Research note: Promoting intercultural education through art education

Abstract

Taking UNESCO’s proposal ‘learning how to live together’ as a starting point, we examined to what extent visual education can be used as a tool to promote the aims of intercultural education. We analyzed the power of using artistic images from different cultures to change students’ perception of cultural differences, thereby facilitating the development of attitudes of respect towards different ethnic/cultural groups. We also investigated to what extent this strategy could contribute to the integration of minority peers into a majority group. Students were assigned to either an experimental or a control group. The experimental treatment consisted of exposing students to several art object images associated with different cultures. Our measurement instrument was based on an adapted version of the ‘Draw‐A‐Person‐Test’, which we have called the ‘Draw‐Two‐Persons‐Test’. We also used a questionnaire to examine attitudes among subjects

Acknowledgments

The Faculty of Psychology and Sciences of Education of Lisbon supported this research. We wish to thank Dr Fátima Nibau for her help regarding the statistical phase of the research, Professor Dorit Roer‐Strier and Dr Barry Van Driel for their friendly support and suggestions during the research.