From a European perspective, visual arts education in the Nordic countries has many common features and comparable educational systems, although previous research (Lindström, 2009) has pointed to epistemological differences with implications for subject content and research orientations. In the case of Sweden and Finland, these similarities are historically grounded: Finland formed part of Sweden for more than six centuries, resulting in shared linguistic and cultural traditions. Today, Finnish is one of the larger minority languages in Sweden, while Swedish remains an official language in Finland, with approximately five per cent of the population identifying as Finnish Swedes.

A further common denominator is that visual arts is a minor school subject in both countries, which presents persistent challenges regarding recruitment to teacher education and access to qualified subject teachers. In Finland, this is particularly evident in Swedish-language teacher education, where a double marginalisation occurs: the programme offered in Swedish is considerably smaller than its Finnish-language counterpart, while the subject itself occupies a limited curricular space. Consequently, some students complete parts of their studies in Finnish, while others pursue education at Swedish universities, even though such qualifications do not automatically confer subject-teacher eligibility in Finland.

Against this backdrop, the present study examines educational pathways within Swedish-language visual arts teacher education programmes in Sweden and Finland. The aim is to identify similarities and differences in programme structure, content, and eligibility requirements, and to explore their implications for potential mutual study paths across national borders. The study asks: How are programmes and courses structured in the two contexts? What shared values and priorities emerge, and where do they diverge? In what ways do these similarities and differences enable or constrain mobility and mutual recognition within teacher education?

In conclusion, the study situates visual arts teacher education within broader European discussions on lifelong learning and professional mobility. Recent OECD analyses emphasise that mid-career learners are more likely to engage in education when opportunities align with life circumstances and lead to tangible outcomes, supported by flexibility, recognition, and strong engagement mechanisms (OECD, 2025). Read through this lens, visual arts teacher education appears not only as initial preparation, but as part of a wider ecology of continuing professional learning, where institutional structures, language, and disciplinary status shape teachers’ capacity to upskill, reskill, and sustain professional agency over time.

The study adopts a qualitative, comparative research design to examine how arts education is discursively constructed within teacher education in Sweden and Finland. The methodological framework is informed by contemporary discourse theory and dialogic qualitative inquiry, aligning with ECER’s emphasis on reflexivity, knowledge production, and educational transformation in changing societies. The design unfolds in two analytically distinct but interrelated phases, enabling both critical distance and reflexive closeness to the phenomenon under investigation. Phase one consists of a comparative document analysis of key institutional texts governing teacher education. The empirical corpus comprises national curricula, policy frameworks, and four programme descriptions from Swedish and Finnish teacher education institutions. These documents are approached as discursive artefacts that actively produce meanings, norms, and power relations rather than merely reflecting educational practice (Fairclough, 2015; Wodak & Meyer, 2016). Drawing on critical discourse studies, the analysis examines how aims, competencies, and pedagogical orientations in arts education are prioritised, legitimised, or marginalised. Analytical attention is directed towards questions of authority and governance, discursive silences, taken-for-granted assumptions, and culturally situated shifts between the two Nordic contexts (Gee, 2023). This phase foregrounds how institutional discourses shape what counts as valuable knowledge in teacher education. Phase two advances interpretation through a dialogic autoethnographic methodology. Two researchers, each professionally situated within one of the national contexts, engage in a recorded research dialogue focused on the findings from the document analysis. Autoethnography is employed as a rigorous qualitative approach that situates personal experience within broader cultural and institutional frameworks (Adams et al., 2015; Ellis et al., 2011). The dialogue is transcribed and presented in dialogic form, drawing on Bakhtinian conceptions of meaning as relational, polyphonic, and co-constructed through interaction (Bakhtin, 1981). Importantly, the dialogue functions both as a reflexive analytic practice and as empirical material subjected to further discourse analysis, examining how interpretations are negotiated, challenged, and re-articulated between voices. Together, the two phases generate what may be described as a distance at close range: a methodological stance that combines comparative structural analysis with dialogic reflexivity. This design supports epistemic transparency, surfaces researcher positionality, and responds to current European debates on teacher education, arts, and the conditions for critical educational research in times of social and cultural change. Such an approach resonates with Nordic traditions of educational democracy, relational knowledge, and critical inquiry, while contributing comparative insights relevant to international discussions on arts education policy and teacher education reform globally today.

The study demonstrates the analytical potential of combining comparative document analysis with dialogic autoethnography to examine visual arts teacher education in Sweden and Finland. By attending to both institutional texts and reflexive researcher dialogue, the analysis illuminates how arts education is shaped through intersecting discourses of language, national affiliation, professionalism, and subject status. These discourses regulate not only eligibility and recognition, but also the horizons of possibility within which arts education is imagined and enacted. The findings point to how the marginal position of visual arts as a school subject, together with the minority status of Swedish-language teacher education in Finland, produces a field characterised by both structural vulnerability and adaptive capacity. Rather than framing linguistic and institutional in-betweenness solely as a constraint, the study suggests that it may function as a connective space for collaboration, shared curricular reflection, and renewed professional imaginaries across national borders. Methodologically, the dialogic design enables a critical engagement with researcher positionality and disciplinary attachment, strengthening epistemic transparency and interpretive depth. In doing so, the study contributes to ongoing European discussions about how educational knowledge is produced, negotiated, and legitimised in complex and multilingual contexts. In conclusion, the paper argues that future-oriented development of visual arts teacher education may benefit from moving beyond nationally bounded solutions towards dialogic and relational forms of collaboration. For small and institutionally vulnerable educational fields, such approaches may offer sustainable ways of rethinking teacher professionalism, cross-institutional cooperation, and the role of arts education within evolving European educational landscapes.

Adams, T. E., Holman Jones, S., & Ellis, C. (2015). Autoethnography: Understanding qualitative research. Oxford University Press. Bakhtin, M. M. (1981). The dialogic imagination. University of Texas Press. Ellis, C., Adams, T. E., & Bochner, A. P. (2011). Autoethnography: An overview. Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 12(1). Gee, J. P. (2023). Introducing discourse analysis: From grammar to society (4th ed.). Routledge. Lindström, Lars (red.) (2009). Nordic visual arts education in transition: a research review. Stockholm: Vetenskapsrådet. OECD (2025), Education Policy Outlook 2025: Nurturing Engaged and Resilient Lifelong Learners in a World of Digital Transformation, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/c3f402ba-en. Sullivan, P., & McCarthy, J. (2004). Pedagogy, dialogue, and difference. University of Chicago Press. Wodak, R., & Meyer, M. (2016). Methods of critical discourse studies (3rd ed.). SAGE.