pARTiciPED. Empowering student teachers for cross-sectorial collaborations with The Cultural Schoolbag (TCS) in Norwegian Schools

External providers of learning experiences increasingly seek and gain access to schools. These activities, organized by partners such as The Technological Schoolbag, Young Entrepreneurship and The Cultural Schoolbag, takes time from curricular activities already planned for by teachers in schools. Teachers often feel that the activities are valuable in themselves but becomes something ?extra? and with unclear learning outcomes. It is therefore important that future teachers are empowered to become equal stakeholders in the cooperation with external providers of learning experiences, to make sure that the learning activities provided, contribute to the school?s curricular activities. The pARTiciPED project, led by Østfold University College, focuses on the largest cross sectorial partnership with schools in Norway to date, The Cultural Schoolbag (TCS), which received NOK 285 million in government funding in 2019. The project will develop new and innovative methods in teacher education practicum, by exploring how the cooperation between TCS actors and future teachers can be facilitated for in such a way that TCS activities become integrated with everyday learning activities in schools. In this, we will seek to give future teachers an understanding of their role min TCS and experience with making their voice heard in planning and implementing TCS activities. The project will set up multiple TCS laboratories where pupils, teachers, student teachers, artists, historians, intermediaries, teacher educators and school leaders, will be invited to participate. Through several targeted and participatory development processes with different themes using different forms of expression, pARTiciPED will provide good examples, methods, tools and techniques supporting more mutual and transformative collaborations in TCS. The methodology in the project is drawn from action research and is rooted in methods developed within participatory design.

Partnering art, culture and pedagogy (pARTiciPED) will develop innovative methods for teacher education to give student teachers the skills and experiences they need to participate as equal partners in cross-sectorial collaborations (CSC) in Norwegian schools. CSCs are common in the Norwegian educational sector. The Cultural Schoolbag (TCS) is the most comprehensive to date, a Norwegian cultural programme securing all schools visits by professional artists and cultural workers. TCS aims to 1) give access to a wide range of cultural expressions so pupils can become acquainted with and 2) understand culture in all its forms; and 3) to become a fully integrated element of how schools achieve curricular goals (St.meld. 8, 2007/8). Studies have documented success when it comes to the first two objectives, but shortcomings when it comes to the third. A key factor explaining this is weak collaboration between cultural workers and teachers. Teachers lack expertise and confidence in preparing, participating in and following up activities, with few opportunities to acquire the skills required of them. Within the framework of pedagogical action research, pARTiciPED will through 3 work packages (WP2-4) with TCR cases organized as specific laboratories, contextualise and operationalize opportunities CSC provide for the development of transformational mutuality among its partners. In WP5, a 'third space' will be established to discuss, explore and calibrate understandings, interpretations and operationalisations from WP2-4, and be the basis for theory development, itself informed by ethnographic studies. PARTiciPED will develop a theoretical framework to understand conditions for deep participation and transformational mutuality in CSC, as part of TCS in Norwegian schools. It will develop new methods for TCS-meetings, and for empowering teachers when collaborating with artists and cultural workers to provide learning opportunities and new experiences for pupils.