Author: Alina Romanovska – Daugavpils University – Latvia

A variety of factors such as specific features of cultural and historical development of a country, its strategic development objectives in the fields of cultural policy, the economy and culture, the ethnic composition of the population, social behaviour, etc. determine cultural education development in a given country. National priorities in the area of cultural education are reflected in policy documents and curricula, the analysis of which gives an idea of the most important objectives and forms of future development. Continue reading “Quo Vadis, Cultural Education in Latvia”

Author: Priya Gohad – Savitribai Phule Pune University – India

The city of Pune is growing by the day in the flow of urbanisation and globalisation. The city which was once known as a ‘Cultural hub’ is now a popular ‘Cyber hub’. The suburbs of the city are rapidly developing, creating various pockets of cultural identities as a result of migration, modernisation and the growing population. Although much has changed for this city, one can catch a glimpse of this old mediaeval town as one walks through its chaotic lanes and feels the essence of its past in the form of ‘heritage’ that still strives to exist and maintain its identity. Located in one such small lane, in the old city of Pune, is the Kelkar Musuem. Continue reading “A Museum Re-establishing its Identity in the Process of Urban Development”

Author:  Demelza Jones – University of Gloucestershire – UK

As part of the CHIEF project’s work to date we have conducted a systematic review of secondary school curricula across social sciences and humanities subjects, as well as interviews with young people in schools and informal educational settings, and with educators and practitioners working in these settings. While the nine countries the CHIEF project is working in represent a wide variety of contexts, some key findings have emerged with broad applicability across the study. One such theme has emerged from our work on history curricula, Continue reading “Developing an Inclusive History Curriculum: An Overview of Current Initiatives in the UK”

Authors: Rati Shubladze  and Tamar Khoshtaria – Caucasus Research Resource Centre – Georgia

On May 12, 2019, the Joseph Stalin museum hosted a public lecture in his hometown, Gori¹, dedicated to the “Day of Georgia’s Allotment to the Virgin Mary”, a holiday that the parliament of Georgia minted into the calendar a week prior in special session.² Rather than a scene from a postmodern farce or satire, this is Georgian reality. In that reality, memory is bifurcated. As Nutsa Batiashvili³ has argued, this bifurcation in collective memory presents Georgia as glorious or heroic and wrong or inadequate at the same time. Memory of the legacy of Joseph Stalin in Georgia is no exception to this broader pattern, and the Stalin Museum in Gori is a clear manifestation of this. Continue reading “How is Memory about Stalin kept in Contemporary Georgia?”

Author: Yıldırım Şentürk – Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University – Turkey

Demet Lüküslü, Begüm Uzun, and Yüksel Taşkın have recently published their research findings on youths and polarisation in Turkey supported by TÜSES (Türkiye Sosyal Ekonomik ve Siyasal Araştırmalar Vakfı) and Friedrich Ebert Stiftung.¹ For a while, politicians and political parties have been inclined to advance political polarisation in Turkey by using polarising strategies. In this sense, pious versus secular is one of the issues forcing individuals to take a stance on it and eventually shaping individuals’ political attitudes as well as lifestyles, in a vicious circle. Continue reading “Recent Research Findings on Youths and Polarisation in Turkey”

Author: Ivan Hrstić – Institute of Social Sciences Ivo Pilar – Croatia

Since the Mid-2000s the process of designing and implementing a curriculum reform in Croatia has been taking place. It has been characterised by a number of controversies as it has resulted in heated discussions in academia. It has also become a major issue on the political scene, in the right and left wing bloc debates. The importance of the curriculum has been emphasised considering the key role formal education plays in the production and transition of cultural knowledge and the development of cultural literacy among young people. The school curriculum embodies dominant narratives in terms of identity formation processes, relationships to cultural heritage and inter-culturalism. Accordingly, some of the most addressed questions in the aforementioned debates in Croatia have been related to history interpretations, particularly regarding the Second World War, socialist era and the Homeland war for independence in the 1990s, which have been understood as the national identity fundaments. Continue reading “The Intertwined Relationship between Politics and Curriculum Reform”

Author: Marta Rovira – Universitat Pompeu Fabra – Spain

Can a cultural tradition be a process of acquisition of cultural literacy for new migrants? It is sometimes difficult to incorporate new migrants into the most traditional part of our local culture. However, any culture is a product of diverse cultural processes through history. And local tradition could be understood as not so local. Neither so traditional. And perhaps it could become an opening invitation for integration and sharing cultural practices with people from other countries. Continue reading “Integration and diversity in Catalan popular culture heritage”

Author: Alina Romanovska – Daugavpils University – Latvia

Education reform is currently the most topical issue of the Latvian education system. The Latvian education system is undergoing serious changes. The existing education content is obsolete, therefore it is proposed to introduce changes in both the education system and education content. Education content is revised in the light of reports and policy documents both produced domestically and at European level (e.g. the European Commission’s report Continue reading “Latvian Education Reform: Topical Issues in the Sphere of Cultural Literacy”

Author: Katherine Tonkiss – Aston University – UK

Our research into the ways in which cultural literacy education has been conceptualised within UK policy over the past decade has revealed its role in shaping and promoting a particular vision of the ‘good’ citizen through a neo-liberal communitarian model of governance. Continue reading “In the UK, Cultural Literacy Education Policy Is Shaping What It Means To Be a Good Citizen”

Author: Madhavi Reddy – Savitribai Phule Pune University – India

About the Film Preservation & Restoration Workshop organised by FHF

Film Heritage Foundation (FHF) is a not-for-profit organisation set up in 2014 in Mumbai, India, dedicated to the conservation, preservation and restoration of India’s film heritage, which are valued both as works of art and culture and as historical documents. Film Heritage Foundation in association Continue reading “Preserving Cinematic Heritage of India”

Author: Attila Kovács – Comenius University – Bratislava

The Historical facts about the Ottoman presence in Central Europe

A major part of the territory of today’s Slovakia, known in this historical period as Upper Hungary (hun. Felső-Magyarország, slov. Horná zem or Horné Uhorsko) became part of the Ottoman borderlands. Continue reading “The reception of the Ottomans and the idea of Europe in southern Slovakia”