Why the arts are not considered core knowledge in secondary education
A Bernsteinian analysis
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21345600 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jonathan Lilliedahl (0000-0001-7030-9925, Örebro University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 54 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 165-178 |
| Publication date | 2022-03-04 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Curriculum Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0022-0272 • E-ISSN: 1366-5839 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/00220272.2021.1925971 |
| OpenAlex | W3169848418 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 36 |
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 non-autonomous 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
Argument (complex analysis) · Arts in education · Competence (human resources) · Curriculum · Pedagogy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · The arts · Vocational education · Educational Theory and Curriculum Studies · Educator Training and Historical Pedagogy · Global Educational Policies and Reforms · Law · Psychology · Social Psychology
Towards a Theory of Educational Transmissions
The Structuring of Pedagogic Discourse
Rational responses to high stakes testing
Knowledge, power and powerful knowledge re‐visited
Neoconservative education policy and the case of the English Baccalaureate
Basil Bernstein
On the powers of powerful knowledge
Knowledge and Knowers
The declining place of music education in schools in England
The Artist in Society
What Should It Mean to Have a Liberal Education in the 21st Century
Recontextualising policy discourses
The vocational–academic divide in neoliberal upper secondary curricula
Subjects and themes in the secondary‐school curriculum
Vertical and Horizontal Discourse
The Politics of Official Knowledge
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 3 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2026 (2) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |