FEATURE: CULTURAL EDUCATION
The difference an arts-rich education makes
of Learning at the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), who explains how an arts rich education for all young people could be the key to unlocking potential in all learners, levelling the playing field and helping to narrow the attainment gap.
A growing body of research shows that children from low-income backgrounds who are in an arts rich learning environment are more resilient, do better in school, are more likely to vote, to go to university, to get a job and to keep it. In stark contrast, their peers who do not have access to arts or cultural learning, experience educational and economic disadvantage. Studies have shown, for example, that students from low-income families who take part in arts activities at school are three times more likely to go on to get a degree than students from low-income families who aren’t taking part in arts activities in school. There is other evidence that demonstrates how
C
ovid has laid bare the glaring inequalities that exist within our education system.
Children and young people from low-income backgrounds were at an immediate disadvantage and the attainment gap became more deeply entrenched. In our second feature on cultural education this month we speak to Jacqui O’Hanlon, Director
studying the arts helps children and young people to develop key life-skills, attitudes and attributes such as confidence, resilience, critical thinking, creativity, communication skills and problem solving. All attributes that the World Economic Forum, the OECD and the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) say will be vital as we move into the fourth, or digital, industrial revolution. Our own Time to Listen research, revealed that
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www.education-today.co.uk
young people feel that arts subjects are the only ones where they grow their own agency, are given permission to take risks, make mistakes, explore other points of view and develop their own views and opinions. It’s compelling stuff but what do the terms
‘arts rich learning’ and ‘cultural capital’ actually mean? And just how significant a role do they play in influencing outcomes and life-chances? Arts-rich learning is exactly what is says on the
tin: a system of learning that values and gives parity to arts subjects alongside subject areas like maths and sciences, STEM disciplines. As for cultural capital, there is a helpful Cultural Learning Alliance blog (
https://culturallearningalliance.org.uk/what-is- cultural-capital/) that gives the background to this term. In the 1970s French sociologist, Pierre Bourdieu, developed the idea of cultural capital as a way to explain how power in society was transferred and how social classes were maintained. Bourdieu saw families passing on cultural capital to their children by introducing them to dance and music, taking them to theatres, galleries and historic sites, and by talking about literature and art over the dinner table. A report by the Sutton Trust (Parent Power)
examines how this works and how wealthier parents buy in extra schooling, including in arts subjects, to get their children ahead of their peers
December 2021
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