Why the arts are not considered core knowledge in secondary education. A Bernsteinian analysis.

Autor/in	Lilliedahl, Jonathan
Titel	Why the arts are not considered core knowledge in secondary education. A Bernsteinian analysis.
Quelle	In: Journal of curriculum studies, 54 (2022) 2, S. 165-178Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Link als defekt meldenVerfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	online; gedruckt; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0022-0272; 1366-5839
DOI	10.1080/00220272.2021.1925971
Schlagwörter	Bildungspolitik; Curriculumtheorie; Lehrplantheorie; Kontextualisierung; Kunstunterricht; Bernstein
Abstract	As a result of international neoliberal and neoconservative trends, the status of the arts has been devalued in secondary school curricula. This paper examines why the arts are not considered core educational knowledge in pedagogic discourse arising from the New Right policy agenda. In a case study analysis of Swedish educational policy debates, curriculum codes and their underlying principles of recontextualization are weighed as they bear on the arts. Discursive positionings and socio-political networking between political standpoints and stakeholders have been analysed based on official Swedish documents associated with the legislative process of curriculum revision. Our findings show how justifications of arts education clash with coding orientations arising from a strong classification between what is presumed to be valuable and non-valuable knowledge, which in turn is due to an underlying principle of visibility. While advocates argue that artistic practices promote transversal competences and have intangible benefits, this same argument unwittingly strengthens the non-autonomous status of the arts. The illegitimacy of the arts also stems from the belief that they are only marginally related to visible market values. Taken together, the arts are not considered core knowledge because of their perceived relative unimportance for higher academic learning or vocational competence.
Erfasst von	IPN - Leibniz-Institut für die Pädagogik der Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik an der Universität Kiel
Update	2022/3