With increasing borders across Europe and globally, and rises in hate crimes and discrimination worldwide, it seems urgently necessary to understand the role of arts and culture in promoting inclusive societies, particularly in the integration and disintegration of societies. Practices within art galleries, museums, archives, libraries, theatres and other cultural and community institutions (or enterprises) may be interpreted and understood as an active or passive statement reflecting political developments. How do people react to these societal statements of arts and culture? How can society and politics stimulate active or passive participation in and through artistic and cultural developments of integration and disintegration?

Therefore, we propose - under the umbrella of PASCAL - a Special Interest Group within the Learning Cities Network, to develop international links within such cultural issues.  This includes those interested in a collaborative exploration of cultural literacy and intercultural competencies of diverse citizens, promoted through formal, informal and non-formal engagement with cultural organisations.

This group will work from the UNESCO (2013) Learning City indicators in the areas of cultural and civic engagement, in order to gain a greater shared understanding of how cities and regions support cultural engagement and cultural literacy and intercultural competencies in a diverse European, as well as global context.

We are now calling for PASCAL member interest in our Special Interest Group to create bi-annual briefing papers on cultural policy to disseminate amongst PASCAL stakeholders and their partners.  In addition, the group will meet bi-annually at EMA-PASCAL events to broker this relationships and create networks of researchers to launch funding, educational programmes and share best practice events in the area of cultural literacies.

Attendees at the European Museum Academy (EMA) annual awards ceremony and conference (2019) (see Report)

If you are interested, please contact Henrik Zipsane (cultural policy interests),  Catherine Lido (cultural literacy interests) and/ or Maggie Jago (cultural education interests).  If you are already an associate of PASCAL and wish to have your profile linked to this group, please email [email protected].

We successfully launched our first SIG policy briefing paper at the European Museums Association annual conference in Aarhus Denmark in September, and we very much look forward to welcoming you at our next EMA-PASCAL event in February 2019.

Members

• Henrik Zipsane, Sweden (Founder, Lead) - European Museum Academy (EMA)
• Catherine Lido, UK (Founder, Co-Lead) - University of Glasgow
• Margaret Jago, UK (Founder, Co-Lead) - University of Glasgow
• Rob Mark, UK (Founder) - PASCAL SIG Lead
• Maria Economou, UK - University of Glasgow
• Emek Yilmaz, Turkey - European Museum Academy (EMA)
• Massimo Negri, Italy - European Museum Academy (EMA)
• Karl Boromäus Murr, Germany - European Museum Academy (EMA)
• Dirk Houtgraaf, The Netherlands - European Museum Academy (EMA)
• Rozen Mohamed Ekaroma, Iraq - Nam-gu Incheon City, South Korea
• Roberta Piazza, Italy - Catania University
• Georgios Papaioannou, Qatar - UCL Qatar
• Orna Mager, Israel - Municipality of Modiin Maccabim Rehut            
• Peter Kearns, Australia - Member, PASCAL International Observatory Board
• Ulrica Löfstedt, Sweden - The Nordic Centre of Heritage Learning (NCK)  
• Maria Domeij Lundborg, Sweden - The Nordic Centre of Heritage Learning (NCK)  
• Anna Hansen, Sweden - Regional Museum Kristianstad
• Charina Knutson, Sweden - Jamtli Foundation

Publications

The Struggle for Control over Identities – Education, History and Local Communities in Scandinavia - Henrik Zipsane

Cultural Policy development in service of Social Justice - Catherine Lido & Henrik Zipsane

Literacy, Equality and Creativity: a university-community engagement to promote peace & reconciliation – Rob Mark

The Senior Citizens Heritage Learning Initiative – Henrik Zipsane

Events

Summary of EMA-PASCAL Meeting: In recognition of museums development

PASCAL - EMA Partnerships get off to a fitting start focusing on Cultural Learning & Literacies in Cities

Summary of a joint seminar organised by the European Museum Academy (EMA) and PASCAL in Aarhus, Denmark, September 2018 (including "Cultural Policy Development - Current Perspectives" presentation by Henrik Zipsane)

PASCAL - EMA join forces in Östersund, Sweden to explore the relationship between cultural, heritage, museums and the wider engagement with new groups - Rob Mark

Presentations/Talks

Cultural Learning & Literacies at the University of Glasgow, 21 Sept, 2018 (PowerPoint)

Catherine Lido & Henrik Zipsane