Evaluating Partnership, or how to Evaluate the Contribution of Cultural Institutions to an Integrated Curriculum for Culture Education in Primary Schools

Each year, many thousands of children and youngsters take part, with their school, in educational projects that have been designed and developed by cultural institutions, such as museums and theatres. Although the importance of these cultural educational programs is being stressed by governments and cultural institutions, the (added) value of these activities for the school and for the pupils is unclear.
Our research focuses on the ways in which cultural institutions and their educational programs contribute, or could contribute, to an integrated curriculum for culture education and to the cultural development of children. In this article an instrument is presented that allows us to analyze and evaluate the contribution of cultural institutions to an integrated curriculum for culture education.

The question to which we wanted to find an answer is: Can we systematically describe and evaluate the ways in which an institution contributes to an (integrated) culture education curriculum of one or more schools, and can we draw any conclusions about the added value of the cultural education program offered?

This article consists of three parts: First, we explain from a theoretical perspective how the contribution of a cultural institution can be analyzed. In order to do so we focus upon the contents of the cultural education programs and upon the tuning process taking place between schools and cultural institutions about these contents.
Secondly, the theoretical framework is used to analyze the two aspects, the contents and the tuning respectively, in educational programs of cultural institutions. This will be illustrated with an analysis of a film project about fairytales developed by a youth-theatre for, and in consultation with a school for primary education in the Netherlands.
Thirdly and finally, we conclude by answering the research question. In this section we will also discuss the potential of the instrument and its practical value for the evaluation of cultural educational programs and activities.