The Arts and Public Education: Integration or Separation?

The seminar "The Arts and Education: Integration or Separation" intends to explore and discuss the following questions: -­ to what extent should contemporary art and contemporary education share philosophies, venues and visions? -­ what are the basics of arts and what are the basics of education? - to what extent can these two worlds be shared worlds? -­ to what extent should community arts projects be regarded as educational? ­- what are efficient or rather high quality musician/teacher collaboration in educational settings? How can they be prepared, planned and conducted? This seminar can be regarded as a fringe activity of the project School and concert ? from transmission to dialogue (DiSko) supported by the FINNUT-programme. The DiSko project is an innovation project intending to innovate schoolconcert practices produced and implemented nationally by Kulturtanken - Arts for Young Audiences Norway (AYAN) and regional partners in Norway. The project will innovate an established practice through research based innovation procedures in order to respond to challenges connected to school ownership and school integration. The CASE research center at Western Norway University of Applied Sciences is the research partner of AYAN and is responsible for all research activities in the DiSko project (http://casecenter.no) The intended research practices in the DiSko project raises a number of basic and philosophical questions (which goes far beyond the scope of the project) about what it means to be a musician/artist in a school setting, what art is and what education is, and how a meaningful dialogue between the worlds of arts and education can be explored and researched. The "Arts and Education" seminar therefore, has summoned 4 international leading theorists in these fields (Eric Booth, US, Gert Biesta, UK, Liora Bresler, US and Dave Camlin, UK) to shed light on the questions raised. We invite interested scholars and practioneers to take part in an intensive two­?day seminar together where these questions will be explored and discussed. The seminar will be in English with an open and international invitation. The programme will consist of presentations on philosophical issues as well as discussions and interaction. The seminar will be summarised in a position paper and be used to reinforce the philosophical rationale behind the DiSko project. The seminar will also serve to shed light on the project activities beyond the project itself and thus contribute to our common knowledge base in this field and thus enrich the activities and decisions made in the main project. Dissemination will take place in the form of printed texts and videotaped sessions from the seminar published on the DiSko website. Seminar dissemination will also take place in the form of post seminar discussions in the DiSko project. A position paper will be produced as a direct result of activities and discussions during the seminar.The issues being discussed are vital in a number of contexts where arts and education meet. The invited international scholars are well known and we expect great interest from both artists and educators as well as cultural institutions. The seminar will especially be relevant for individuals and institutions involved or planning to be involved in DKS (The Cultural Schoolbag) activities, as well as to researcher­?artists involved in such activities within their institution. As such therefore the seminar will also be important for the discussion connected to reorganisation of AYAN activities as well as to the position of arts in educational programmes, such as teacher education and community music programmes. We expect to draw participants from these milieus, something that will be important for dissemination of the DiSko project and beyond.

This seminar can be regarded as a fringe activity connected to the DiSko project supported by the FINNUT programme. The DiSko project is an innovation project intending to innovate school concert practices produced and implemented nationally by Arts for Young Audiences Norway (AYAN) and regional partners in Norway. The project will innovate an established practice through research based innovation procedures in order to respond to challenges connected to school ownership and school integration. The CASE research center at Western Norway University of Applied Sciences is the research partner of AYAN and is responsible for all research activities in the DiSko project. . The intended research practices in the DiSko project raises a number of basic and philosophical questions (which goes far beyond the scope of the project) about what it means to be a musician artist in a school setting, what art is and what education is, and how a meaningful dialogue between the worlds of arts and education can be explored and researched. The "Arts and Education" seminar therefore, has summoned 4 international leading theorists in these field (Eric Booth, US, Henk Borgdorff,Holland, Gert Biesta, UK, and Liora Bresler, US ) to shed light on the questions raised. We invite interested scholars and practioneers to take part in an intensive two-day seminar together where these questions will be explored and discussed. The seminar will be in English with an open and international invitation. The programme will consist of presentations on philosophical issues as well as discussions and interaction. The seminar will be summarised in a position paper and be used to reinforce the philosophical rationale behind the DiSko project. The seminar will also serve to shed light on the project activities beyond the project itself and thus contribute to our common knowledge base in this field.