The Painting Department together with Art in Social Dialogue at the Alanus University have set up a research and development project in conjunction with project partners in three European countries, with the aim of supporting disadvantaged and underperforming school children through art.
The activities
The project is seeking to develop, practise, evaluate and propagate ways of intigrating children who are socially and culturally disadvantaged or experience learning difficulties, using the medium of art. Professional artists from the Alanus University, painters, musicians, sculptors and actors who have a firm grounding in teaching methodology, work with children and teachers in the partner schools over a two week period developing a complex web of artistic activities which result in presentations or exhibitions.
The aims
Every partner school in the project works with children from backgrounds of ethnic or social discrimination and/or learning difficulties. For these children the prospects of social integration, adequate education and career opportunities are indeed bleak unless they acquire the necessary social skills to deal with problems of violence, demotivation and prejudice, and develop personal initiative to overcome fear and despair.
One of the aims is that these schools should provide the support that these pupils need to break the vicious circle of disadvantage and under-priviledge. This process of inner development can lay the foundations of social intigration which is a prerequisite for vocational training.The schools involved have already been trailling innovative teaching techniques and task-based learning. The art projects can make a significant contribution to broadening this approach which focusses on the development of personal and social key competences. The medium of art is ideally suited to overcome low self-esteem and promote motivation and satisfaction in the learning process fostering the pupils' initiative, cultural expression and creativity. These pesonal qualities can lead to better performance at school and more further opportunities for integration.
Art projects can transform pupils' perception of school life by allowing them to feel that they can take a formative part in dealing with their environment. This process can also lead to strengthening social competences.
The background
Progressive voices in education have long pointed to the fact that art can stimulate performance, but this has not been reflected in general practice. This project intends to make a start with the inplimentation of these ideas.The partner schools have the possibility to take part and share in this project and to transfer these principles to their curriculum according to the specific conditions they face, thereby making a lasting contribution to the overall quality of their work.
This work with the socially underpriviledged and disadvantaged gives a new relevance to Beuys' concept of "an extended definition of art" as a stimulus for personal and social change. As such, it contributes to one of the key objectives of the Alanus University, which has been conducting research and training young people to work in this field for many years.
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