Arts Education and Interculturalism

Arts education can help foster attitudes favouring intercultural openness. Arts education can also help to address issues such as ethnocentrism, relativity of tastes, bias, stereotyping, prejudice, discrimination and racism. My recent exploration into the workings of arts education in promoting peace opened up my understanding to the vista of opportunities around alternative education to interculturalism.

Since the education process that harnesses cultural diversity is a lifelong process, the development of intercultural competencies is not - and indeed cannot be - limited to the classroom but must extend to the 'university of life'. To this end, greater use could be made of cultural institutions - art galleries, museums, and archives, under the guidance of the curators and oral historians, who can help to re-contextualize the object exhibited.

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