The Korean Ministry of Culture, Sport, and Tourism, recognizing the importance of School Arts and Culture Education (SACE), has been supporting selected elementary school students in economically and culturally disadvantaged regions to obtain cultural...
The Korean Ministry of Culture, Sport, and Tourism, recognizing the importance of School Arts and Culture Education (SACE), has been supporting selected elementary school students in economically and culturally disadvantaged regions to obtain cultural and artistic experiences. The purpose of this study was to examine the continuous effects of the SACE on the recipients after graduation. In order to achieve this, the first stage SACE alumni of 200, currently middle school students, were contacted for questionnaires and interviews. The results were as follows. Firstly, the first stage alumni strongly perceived the SACE beneficial to their character building, satisfactory school and family life, and cultural and artistic capacity development. Secondly, their in-school cultural and artistic experiences dramatically diminished after graduation, partly due to the insufficient opportunities for cultural and artistic experiences provided by their middle schools and their caregivers at home. Thirdly, the alumni can be categorized in three groups: discontinued, partly continued, and continued. Students in the discontinued group had hardly cultural and artistic experiences after graduation. Those in the partly continued group joined regional cultural and artistic organizations, and thus had some experiences. Those lucky students whose middle schools support cultural and artistic activities were categorized as the continued group, but this cases were quite rare. To maximize the continued effectiveness of the cultural and artistic education, elementary schools and middle schools need to collaborate together. Furthermore, their alma mater could provide opportunities to the alumni such as student-graduate mentoring or graduate performance programs.