ACCESSIBILITY OF CULTURAL EDUCATION IN ITS BROADEST SENSE FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES IN LATVIA

Abstract

Although Latvia can be justifiably proud of its many cultural achievements, there are still problems for people with disabilities to exercise their right to access culture both inside and outside the capital city. The purpose of the research paper is to assess and evaluate the effectiveness of the cultural policy of Latvia with a scope on social inclusion. Various documents regulating cultural policy mention the need to ensure access to the cultural environment and to foster cultural diversity. However, those responsible for implementing cultural policy seem to either misinterpret the documents or are unable to implement the planned improvements due to other circumstances. Hence the article will first briefly outline the scope of cultural diversity in order to show that a cultural product created by people with disabilities is part of cultural diversity. The article will focus on the concept of “cultural education”, analysing the most common present usage of it by cultural policy actors, and considering whether this concept should not be used on a much broader sense. This would raise the awareness of the necessity of cultural education and thus of the necessity for accessibility to cultural education for people with disabilities in cultural institutions both in cities and in the countryside. The research paper provides an overview of the data collected from surveying cultural institutions of Latvia in 2017 and 2020, with a regard to the availability of cultural processes and cultural education in Latvia. The author strives to emphasize that participation in cultural activities has to be perceived as cultural education in a broader sense, as the participation process brings new cultural knowledge to people. Probably the reason for the unsatisfactory environment and human resource accessibility is the fact that accessibility has not been emphasized in the currently most significant documents regulating cultural education. The environment accessibility in the cultural institutions of Latvia is insufficient and does not stimulate the availability of cultural education opportunities for people with disabilities.