Arts Education

The aim of this master’s thesis is to assess the influence of the cultural background of primary teachers on their teaching arts. Earlier research has not extensively covered the influence of the background of the teacher on teaching methods, content of the lessons, or decisions when it comes to arts and culture education. The question that guided this research was: what is the impact of the cultural background of current primary teachers in and around Rotterdam on their practice of, and attitude towards arts and culture education? Six in-depth interviews with primary teachers in Rotterdam and its surroundings were conducted in May and the beginning of June 2017. In the first part, the theoretical chapter starts with an explanation of how arts education in the Netherlands came into its current form. When looking into the cultural background, Bourdieu and his concepts of cultural capital and habitus are key. They serve an important role when it comes to explaining the influences of family and education and their result on current primary teachers. The results of this research show how the attitudes of others in both the family or during the teacher’s own education can turn out to be decisive for the attitude a primary teacher now has towards arts and culture. A role model, religion, and the situation at home determine not just the childhood of the primary teachers. All these factors have shaped the primary teacher, they influence the current decisions the primary teacher makes, and thus also the cultural background of the children they teach nowadays. The interviews indicated that parental regret of missing out on unpursued talents is one of the factors that result in the primary teacher as a child being exposed to arts and culture. However, not just the parents of the primary teacher as a child, but also the adult primary teacher who feels (s)he has missed out, wants to make sure the current generation gets all the opportunities they need. Primary teachers in the more deprived areas of Rotterdam told how there are more subsidies available for the schools to make sure they offer the children every opportunity to develop themselves fully. Not growing up with arts and culture can still result in interest at a later age, when children start making their own decisions, as this is something that happened both to the primary teachers when they were young, and the children they teach nowadays. Still, as is true for the primary teachers as a child and the children they teach, the sooner people are introduced to arts and culture, the more it opens them up for appreciation in a later stage of their lives. Primary teachers who have had a lot of cultural experience tend to use it in their classes and base their decisions on it. On the other hand, primary teachers who did not participate in culture when they were young, use more recent experience in arts and culture, and they want to make sure that the children they teach do get every opportunity to get in touch with arts and culture.