The the PhD programme Fachdidaktik Art and Design, which is the first of its kind in the German-speaking area, is offered by Zurich University of the Arts in cooperation with the Zurich University of Teacher Education, the Stuttgart State Academy of Art and Design, and the Freiburg University of Education.

The programme is based on an understanding of Fachdidaktik Art and Design as an educational, communicative and practice-oriented science. It takes a disciplinary and interdisciplinary approach to researching and developing its core subject: the teaching of art and design. As an educational science, it examines subject-specific methods, concepts and situations. It also establishes productive references to and connections between artistic and design practice, specialist theory and pedagogy. As a communicative and practice-oriented science, it is dedicated to practice-related teaching research. It gains insights into art and design education from working closely with educational and cultural practitioners. It tests its findings and theorising in practice, be it through interaction with practitioners or through conveying, applying and testing didactics research in teaching.

Its pool of supervisors enables the programme to cover the entire range of school types and levels existing in Switzerland, as well as a broad spectrum of research topics and methods. All four participating universities focus on qualitative-empirical teaching research. Depending on the university and supervisor, this expertise is supplemented or concretised by the methods of action research / practice research and / or by artistic-aesthetic research approaches. It is possible and desirable that PhD projects will build on the research areas, projects and infrastructure existing at the four participating universities (which all maintain a well-developed network of partner schools (primary, secondary and high schools).

The programme is funded by swissuniversities.

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Zurich University of the Arts
Pfingstweidstrasse 96
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CH-8031 Zurich