Arts and Cultural Education in Iceland : Professor Anne Bamford

context, scale, scope or resources. The question now is to determine if these structures are
present at the national level.
2.3 The nature of quality
'Quality' here is being defined as those arts education provisions that are of recognised high
value and worth in terms of the skills, attitudes and performance engendered. According to
Pearsall (1998) quality implies something that has been achieved successfully.
In the case of arts education, quality is considered to exist as something that may include
achievements (i.e. quality outputs), but goes beyond this to consider learning journeys,
pathways, partnerships and recognition. Dewey (1934: 19) writes of quality as being
characterised by a "heightened vitality." He further comments that quality signifies, "active and
alert commerce with the world: at its height, it implies complete interpretation of self and the
world of objects and events." Under this notion, quality is not a fixed disposition but rather as
Kissick (1993: 27) notes, "quality is first and foremost an idea, its criteria are susceptible to
influences from within a given society."
Quality arts education is the result of interplay of structure and method. It should be noted,
that alpha does not specify content. This is deliberate, as content should be derived in relation
to local environments, culture and resources. In this way content and context can operate
independently of the quality alpha. Similarly, these indicators of quality hold true for both
education through the arts and education in the arts. In both these complementary ways in
which the arts contribute to education, the indicators of quality remain quite stable and
consistent.
These quality indicators are:
1. Active partnerships between schools and arts organizations and between teachers,
artists and the community
2. Shared responsibility for planning, implementation and assessment and evaluation
3. Opportunities for public performance, exhibition and/or presentation;
4. A combination of development within the specific art forms (education in the arts)with
artistic and creative approaches to learning (education through the arts)
5. Provision for critical reflection, problem solving and risk taking
6. Emphasis on collaboration
7. Flexible school structures and permeable boundaries between schools and the
community
8. Accessibility to all children
9. Detailed strategies for assessing and reporting on children’s learning, experiences and
development
10. Ongoing professional learning for teachers, artists and the community
These alphas of effective arts education will be used to organise this report and the quality
of arts education in schools in Iceland will be discussed in reference to these world standard
quality alphas.
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