PART 3: Involvement of the Community 

The arts are universally considered to be an indispensable component of a well-rounded education – they are compulsory subjects in several communities and educational systems. Nevertheless, a well-known expressed concern is about the relative status and value accorded to arts subjects in all communities. This chapter we will describe a series of good practices among European countries, like Lithuania, Turkey, Bulgaria, Italy, Spain, Romania (countries from which the contractual partners of Increa+ project came from), in order to include arts and artmaking in community settings.

Arts education is not limited to the formal educational environment, but especially to non-formal activities, leisure activities and recreation, these serve as social integration for different social groups (out-of-school children, disabled people, senior citizens, prisoners, indigenous peoples, sick people or immigrant populations), and are complementary to school education, depending on the time available to them in the European countries.

Arts Education in community settings is described as people's direct contact with artistic works and means (such as organised concerts, organised exhibitions, book releases, libraries, and films, visits to museums or art galleries) and engaging people in arts practices (practicing the arts in and out of schools).

The Road Map for Arts Education, elaborated by a group of experts and UNESCO and presented at the First World Conference on Arts Education (Lisbon, 2006) (later revised and updated), advocates the essential role of arts education within societies, to create a common ground of understanding for all stakeholders. There are several obstacles for reaching the aims of arts in educational fields, the most frequent being lack of funding. Other obstacles mentioned in the Road Map are: difficulty of applying arts education to current education systems, lack of awareness from relevant actors and, finally, lack of cooperation from stakeholders involved.

Taggart, Whitby & Sharp (2004) showed, in their study, that “cultural education promoted in EU Member States at that time included the development of artistic skills, knowledge and understanding, involvement in a variety of art forms; increased cultural understanding; sharing experiences artistic, people also becoming artistic consumers and contributors. Art education drives other results, such as self-confidence, individual expression, teamwork, interculturality, participation in cultural life”.

Sharp and Le Métais (2000, p. 7) revealed that many countries share the same beliefs and priorities, for the arts, creativity and cultural education, creativity is important and its development should be encouraged because helps people feel included and valued, but they also share the same challenges, a need to find effective ways of raising the profile and status of the arts not only in society but in education. All communities should find ways to help people recognize the value of the arts by making artistic experiences relevant and find sufficient time for arts.

Referring to policies Sharp and Le Métais (2000) mention that “there is a need to investigate the apparent contradiction between the support for the arts at policy level and the perceived low status for the arts in schools, to explore the implications of the different curriculum models and to identify methods of assessment that are practical, reliable and sympathetic to the arts, creativity and cultural education” (Sharp C., Le Métais J., 2000, p. 18).

The changing character of our societies necessitates the identification of new priorities. Numerous European countries are emphasizing the development of fundamental skills, putting pressure on multiple areas, including the arts.

Every community needs to encourage citizens to be active participants in cultural transmission and change. Countries must explore a series of actions, in order to include arts in everyday life of their citizens:

“Raise the profile of the arts in schools, building on the positive attitudes of parents to arts activities, and outlining the value of creative skills for the economy as well as for personal growth” (Sharp C., Le Métais J., 2000, p. 26).

Focus support on the preparation and training of teachers to develop their confidence in teaching through arts.

Enable high-quality partnerships between artists, CCS organizations through coordinated programmes.

The development of national festivals and competitions to showcase the arts-making activities that have a benefit for all the society.

The Arts and Cultural Education at School in Europe study, realized by Eurydice (EACEA, 2009), presents up-to-date, comprehensive and comparable information on arts education policy in 30 European countries. The benefits of the involvement of arts in education are quite similar among the countries: nearly all respondents mention ‘artistic skills, knowledge and understanding’, ‘critical appreciation’, ‘cultural heritage’, ‘individual expression/identity’, ‘cultural diversity’, and ‘creativity’. In a great majority of countries, arts education also aims at personal and emotional development as it promotes social skills and self-fulfillment through experiencing pleasure and satisfaction.

It is gratifying that a large number of initiatives and strategies are emerging, around European countries, to increase access to cultural events for citizens. A cultural basket or cultural passport is a fairly common means of introducing students to culture and art. The implementation of this measure differs in the countries of the European Union.

In this chapter, we will describe a series of art-based good practices, focusing on inclusive education, provided by the InCrea+ project partners, from Lithuania, Spain, Turkey, Italy, Romania and Bulgaria. These Good Practices, 12 in total, 2 for each partner, were selected after massive qualitative research in every community, conducted by each partner, to describe the best inclusive education situations.

Each of these good practices is described in a grid, developed by the Increa+ European partners:

Kauno Juozo Grušo meno gimnazija and Pedagogical Psychological Service of Trakai District Municipality - Trakai PPT (Lithuania),

Besime Özderici Ortaokulu (Turkey),

Foundation for development of the cultural and business potential of civil society - CUBU Foundation (Bulgaria),

Associació Meraki Projectes de València (Spain),

Fundatia EuroEd (Romania),

Università degli studi di Padova (Italia).

The grid we will refer to it’s based on the experience of a team of experts in education, and covers a number of features in order to make it more comprehensive and to offer the opportunity to replicate these Good Practices on a larger, or smaller scale (we mention that the grid is not exhaustive). The grid includes information regarding:

the name of the good practice;

the target groups

the benefits of the practice for the target groups;

the community/social impact (goals);

the materials used;

the artistic mean;

how much it supports inclusion;

what 21st century skills it includes and which;

challenges to inclusion addressed.

The Good Practices mentioned in this chapter, face a series of limits, starting from the cultural diversity of each country and society, the different point of view of each expert that developed the practice, to the COVID-19 impact on each of the practices.

Chapter 5 offers the reader the opportunity to study the different practices implemented in different European countries; promotes cultural diversity through good practices that raise awareness of cultural heritage and, especially, focuses on artistic activities that refer to inclusion in the modern society.