NordFo, Nordic Forum for research and development in Craft and Design

Education and research play an important role in our modern society in order that we should be able to retain and develop our culture. The rate of change and the complexity demand research and developmental work in several fields. - Sloyd, a creative craft and an educational activity, builds on tradition. In times of change tradition needs to be combined with a conscious and organised development of knowledge.

An exchange of ideas regarding educational sloyd has existed for more than a hundred years in the Nordic countries. Representatives of teacher education institutions in Denmark, Norway, Finland and Sweden have during the past years at different occasions visited each other. The need for exchange contacts and research fellowship within this field has been examined by a Nordic work team set up in 1988 at a conference in Oslo and Notudden, Norway. The suggestion this work team put forward led to a decision at a conference in Gothenburg, Sweden, in 1991.

NordFo will devote itself to different forms of co-operation between teacher training institutions in the Nordic countries in order to initiate, stimulate and account for research and developmental work within the subjects of "forming", "håndarbejde" and "slöjd", as well as educating teachers in these subjects.

NordFo will work for continuous contact between teacher training institutions which educate teachers on all levels. The fields of interest that are in focus are concerned with subject content, which in the Nordic countries is found under the headings "forming", "håndarbejde" and "slöjd", as well as activities related to artistic developmental work, established university subjects, such as ethnology, art science, and in communication studies. Issues in relation to didactics and pedagogics in different forms are also part of NordFo's field of interest.

Åbo Akademi , Pedagogiska fakulteten, 2006
Juha Hartvik Fornamn.Efternamn@abo.fi