The common denominator of all research activities in the field of Art Education is their intrinsic relevance to education. In this respect, research in Art Education differs from other research areas at ZHdK, despite overlapping interests: The close relationship between research and teaching, concerning content and structure, calls for collaborative, as well as partly participatory, methodologies. In this way, Research in Art Education develops the discipline in line with, yet also in distinction from, national and international art educational projects. In addition to the importance of the transfer between research and teaching as well as the incorporation of research findings in the degree programmes of Art Education, the research domain values the promotion of junior researchers. Research in Art Education follows three main thematic strands:
Together, these three research strands offer a great variety of cultural and artistic forms of mediation. The research domain is furthermore concerned with structural changes in the professional field, which are spurred by new developments in media cultures (digitalization, etc.), the growing socio-cultural and environmental inequalities, precarious conditions of well-being and labour for cultural agents, and an overall transformation in the politics of knowledge production.