In this text we look at the visual art subject throughout history, how it’s been represented and what role it has played in society and education. In order to understand what perspectives and factors have molded the subject's current status. Moreover, we will look at what these perspectives say about the visual arts subject place in education. To answer these questions we go through some theories and thoughts from some of the more prominent researchers within the art education. In doing this we conclude that the different learning theories that were prominent around the 20th century, have helped create a view of knowledge and intellect that excludes the arts. This combined with different movements and teaching approaches within schools has in some ways made the arts into the break-subject - where you don't need to think - that many, in our society, see it as. Moreover, we conclude that more reliable research needs to be conducted for us to say, without a doubt, that the arts teach anything more than how to make, and read art. 

The aim of this paper is to analyse how future art teachers talk about gender identity and sexuality in the context of an image analysis. In order to gather the empirical data used for this paper we sent out a questionnaire to student teachers with art as their primary subject. This questionnaire contained both closed and open-ended questions where they were instructed to analyse and describe four pictures of individuals that could be perceived as queer-coded, as well as answer questions regarding the core content of visual arts in the Swedish curricula for grade 7-9. The answers were then looked at through a queer theroetical lens using critical discourse analysis as our method. Based on the answers of the questionnaire we concluded that future art teachers use a politically correct and norm critical approach when speaking about gender identity and sexuality. We could however also see some confusion in the answers that possibly stems from a lack of knowledge and experience on the subject of gender identity and sexuality.