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.

1. Towards education for
cultural citizenship
Learning from TALE
Pat Thomson, Christine Hall,
Lexi Earl, Corinna Geppert

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.

6. school level effects: everyday cultural engagement
56%
68%
58%
70%
53%
61%
53%
61%
51%
61%
46%
38%
46%
61%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Art Museums Libraries
2010/11 2011/12 2012/13 2013/14 2014/15 2015/16 TALE 2016-2018
79%
32%
7%
77%
34%
12%
77%
31%
10%
77%
31%
10%
78%
28%
10%
74%
25%
9%
95%
53%
31%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Cinemas Live Music Events Dance Performance
2010/11 2011/12 2012/13 2013/14 2014/15 2015/16 TALE 2016-2018

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

21. https://researchtale.net
@ThomsonPat
patthomson.net
Patricia.Thomson@nottingham.ac.uk