Ferrer-Fons, Mariona, Rovina, Marta and Soler-i-Marti, Roger: A school of life for young people. A case-study of a Center for Music and Performing Arts of the city of Barcelona
In this paper we will be focusing on a Center for Music and Performing Arts of the city of Barcelona (Spain) in order to explore how cultural activities and practices of young people and practitioners are relevant with regards to cultural literacy and social cohesion. Non-formal education settings can be places where young people acquire resources and develop their cultural and artistic skills and interests. The artistic learning through different practices might be not an end in itself, but rather a mechanism for learning about other values and skills (for instance, becoming aware of the context he or she inhabits; acquiring critical thinking and social awareness; learning to develop empathy towards others; positive attitudes to cultural diversity and learning to work together). Our goal is to understand how cultural literacy is acquired within a non-formal education setting through cultural practices, pedagogical tools, and learning experiences. Methodologically, we will follow a qualitative approach. We combined the analysis of data from non-participant observation of the activities done during 3 months in the center with qualitative interviews (10 semi-structured interviews with young people aged 16-25 years old and 3 interviews with practitioners). The case-study has been done in the framework of the EU 2020 project CHIEF (http://chiefproject.eu/).