Cultural Education for Children and Youth

Cultural education for children and youth is an essential component of holistic education. It contributes to personality development and fosters creativity, self-confidence, and cultural interest.

Cultural education offers opportunities for engaging with oneself and the world through artistic forms of expression. It strengthens the shared experience of growing up and learning among children and young people from diverse family, cultural, and social backgrounds. It is a prerequisite for participation in cultural offerings and lays important foundations for democratic action.

A society that ensures comprehensive cultural education simultaneously creates key foundations for its own future viability. The success of cultural education as part of lifelong general education depends on cooperative education, cultural, and youth policies that recognize the various learning environments with their specific approaches, connect them, and relate them to one another.

Against the backdrop of current societal transformation processes and the associated growing importance of cultural education as a space for shaping society, the KMK revised its “Recommendation on Cultural Education for Children and Youth” in 2022.

This revision was based on a broad understanding of culture, ranging from the “classic” artistic disciplines (literature, music, theater, visual arts, etc.) to (socio-)cultural practices. The recommendation emphasizes the importance of strengthening alliances for cultural education and securing their political, financial, and legal foundations. It encourages expanding the potential of cultural education for using digital learning formats and highlights the significance of cultural education in rural areas and at “third places”.