquet Hall, main building of the University of Iceland and will also be in streaming.

Title of thesis: Teaching art as an approach to moral education: An autobiographical review of my research project

Opponents: Dr. David Hansen, professor at Columbia University, USA, and Dr. Laura D'Olimpio, associate professor at the University of Birmingham, England.

Main supervisor: Dr. Atli Vilhelm Harðarson, professor in the Department of Professional Education, co-supervisor is Dr. Ólafur Páll Jónsson, Dean of the Department of Education and Diversity.

In addition to them, the doctoral committee included Dr. Anette Göthlund, professor at Konstfack University of Applied Sciences in Sweden.

Event manager:  Dr. Elsa Eiríksdóttir, President of the Faculty of Professional Education at the University of Iceland, will preside over the ceremony.

Welcome everyone!

About doctoral topics:

Ingimar Ólafsson Waage (b. 1966) graduated from the Icelandic School of Fine Arts and Crafts and later attended graduate school at the École Nationale des Beaux Arts de Lyon in France. He completed his teaching license from the Iceland University of Education in 1998 and his master's degree in philosophy and sociology of education from the School of Education, University of Iceland in 2012.

He worked as a teacher at Garðaskóli in Garðabær from 1995 to 2020, first as an art teacher and later as a philosophy teacher alongside art teaching. He began working as a part-time teacher at the Department of Art Education at the Iceland Academy of the Arts in 2013, later as an adjunct and assistant professor, and today holds the position of Dean of the Department of Art Education at the Iceland Academy of the Arts.

He is married to Aðalheiður Matthíasdóttir, a violin teacher, and they have three daughters and one grandchild.

About the project:

The doctoral thesis is about an intervention study that was carried out in collaboration with three art teachers, where the goal was to examine how moral education could be promoted through artistic creation based on selected virtues and dialogues about art. Theoretical foundations were drawn from Aristotle's virtue ethics and contemporary ideas built on it, especially neo-Aristotelianism and human values ​​education. Furthermore, the author draws on John Dewey's philosophy of education and art, Rudolf Arnheim's theories on the interaction of perception and thought, Susanne Langer's writings on the relationship between art and the inner life and emotions, as well as Maxine Greene's ideas on the possibilities of art and imagination in education, especially with regard to the role of teachers.

The main findings of the study highlight the importance of providing students with opportunities to reflect on works of art and discuss their ideas and feelings in relation to them and their own lives. The results also demonstrate the rich ability of primary school students to grapple with complex ethical questions and express their thoughts about them despite not having fully developed their language skills. This suggests that reflection on works of art and participation in discussions about them can be an important addition to traditional curriculum in primary schools.

The results also reveal the importance of the teacher, who is in a key position to create conditions and trust in the classroom and thus shape a path for meaningful learning. On the other hand, the results also show that due to deep-rooted traditions and expectations about content and subject matter in art education, teachers are likely to face challenges that can be met with patience, reflection, care and respect.

Furthermore, it became clear to the author how he, as an artist, teacher and researcher, was an integral part of the research process, that the organic whole of human interactions in the classroom could not be separated from the technical aspects of school work that consist of curriculum, teaching methods, interventions and assessment.

Link to event on Facebook here.