reporting results from the TALE research - how arts rich schools and arts broker teachers, with the support of cultural organisations, can support students to be critical appreciative audiences and active cultural producers.
2. TALE: research partners RSC - Tate - University of Nottingham
research questions:
1. What do teachers learn from deep engagement with cultural organisations?
2. How do teachers translate this learning into classroom pedagogies?
3. What do pupils gain from these learning experiences?
methods:
• 3 year case studies of 30 schools
• survey of arts & cultural participation
among y10-13 students in the 30 schools
numbers:
teacher interviews: 164
focus group interviews: 323
students interviewed: 1,442
survey responses: 4,477
3. 1442 students told us
they chose the arts
because:
• The arts are everywhere. They are past, present
and future
• The arts offer unique challenges – stretch,
connect, enliven, produce questions, (I didn’t
think I could do this), demand discipline and
application, critical thinking, interpretation, learn
professional norms
• The arts make the everyday more enjoyable,
interesting and meaningful
• Engagement in the arts promotes wellbeing, and
helps reduce stress in other parts of life
• The expertise and skills that students learn in arts
will help them in later life, even though most will
not work directly in the arts
4. survey sample
4,477 questionnaires were
completed in the school years
2016/17 and 2017/18.
N Male Female Non-
binary
Prefer not
to answer
Year 10 2616 35 % 61 % 2 % 2 %
Year 11 965 34 % 61 % 3 % 2 %
Year 12 510 37 % 59 % 2 % 2 %
Year 13 267 46 % 44 % 6 % 3 %
Total 4358
Region East
E1
(281)
E2
(1)
E3
(192)
E4
(1)
E5
(145)
Region South West
SW1 (125)
SW2 (182)
SW3 (57)
SW4 (114)
Region South/London
S1 (369)
S2 (-)
S3 (145)
S4 (260)
S5 (28)
S6 (64)
S7 (187)
S8 (-)
S9 (-)
S10 (72)
Region West
W1
(213)
W2
(12)
W3
(374)
W4
(34)
W5
(88)
W6
(5)
W7
(-)
Region North
N1 (163)
N2 (601)
N3 (438)
N4 (233)
5. school level effects: the development of interest in the arts
6%
16%
21%
22%
19%
15%
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
Strongly agree Agree Neither agree or
disagree
Disagree Strongly disagree Not sure
School started my interest in the arts.
12%
33%
20%
9% 11%
15%
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
Strongly agree Agree Neither agree or
disagree
Disagree Strongly disagree Not sure
My school has supported my interest in
the arts.
7. school level effects: everyday creative practice
52%
21%
27%
15%
52%
24%
22%
16%
52%
24%
22%
16%
44%
19% 20%
10%
47%
21%
19%
11%
72%
58%
25%
33%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
Paint/draw Take Photographs Do Craftwork Create Films
2010/11 2011/12 2012/13 2013/14 2014/15 2015/16 TALE 2016-2018
15% 14% 15%17%
14%
17%
13% 12% 15%13% 12% 15%14% 13%
15%
29%
15%
19%
55%
29% 28%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
Play a Musical Instrument Create Music Sing in a Band/Choir
2010/11 2011/12 2012/13 2013/14 2014/15 2015/16 TALE 2016-2018
8. school level effects: everyday creative practice
68%
18%
67%
24%
64%
20%
64%
20%
67%
18%
59%
19%
68%
43%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
Read a Book out of School Perform in a Play
2010/11 2011/12 2012/13 2013/14 2014/15 2015/16 TALE 2016-2018
11%
8% 6%
13% 14% 14%12% 12% 11%12% 12% 11%12% 10% 10%11% 12% 10%
27%
23% 22%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
Perform Dance Create a Dance Take Part in a Dance Club
2010/11 2011/12 2012/13 2013/14 2014/15 2015/16 TALE 2016-2018
9. Article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that:
Everyone has the right to participate in the cultural life of the community,
to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits
(http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/)
10. culture is
one of the most important dimensions of
citizenship (which) concerns the styles and
forms of language, cultural models,
narratives, discourses that people use to
make sense of their society, interpret their
place in it, construct courses of action and
thereby give rise to new demands for
rights, which we may call cultural rights.
(Delanty, 2002, p. 66)
11. Cultural citizenship can be
said to have been fulfilled to
the extent to which society
makes commonly available
the semiotic material
cultures necessary in order
to make social life
meaningful, critique
practices of domination, and
to allow for the recognition
of difference under
conditions of tolerance and
mutual respect.
(Stevenson, 2003)
12. Not only can arts education serve as a
space for developing and claiming
cultural citizenship; we can think of arts
education in general as a process of
developing cultural citizens.
No matter what other outcomes arts
educators seek, we are teaching
students about their roles and
responsibilities in relation to artistic
creation and consumption.
We are helping to shape students’
capacities and orientations towards
participating in an important aspect of
cultural life.
(Kuttner, 2016, p. 74).
13. … would need to follow an
inclusive cultural strategy
that offered school children a
range of cultural repertoires
drawn from across the
popular and high cultural
divide.
A genuinely cosmopolitan
education might seek to
revalue cultural practices and
narratives that more
traditional forms of
education had branded as
unworthy.
Yet such an approach would
need to stop short of
populism should it fail to
instil a critical appreciation of
artistic practices from
classical music to
performance art.
