What is the Meaning of the Integration of the Cultural Dimension into Schools, According to the Official Discourse of the Province of Quebec?

Abstract

Since 1992, Quebec’s Ministry of Education1 and Ministry of Culture and Communications have been creating programs designed to integrate a cultural dimension into schools – a process requiring partnerships between teachers and professionals in the cultural domain. This domain comprises the objects and practices pertaining to the realm of arts and aesthetics and the values which are associated with them, namely expressivity, subjectivity, emotions, sensitivity, singularity, imagination, creativity and feelings (Kerlan, 2004). What does this integration mean, according to Quebec’s official discourse? To answer this question, we relied on sociology of justification theory (Boltanski & Thévenot, 1991; Boltanski & Chiapello, 1999, 2002) and used discourse and content analysis to examine Quebec’s official discourse. Our results suggest that this discourse relies on many definitions of culture and justice. This plurality blurs the meaning of the integration of the cultural dimension and requires that teachers delineate it by themselves.

De la pertinence des partenariats entre artistes et enseignants : formation culturelle des élèves et sociologie de la justification

“…Les chercheurs qui se sont intéressés à ces documents officiels (dont Bamford, 2006 ;Bumgarner, 1994b ;Côté et Simard, 2008, 2009Hanley, 2003 ;Valentin, 2006) s'interrogent sur leurs limites et sur la légitimité des partenariats éducatifs à caractère culturel qu'ils encouragent. Plus spécifiquement, leur réflexion porte sur les types de dispositifs pédagogiques favorisés par les programmes, sur les effets qu'ils entrainent et sur leurs objectifs.…”