Inclusive arts education in two Scandinavian primary schools: a phenomenological case study

ABSTRACT

Previous studies indicate that ideas related to special education could influence the way arts education is performed and motivated in schools. Further investigation is therefore required in order to raise awareness of how perspectives on inclusion can serve as a starting point for arts education, and vice versa. This article takes it starting point in an ethnographic double case study of arts education practices. Data were collected during the school year 2013/2014 in two Scandinavian schools (for pupils aged 6–13) with an articulated commitment to the arts. The methods used for data collection were observation and interviews. The material was analysed from a phenomenological point of view, and the analysis showed a predominantly holistic view of inclusion in the two schools. Five dimensions of inclusion were identified through the analysis: providing arts education for all, being connected to something larger, allowing access to different forms of expression and communication, establishing preconditions for holistic inclusion, and developing special arts education. The results indicate that these schools have made considerable progress in developing an inclusive arts learning environment. Results also suggest that a holistic inclusive view of education encourages a functional and vivid arts education for ‘all’, both inside and outside the classroom.

KEYWORDS:

• Inclusive education
• arts education
• holistic education
• primary schools
• phenomenology

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Cecilia Ferm Almqvist, PhD, is a Full Professor of music education at Luleå University of Technology Sweden, where she graduated in 2004 on a phenomenological thesis about teaching and learning interaction in music classrooms. Her philosophical and empirical research focuses upon democracy and inclusion in diverse music educational settings, as for example music teacher education, assessment situations in the music classroom, and special educational contexts. She has presented her work internationally at several music educational conferences and in well-known scientific journals such as RSME, PMER, BJME, IJME, VRME, and Reconstruction.

Catharina Christophersen is Full Professor of Music Education at Bergen University College, Faculty of Education, in Norway. She holds a PhD from The Norwegian Academy of Music with a dissertation about popular music pedagogy in higher music education. Her research is critical and often problematizing conditions for action, experience, and knowledge/learning in music and the arts in various educational settings. She has published internationally in journals and in edited books and volumes within the fields of music education and arts education.

Notes

1. The pupils included in the study were born in 2003. This equals 4th grade in Sweden, 5th grade in Norway.

2. The German didactic concept of Bildung generally refers to education and growth in a broad sense, and denotes learning processes regarding human beings’ relationship to themselves, to the world and to society (Varkøy 2010).