Craft-Art as a Basis for Human Activity

Overview & Synopsis

This article based on my doctoral thesis examines the Basic Arts Education system in Finland, focusing on Basic Crafts Education and its description through action concepts. The main task of the study was to create a concept model. In the first part of the study a concept map was created from the practice of Basic Crafts Education. The aim of the second part of the study was to specify the concept map and to ground a concept model, which describes the reality of Basic Crafts Education. Basic Crafts Education, which I define as craft-art, is examined from the viewpoints of art education, socio-cultural education and education for the future. In addition, craft-art is explored as a basic human activity as defined by the philosopher and theorist Hannah Arendt. In the study the Delphi Expert Method was used and carried out through question rounds by email. The empirical data consists of expert knowledge where experts represent different crafts fields and areas in Basic Crafts Education such as pedagogy, education and administration.