A Preliminary Assessment of a New Arts Education Programme in Dutch Secondary Schools

In The Netherlands a new compulsory programme, Arts and Cultural Education, has been implemented since 1998 in order to stimulate the cultural interest and the cultural activities of young people. Attending cultural activities is at the core of this programme and these activities should be of ‘generally accepted quality’. A research project by Utrecht University describes and evaluates the introduction of this new programme. The results presented are based on questionnaires from 89 teachers, 1100 students between 14 and 17 years old. Analyses show that arts and cultural education students do participate more in traditional culture (theatre, museum and classical concerts) than other secondary school students. However there are substantial differences in the opinions of teachers as to which kind of cultural activities should be permitted for the new programme. Results also indicate that the majority of teachers are quite liberal in accepting the choices of their students. About half of the cultural activities of the new programme fall into the category of popular cultural activities (cinema, pop-concerts, dj-/vjevents). Students who do not (or not yet) follow the arts and cultural education programme visit these activities to the same extent.