The Impacts of the Presence of the Cultural Dimension in Schools on Teachers and Artists

Several governments throughout the world promote cultural partnership programs as a means of enriching the school curriculum. How do such programs affect teachers and artists? What meaning do they give to the presence of the cultural dimension in schools? To answer these questions, I examined the content of twelve semi-structured interviews (n=12) conducted with teachers and artists within a sociology of justification theoretical framework. The findings suggest that cultural partnerships between teachers and artists enabled them to experience happiness and satisfaction as well as to learn from each other. Cultural partnerships seem to produce these effects when they involve a dialogue between teachers and artists in order to reach mutual understanding and respect. I conclude this paper by addressing the factors to consider when implementing cultural partnerships and the limitations of my study. (Contains 2 tables and 8 notes.)