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Country-based report on cultural literacy practices in formal education

This report presents the results of qualitative research conducted within formal education settings in Croatia. Research has been done in secondary schools at three different locations ; urban, semi-urban and rural area. Sixty pupils (twenty per school) and nine teachers (three per school) answered a semi-structured interview. Four thematic units were covered through the interviews, and country specific theme was added as a fifth unit. This study analyses students’ and teachers’ responses to questions related to school experience, understanding of culture and cultural heritage, cultural identity of youth and youth participation in culture. The fifth thematic block in this study refers to history. It was selected as country specific theme because of the different interpretations that exist in Croatian society around contemporary history, regarding different interpretations of crimes committed during the Second World War (by fascists) and crimes carried out in the aftermath (by communists). Croatia is one of the few European countries that has experienced bloody war in the recent past. The War for Independence (1991-1995), in Croatia called ‘The Homeland War’, strongly marked the process of transition from socialism to capitalism and influenced present-day Croatian society. This study analyses the cultural participation and cultural identity of young people who were born after the war. According to previous sociological surveys, young people in Croatia expressed significant social distance towards ethnicities from former Yugoslav republics, today’s neighbour countries. Although this research is not a survey dealing with representative sample and it is obvious that there are no possibilities for generalizations, we were curious regarding aspects of nationalistic and similar discourses among participants in three different locations, knowing that in semi-urban area there is Roma minority and in rural area there is Serbian minority. The results of this research have shown considerable differences from previous sociological surveys measuring social distance. Only few participants from the semi-urban area shared prejudices and stereotypes about the Roma as they exist in the public and parental culture (violence and theft attributed to the Roma). However, most participants in this region have shown a kind of neutrality and awareness of complexity of the issue, while several young people expressed explicit inclusive, positive and empathetic views on the Roma minority. In the rural area, despite the presence of the Serbian national minority, interethnic relations have not emerged as a problem, which can be largely attributed to the economic prosperity of that region based on tourism. When asked about their own definitions of the term culture and the first associations that appear on the term culture, almost none of the young people interviewed linked the concept of culture to ethnicity and religion. In addition, the former subcultural styles characteristic of the urban area during the 1980s and 1990s are slowly disappearing from the youth horizon. Music called cajka (new composed folk music, mostly coming from Serbia and a cause of labelling of young people who like it) becomes the main common denominator of the musical identity and leisure time activity of young people involved in this research.

cultural literacy, young people, cultural identity, history, curriculum

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