Exploring the Direction of Cultural Heritage Education in Schools for the Enjoyment of Culture

Abstract

This study aims to propose the direction of teaching cultural heritages at the music class in schools following the perspective that cultural heritage education should lead to ‘cultural enjoyment’. In this study, the definition of cultural enjoyment that can be applied in school education is considered as ‘the intellectual, emotional, practical process and its results that an individual actively seeks to understand and experience culture,’ and three attributes of ‘activity, positive sentiment, and participation’ are presented as those of cultural enjoyment. As a result of analyzing the current status and problems of cultural heritage education in schools, the following problems were identified: ‘curriculum standards centered on research and presentation,’ ‘curriculum standards limited to appreciation and value recognition,’ ‘textbook contents biased towards data presentation and information delivery,’ and ‘inadequate provision of musical experiences for learning cultural heritages.’ To solve such problems and increase the possibility of achieving the goal of 'enjoying culture' in school education, we propose three aspects in cultural heritage education: establishing goals for cultural heritage education that promote the development of 'subjectivity in creating'; setting up a content framework for cultural heritage education centered on 'enjoyment'; and enhancing the ability to enjoy culture based on participatory cultural heritage learning. The significance of this study is to raise the need for cultural heritage education in schools to move in the direction of enhancing learners' ability to enjoy culture, and to discuss the direction for this. To solve the problems raised in this study, it is important to achieve social consensus on cultural heritage, revise national education curricula, develop music textbooks, and cooperate with institutions related to cultural heritage education