(Stevenson, 2003)
Arts education as cultural citizenship
14. Individual cultural school bags
ACTIVE CULTURAL CITIZENS
Article 27: UNDHR Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts
and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.” Culture is fundamental to human dignity and identity
Families, churches,
communities
Cultural
organisations
Arts rich schools
Arts broker
teachers
Popular cultures,
media
15. Arts broker teachers
• were involved in the arts outside of
school – embodied what it meant to
be arts-engaged – and took charge of
their own arts CPDL
• wanted to encourage students to
enjoy the arts so – organised extra
curricular, encouraged students’ out
of school engagement, formed
multiple partnerships with arts
organisations, visits and excursions
(where possible), promoted the arts
in the school
16. Individual cultural school bags
ACTIVE CULTURAL CITIZENS
Article 27: UNDHR Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts
and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.” Culture is fundamental to human dignity and identity
Families, churches,
communities
Cultural
organisations
Arts rich schools
Arts broker
teachers
Popular cultures,
media
17. • offering a wide variety of arts
subjects
• supporting the work of
specialist arts-broker
teachers
• constructing and maintaining
dense partnerships with
artists and arts organisations
• seeing the arts as central to
their ‘identities’
• supporting their school
community/ies to participate
in a wide range of arts
activities
arts rich schools support students to be active
cultural citizens NOW as well as in the future by
18. Individual cultural school bags
ACTIVE CULTURAL CITIZENS
Article 27: UNDHR Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts
and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.” Culture is fundamental to human dignity and identity
Families, churches,
communities
Cultural
organisations
Arts rich schools
Arts broker
teachers
Popular cultures,
media
19. cultural organisation –
immersive CPDL
Principles:
• contact with highly skilled professionals
(artists/actors/directors, education arts teams)
• exposure to professional disciplinary knowledges, languages,
practices and norms
• complementary recognition of teachers’ professionalism
Facilitating factors:
• working together as a group of teachers with arts professionals
in an arts environment or arts rich school
• investment in each individual (welcome, privileged access,
expectation of an ongoing relationship)
• opportunities for teachers to re-engage with earlier
disciplinary identities
• immersion - time, focus, flow, embodiment, problem solving,
growth
20. Individual cultural school bags
ACTIVE CULTURAL CITIZENS
Article 27: UNDHR Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts
and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.” Culture is fundamental to human dignity and identity
Families, churches,
communities
Cultural
organisations
Arts rich schools
Arts broker
teachers
Popular cultures,
media
Here are the specific RQs and some numbers. Questions are about teachers working with cultural organisations, its impact on teaching and learning at classroom level, what students gain from this and the effectiveness of the CPD offered by the cultural organisations.
The underpinning purpose of our research was to gather evidence about what the arts curriculum really offers students, to understand better what needs to be argued for and defended, and why.
[Broadly, in terms of Ofsted judgements, they fell into equal categories with one-third being judged inadequate or requiring improvement; one-third good and one-third (including two of the special schools) outstanding. The sample comprised 19 academies, seven maintained schools, one independent school and three special schools.
Summary on slide: RQs, methods.]
Symposium is organised in this way.
Begin with (1) The arts in crisis? –national context for our findings - me
Then Pat will talk about the theoretical framework we’ve been working with.
Then Corinna will talk about the findings from the survey.
Then Lexi will discuss some of the qualitative data from students, which covers the (2) Why study the arts? Perspectives from secondary school students in England paper.
I’ll come back and talk a little bit about one line of our analysis of the teacher interview data (paper 3 - More than a subject: teachers as arts brokers)
Pat will finish off with some points about the cultural capability providing school and we hope there will be some time left for discussion.
Questions as we go, though.
CORINNA slides 18-25
TALE survey results - school level effects
The TALE survey focused on all students in years 10, 11 and 12 in 30 schools to develop a broader dataset about their engagement in arts and cultural activities. The survey focused on the questions what arts activities they actually do, what it means to them, why they do it and what they learn from it. The survey was administered online and through paper pencil at the end of the second year (2016/17) and the beginning of the third 2017/18 to more than 4500 students (reserachtale.net)
The findings from the survey – and from other qualitative case study data - show that school has a significant impact on students’ engagement with the arts.
Schools do this by:
generating interest in the first place
supporting and encouraging engagement.
The survey shows that support and encouragement make a real difference to students’ level of engagement in the arts.
This chart shows what we’ve called everyday cultural engagement amongst students in the TALE schools compared to the general population of students that age represented in the Taking Part survey.
So what we think we’re seeing here is a finding that’s not maybe particularly surprising but is significant: that is, that schools where there is a commitment to offering a rounded arts curriculum, have a significant impact on the cultural engagement of students in that school generally, regardless of whether they’re taking arts subjects or not.
And the students levels of everyday cultural engagement are also significantly higher (except with regard to cinema, which is already sitting at 95%.)
How to understand this?
These schools have produced a capability in their students
We see this capability as being linked to the idea of citizenship.
It’s not just that they have learned about arts and culture. The students have also acquired the skills and confidence to participate and to make choices, to be creative and to have a voice.
We think these can be considered cultural capabilities and that cultural capabilities are inherent in being a citizen. Citizenship isn’t just about knowing stuff; it’s also about doing and being and contributing to the wider community – having a voice and representing your views. These are the reasons we think that arts education – and a broad and balanced curriculum - matter and why we should be arguing for it.
Need to explain the arts intensive schools bit but emphasise the general effect.