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A shift from arts education to arts and cultural education? Print

The 2nd UNESCO World Conference on Arts Education: A shift from arts education to arts and cultural education?


Practice, advocacy, capacity building and the formulation of development goals for arts education were the main topics at the 2nd UNESCO World Conference on Arts Education that took place in Seoul, Korea, last 25-28 May 2010. 2.000 participants from more than 100 countries, 20 of them represented by their Ministers of Culture and/or Education, discussed the Road Map for Arts Education, the concrete result of the 1st 2006 World Conference in Lisbon. Representatives of several countries from different continents reported that the Road Map gave them the possibility to put arts education issues on their national political agenda, and  that the Road Map had been used as the basis for the implementation of new arts education strategies and programmes.

In Seoul it was obvious that the UNESCO concept of arts education had evolved since the year 2006. In Lisbon the UNESCO approach to arts education was quite a narrow one, restricted more or less to education in schools in the fields of the western art forms of theatre, music, dance and the visual arts. At the time, representatives from Southern and Eastern countries had to argue very hard for convincing the whole conference to broaden their concept to a more cultural approach, also including for example all the non-formal educational activities of non-governmental organisations and community arts centres. This struggle between different approaches to arts education did not have to take place again in Seoul and participants to the conference could concentrate this time on joining forces for better ideas in advocacy for arts education at local, regional, national and international levels.

In one of the 25 workshops, entitled ‘Evidence-based policy making: How do we get it?’, Korean colleagues described their very pragmatic approach to their national arts education strategy developed during the last 10 years, a part of which is for example the newly created Korean Arts and Culture Education Service (KACES). In addition to school-oriented arts education activities, Korea introduced extra-curricular cultural education offers, which have no long tradition in the country but offer the opportunity to reach out to different target groups than the ones usually addressed in schools or universities.

A crucial prerequisite for the success of such national arts and cultural education strategies is of course the availability of universities scientific research, which permits to understand and manage the very complex settings of arts education projects. One example of such professional research was the ‘Dynamic markers for arts education’ research, developed and presented by the Murdoch University, Australia. Other presentations of research projects were however rather disappointing: developing some interesting case studies with university students, but in the end being not much more than practical arts education projects, and justifying their success with the same rhetorical phrases that arts education practitioners outside the university use. This approach cannot really be seen as scientific research, and is absolutely not useful to build further political strategies and programs.

Prof. Eckart Liebau, holding the newly established UNESCO Chair on Arts Education at the University of Erlangen/Nuernberg (Germany) therefore insisted during his contribution in a plenary session on the necessity of clarifying terms, concepts and research approaches in the wide field of arts and cultural education. For example different projects of developing glossaries on arts education were brought together during the conference. Only with valid research results and by using a clear terminology, the scientific community can really contribute to the quality development of arts education practice and to a better political framework for arts and cultural education in schools, arts institutions, community arts centres, projects of NGOs and other non-formal settings.

In a special session on the role of foundations and NGOs, the World Alliance for Arts Education (WAAE) was presented to the conference participants. During this session BKJ, the German Federation for Arts Education and Cultural Learning, asked for a perspective to overcome one weak point of WAAE, which is the fact that its members are mainly representing teachers of different art forms. There is a urgent need to broaden the scope of WAAE membership, so that arts institutions, artists, community arts centres and other actors in the field of non-formal arts education can also make their voice heard and join forces on global level.

In yet another special session of the conference, called regional group discussions, Europe and Northern America - as one UNESCO-region - exchanged information and experiences about recent developments in the arts education field. The United States were mostly represented by universities, and only by very few of their state and federal arts education lobbying organisations. In the field of arts education the US does not seem to be fully back in the UNESCO processes, after so many years of lapsed membership. During this session the European participants reported from three World conference preparatory meetings on arts education, which took place in Wildbad Kreuth and Berlin (both in Germany) in 2008 and 2009. ACEnet and the important role of the theme of ‘Access to culture’ in the European Agenda for Culture were also discussed.

The last day of the conference was dedicated to the discussion and formulation of development goals for arts education. Those goals aim at replacing the Road Map for Arts Education and to make the demands for arts education more concrete. The official version of these development goals, called the “Seoul Agenda”, are not yet published, but they should include very clear formulations that should also be addressed in the coming years by Culture Action Europe and its members at the European, national and local levels when it comes to arts and cultural education.

The last draft version of the development goals was formulated as follows:
•    Affirm arts education as the foundation of a balanced cognitive, emotional, aesthetic and social development of children and youth.
•    Strengthen arts education, including the experience of the arts and collaboration with artists within and between in-school and out-of-school education.
•    Empower teaching and artist communities with sustainable arts education training.
•    Promote and foster lifelong learning in, about and through arts education.
•    Recognize and develop the socio-cultural well-being dimensions of arts education.
•    Support and enhance the role of arts education in the promotion of social responsibility, social cohesion, cultural diversity and intercultural dialogue.
•    Foster capabilities through arts education to respond to major global challenges, from peace to sustainability.
•    Build capacities for arts education leadership, advocacy and policy development processes.
•    Develop diverse arts education partnerships among various stakeholders and sectors, from culture to industry.
•    Stimulate dialogue and exchange between theory, research and practice in arts education.

Rolf Witte
International Relations Officer of BKJ – German Federation for Arts Education and Cultural Learning – and member of the Executive Committee of Culture Action Europe