The aim of this essay is to analyze how students on a specific art school talk about the norms that surround the school and the teaching at the school. This analysis will be used to determine certain “rules” that exist in the school and how the students experience this. The analysis is based on Goffmans interaction theory and on Berger, Luckmans phenomenological theories. The material consists of five interviews with students from the specific school and one interview with a former student.

The study shows that there are ways for an art student to position him or herself at the art school and what kind of normative behavior that sets standards for the institution and how people interact on the art school. The study also tells something about the philosophy that lays a normative ground for the institution to stand on.