Seeking culturally sustainable art education in higher education A NOTHERN PERSPECTIVE

The purpose of my research thesis is to explore the development needs for internationalizing art education in higher education within the framework of cultural sustainability. Only recently has culture been integrated alongside the three other ‘pillars’ of sustainability – ecological, social and economic. The culture programme now intersects nearly all 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Culture is seen as essential, particularly in human and socioeconomic development, quality education, social inclusion, sustainable cities, environmental sustainability and peaceful societies (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization [UNESCO], 2017). Soini and Birkeland (2014) describe cultural sustainability a transdisciplinary concept that requires more inter- and transdisciplinary research. I plan to bring an educational perspective to this discussion. The primary objective is to investigate the implementation of the principles of cultural sustainability in art education practices in higher education in the context of the European Arctic. There are four major factors that have influenced my study. The first provides a rationale for implementing cultural sustainability into education development and is derived from the UNESCO’s (2014) Education 2030 framework. It considers local conditions and culture as well as building awareness of cultural expressions and heritage. It recognises diversity while emphasizing the importance of respect for human rights. The second factor framing my work is in the long development work of place-specificity in higher art education at the University of Lapland. The third factor focuses on the increasing need for internationalization within universities. The final factor examines simultaneous worldwide reports of international students struggling with integration to their host universities’ cultural environments (see Montgomery, 2010). These factors guide my investigation on how the guiding principles of cultural sustainability are implemented into the place-specific art education practices in higher education with international groups of students. My research questions proposed are as follows: (1) How can cultural sustainability be implemented in art education practices in higher education in the northern sociocultural context, (2) What are the guiding principles of cultural sustainability in developing internationalizing art education in higher education in the northern sociocultural context, and (3) What are the benefits of implementing the principles of cultural sustainability in the internationalizing art education in higher education. I have constructed my research as an article-based dissertation that includes an artistic production. The theoretical framework is based on a synthesis of different theories on cultural sustainability, strategies of contemporary art and the pedagogical model of integrative thinking for higher education (Tynjälä, 2016). I examine these phenomena through four art education university study modules in which I have operated as a teacher and a doctoral student. The modules have emphasis on place-specificity, involve international student groups studying, and contain a fieldwork component implemented with different local communities in the European Arctic. For the artistic part, I approach the same themes emerged and initiated during the study modules, and I approach the aspects of shared and unfamiliar northern cultural heritages as cultural sustainability. My interest is on developing art education through action, and I have hence conducted my research using the art-based action research (ABAR) methodology. My research philosophy follows the pragmatist research orientation. It belongs to the broader research framework of the art-based educational research (ABER). To better reach the participants’ and my own experiential and tacit knowledge in artistic practices, I have conducted my analysis from a phenomenological-hermeneutic research approach. For my main findings, I propose an art-based integrative pedagogic model for culturally sustainable art education in higher education, in which the strategies of contemporary art intersect the theoretical, practical, self-regulatory and sociocultural knowledge construction. I have compartmentalized the guiding principles of cultural sustainability into the art-based integrative model for art education in higher education: (a) Strategies: framing dialogic and participatory contemporary art as activity, within active cultural heritage and culturally diverse place-specificity including a broadened understanding of locality; (b) Principles: art educational practices should as a value-basis construct on seeking grassroots agency, acknowledge and build on cultural diversity and examine the perspectives of eco-cultural understanding for a more sustainable future; and (c) Outcomes: learning objectives are reached through a cyclical ABAR process and hermeneutic spiral resulting to increased intercultural competence and recognizing awareness in expertise. When art-based integrative pedagogy is practised in authentic learning situations and knowledge construction is gained through research, experience and reflection, students’ expertise in intercultural competence gradually develops. The basic task of culturally sustainable art education in higher education is to offer art- and research-based teaching that fuels students’ metacognition and promotes expertise in recognizing cultural awareness and provides such thinking and acting tools for sustainability that are applicably in any kind of future work