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Ethos: Cultural development

Issues for Church schools

To ensure that the breadth of the Christian religion is introduced to pupils, bearing in mind their age and aptitude.
To help pupils recognize the value and richness of cultural diversity in Britain.
To enable pupils to be aware of the non-Christian religious traditions in Britain.
To engender an atmosphere and understanding that encourages respect and acceptance of cultural diversity.

The law

section 1(2) of the Education Reform Act, 1988 (subsumed under section 351(1) of the Education Act, 1996) requires the curriculum in a maintained school to be broad and balanced and to promote: 'the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of pupils at the school'.
This requirement has been given substance with the presence of an inspection service, OFSTED - ESTYN (formerly OHMCI/SPAEM) in Wales.

Guidance

In their latest guidance for inspectors, OFSTED offer the following support:

Cultural development and provision

Pupils who are becoming culturally aware are likely to be developing some or all of the following characteristics:

an ability to recognise and understand their own cultural assumptions and values;
an understanding of the influences which have shaped their own cultural heritage;
an understanding of the dynamic, evolutionary nature of cultures;
an ability to appreciate cultural diversity and accord dignity to other people's values and beliefs, thereby challenging racism and valuing race equality;
an openness to new ideas and a willingness to modify cultural values in the light of experience;
an ability to use language and understand images/icons, for example, in music, art, literature which have significance and meaning in a culture;
a willingness to participate in, and respond to, artistic and cultural enterprises;
a sense of personal enrichment through encounter with cultural media and traditions from a range of cultures;
a regard for the heights of human achievement in all cultures and societies; and
an appreciation of the diversity and interdependence of cultures.

Schools that are encouraging pupils' cultural development are likely to be:

providing opportunities for pupils to explore their own cultural assumptions and values;
presenting authentic accounts of the attitudes, values and traditions of diverse cultures, addressing racism and promoting race equality;
extending pupils' knowledge and use of cultural imagery and language;
recognizing and nurturing particular gifts and talents;
providing opportunities for pupils to participate in literature, drama, music, art, crafts and other cultural events and encouraging pupils to reflect on their significance;
developing partnerships with outside agencies and individuals to extend pupils' cultural awareness, for example, theatre, museum, concert and gallery visits, resident artists, foreign exchanges;
reinforcing the school's cultural values through displays, posters, exhibitions, etc.;
auditing the quality and nature of opportunities for pupils to extend their cultural development across the curriculum; and
monitoring in simple, pragmatic ways the success of what is provided.

Summary taken from Inspection Guidance Papers, OFSTED, September 2002.

In Cultural Development by John Bailey, The National Society 1997, the author gives the following advice on cultural development.

In a country like Britain, with a dominant culture that is largely Christian-influenced and a wide variety of subcultures, the educational system inevitably tends to reflect a traditional culture which is mainly Christian. This can appear to those of other cultures as cultural elitism. Ideally, we need to provide an education which opens up to all children the best that is available within our cultural heritage without implying that this is in any sense 'superior' to other cultures, and without attempting, consciously or subconsciously, to assimilate children of other traditions into the dominant culture. Not an easy task!
The National Society publication Mission, Management and Appraisal speaks of a spectrum of types of Church schools, ranging from those who see their mission as serving the Church to those who see their mission as serving the community. A voluntary aided school whose admission policy precludes children other than those whose parents belong to one denomination of Christianity would be at one end of the spectrum, a Church school which admits all children from a particular geographical area, such as a village or parish, regardless of religious belief, would be at the other.
It is tempting, but not necessarily correct, to see the first type as fostering cultural separatism, and the second as fostering cultural assimilation. Certainly, an educational system like that of Northern Ireland, in which the majority of children are educated in segregated schools - Protestant or Catholic - could be seen as promoting cultural separatism. However, many Roman Catholic and Anglican voluntary aided schools in Britain, despite having admissions policies which favour children from Catholic or Anglican backgrounds, do admit large numbers of children from other religions; furthermore, while providing a specifically Christian ethos, they also attempt to provide religious education that is fair and objective in its treatment of other faiths.
At the other end of the spectrum, schools such as Anglican voluntary controlled schools, which see themselves as serving a particular neighbourhood, need not necessarily be fostering cultural assimilation, at least not in the sense of attempting to assimilate children into a kind of 'lowest common denominator' of shared value. Such schools are increasingly becoming aware of the implications of their Christian foundation, in terms of the ethos that they seek to promote and the spiritual and moral values which they are privileged to introduce to the children in their care. They would argue that this approach opens up the possibility for children to choose for themselves a Christian lifestyle on the basis of having experienced a Christian community, and would not see this as in any way indoctrinatory or running counter to the rights of ethnic and cultural minorities.
It is helpful to look at the ways in which the Christian tradition has been influenced in, and indeed influenced by, the arts.

Available elsewhere on this web site are ideas relating to visits to places of Christian worship.

Challenging areas

There is often little consistent planning for cultural development across the curriculum. As is the case with spiritual development, opportunities can be missed. There can be too great a reliance on extra-curricular activities such as theatre and museum visits, foreign visits and exchanges.
School provision can be patchy, often implicit rather than explicit and Eurocentric (even Anglophobic) rather than global.
There can be a clash of cultures between home and school. School governors need to be aware that in seeking a school ethos there can be conflict between the culture of the school and the culture of the pupils, particularly in secondary schools. The establishment of such a school ethos requires sensitivity, flexibility and imagination.

FAQs

How can our school develop a policy on cultural development?

Yes. In doing so, the school should consider the following points:

A commitment to cultural development should be included in the school's aims.

It should then follow that individual subject aims should also include cultural development.

Specifically, subjects such as art, music, drama, English/Welsh, history and geography should specify the contributions they will make to cultural awareness.

The school's provision for extra-curricular activities should include a range of cultural activities such as theatre visits, and reference should be made to ways of opening up such experiences to a majority of pupils.

Science, technology and mathematics should make a specific commitment in their policy statements to the cultural origins of their subjects.

The school should have, either in its overall aims or separately, a specific statement of commitment to multicultural education and anti-racist education.

Consideration should be given to ways in which the school's practice of induction into cultural experience includes the possibility of critical appraisal and creativity.

The school's policy should if possible specify the balance which is to be struck between developing the dominant culture of the country and developing awareness of other cultures.

If there is any suspicion that the educational opportunities of some pupils may be affected by cultural differences, the school's policies should express a commitment to minimize these problems.

An Anglican school should make explicit its commitment to the development of awareness and understanding of its Christian cultural heritage.

For further questions and points for discussion see Cultural Development by John Bailey, The National Society, 1997 (see General Resources).

Resources

Valuing Cultural Diversity: A self-evaluation kit for schools, 2001 (The National Society). Available from this web site, the kit will help you to look at why valuing cultural diversity is important, how to do it, and what resources are available to help.
Other resources are included under General resources for spiritual, moral, social and cultural development and under Ethos statement.

DDE information

A number of dioceses offer guidance and advice on how schools can develop a policy on cultural development and then put it into practice.
Follow this link for a list of Diocesan education contacts.

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