Why the arts are not considered core knowledge in secondary education: a Bernsteinian analysis

Abstract

As a result of international neoliberal and neoconservative trends, the status of the arts has been devalued in secondary school curricula. This paper examines why the arts are not considered core educational knowledge in pedagogic discourse arising from the New Right policy agenda. In a case study analysis of Swedish educational policy debates, curriculum codes and their underlying principles of recontextualization are weighed as they bear on the arts. Discursive positionings and socio-political networking between political standpoints and stakeholders have been analysed based on official Swedish documents associated with the legislative process of curriculum revision.Our findings show how justifications of arts education clash with coding orientations arising from a strong classification between what is presumed to be valuable and non-valuable knowledge, which in turn is due to an underlying principle of visibility. While advocates argue that artistic practices promote transversal competences and have intangible benefits, this same argument unwittingly strengthens the nonautonomous status of the arts. The illegitimacy of the arts also stems from the belief that they are only marginally related to visible market values. Taken together, the arts are not considered core knowledge because of their perceived relative unimportance for higher academic learning or vocational competence.

La educación artística desde una perspectiva internacional: una indagación sobre temas relevantes, redes profesionales y líneas de investigación

“…Sin embargo, tras la caída de los regímenes comunistas en Europa del Este, muchos países europeos adoptaron un enfoque de la educación orientado al rendimiento, muy influido por el auge de las políticas neoconservadoras y neoliberales tras la Guerra Fría (Lilliedahl, 2021;Lingard, 202). Para las escuelas, este cambio supuso un mayor énfasis en las "asignaturas troncales" tradicionales (por ejemplo, lengua y matemáticas), una mayor responsabilidad de las escuelas y una mayor atención a la medición y los exámenes estandarizados (Lilliedahl, 2022). Como consecuencia, ha disminuido el reconocimiento del valor intrínseco de las artes, lo que ha provocado una tendencia a la reducción de la financiación de los programas de educación artística en las escuelas, menos tiempo dedicado a las asignaturas artísticas y menos puestos de trabajo para profesores especialistas en artes, especialmente en el nivel de primaria (Adams, 2011;Hernández-Hernández, 2019;Lilliedahl, 2021).…”