Connecting the dots. On improving the links between education, culture, and the arts

The ability to participate in cultural activities is generally considered a basic human right. Yet, many people in our society are excluded from this type of participation, and for a lot of people even the questions what culture is and why culture needs to be considered important go unanswered. Responses to such fundamental challenges and questions can be manifold, they largely depend on one’s view on what happens when people take part in culture. This doctoral thesis focuses on one specific dimension of this broad discussion: education. Cultural education is more than just participation; it involves reflection and growth. Culture, then, refers to both the content and the fruits of such an educational process. The overall goal of this PhD project has been to detect and analyze links between education, culture, and the arts in order to arrive at a better understanding of the aims and nature of arts and cultural education. The dissertation addresses this matter from several interconnected perspectives. At the macro perspective, it analyzes the matter of access to culture. From the meso perspective, it examines the organization of cultural learning environments (elements such as collaboration, curricula, etc.). And finally some specific issues related to the micro level of classroom arts teaching are addressed. An in-depth understanding of the links between education, culture, and the arts requires a multidisciplinary approach. Therefore, this PhD combines different research techniques and relies on insights from cognitive, semiotic, and hermeneutic theory.nrpages: 249status: publishe