Arts and Cultural Education in Iceland : Professor Anne Bamford

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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. 52
Chapter 3: Responses to quality 3.1 Introduction – Overall statements about quality ‣ Arts education in Iceland is of high international standard ‣ More consideration needs to be given for out-of-school (especially music) provisions for children with special needs ‣ Arts education in Iceland receives widespread support from pupils, parents and the community ‣ There are generally adequate resources for effective, high quality arts education Using the approach developed in the previous chapter, the list of quality indicators could be used as an alpha for arts education to determine ‘a wellness indicator’ that can be used for arts education prior to impact measurement. It also acts as a diagnostic tool for improving arts education programmes. Generally, arts and craft education in Iceland is of a high international standard. All children receive some arts education and most children receive in excess of two hours per week of arts education. Additional music education is enshrined in law and readily available across the country. There appears to be generally equitable provisions in all locations and for all children, though continuing issues remain for children with special needs. The arts are generally taught by well-trained specialists in well-equipped and effectively resourced specialised arts studios (rooms). School principals, parents and the community support the value of the arts and they are considered as being a core part of education. The arts are a significant element of Icelandic society and are valued for their inherent, personal and social worth. Despite feelings that the standard of arts education in Iceland may be falling, this is not evidenced in the findings and the research shows ongoing improvements in the place of arts education in schools and more generally within Icelandic communities. While there are areas that could be improved and recommendations that would increase quality, these need to be read in terms of an overall very positive picture. 3.2. Active partnership ‣ Partnerships between the schools and outside agencies (artists, industry, cultural organisations) are not common in Iceland with the exception of some music schools which are embedded in close partnership with some schools ‣ Partnerships should be extended, in terms of the number of schools involved, the diversity of partnering organisations and the length of time of the partnerships ‣ Ongoing partnerships between the education, culture and creative industry sectors needs to be embedded within policy and practice ‣ “Ground up” and community partnerships appear to be very strong and effective and these could be more acknowledged in the curriculum ‣ National cultural organisations based in Reykjavik need to be supported to develop innovative models for working more closely with schools in isolated locations ‣ Schools should be encouraged to collaborate across various levels such as between preschool and the compulsory school; between the compulsory school and the senior 53
Page 1 and 2: Arts and Cultural Education in Icel
Page 3 and 4: Acknowledgements This research woul
Page 5 and 6: Helga Rut Guðmundsdóttir Helgi Vi
Page 7 and 8: 5.4.2 Talent developement..........
Page 9 and 10: practices, but in reality there are
Page 11 and 12: Chapter 1: Introduction and overvie
Page 13 and 14: school type to which the comment re
Page 15 and 16: A future study could examine specif
Page 17 and 18: The number of pupils with a foreign
Page 19 and 20: pre-primary school teachers were so
Page 21 and 22: Figure 1.5.3: How useful is the Nat
Page 23 and 24: The conclusions from this report in
Page 25 and 26: primary level exceptional students
Page 27 and 28: ‣ Schools and colleges should be
Page 29 and 30: Increasingly, schools are becoming
Page 31 and 32: here, it is a good cooperation. We
Page 33 and 34: In terms of suggested improvements
Page 35 and 36: There are 300 hundred pupils in thi
Page 37 and 38: Figure 1.12.2 Accessibility of the
Page 39 and 40: e active in a range of local profes
Page 41 and 42: schools have waiting lists of child
Page 43 and 44: Going to local schools… well we t
Page 45 and 46: in theatre. The students really lov
Page 47 and 48: We had a great show. The teachers d
Page 49 and 50: lot of satisfaction out of the proc
Page 51: Chapter 2 World Benchmarking 2.1 In
Page 55 and 56: Figure 3.2.1 Compulsory school coll
Page 57 and 58: In the survey, dance schools report
Page 59 and 60: The school is participating in the
Page 61 and 62: visitors. The diverse and ‘quirky
Page 63 and 64: A smaller group of girls performs a
Page 65 and 66: Figure 3.3.6 Pupil performances in
Page 67 and 68: way the children’s artworks were
Page 69 and 70: has always been and it is 20 or 30
Page 71 and 72: ‣ Funding should encourage risk t
Page 73 and 74: music sector could be less constrai
Page 75 and 76: Conversely, the accessibility of ou
Page 77 and 78: Vignette 3.7.4 Every day there are
Page 79 and 80: Despite the geographical challenges
Page 81 and 82: In visual arts we mainly assess acc
Page 83 and 84: We try to do professional developme
Page 85 and 86: This vignette from an academic in t
Page 87 and 88: in offering adult education. Other
Page 89 and 90: demanding more of our schools and t
Page 91 and 92: It was argued that the arts may not
Page 93 and 94: (teacher a professional photographe
Page 95 and 96: There is a lot of respect amongst p
Page 97 and 98: “The popularity of pop music is g
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From this summary, it can be seen t
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training of senior secondary arts t
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Vignette 5.2.4 Our selection proces
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There is a lack of connection betwe
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During the research, various school
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The following sections are other as
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For older pupils, there are electiv
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Before I came here no-one was doing
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Creative and cultural industries Mo
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While the previously listed recomme
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Arts and Cultural Education in Iceland : Professor Anne Bamford

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