Building Strong Culture and Art Education Programs: Bottom-Up Versus Top-Down Approaches to Policy

Abstract

The author contends that the highest cultural and artistic expressions of a nation aredependent not only upon High Art expressions by its academically trained artists and craftspersons, but also upon the Vernacular cultural and artistic expressions of its living peoples.Two policy approaches to informal community-based culture and art education are described.Top-down approaches are designed and implemented by academically educated (High Arts)experts with little community input; bottom-up approaches rely heavily on input fromcommunity (Low Art) or Vernacular arts experts. While top-down policies are found to beimmediately effective, they may lack longevity. The effects of bottom-up policies to cultureand art education are slower to achieve, but ultimately may be longer lasting and more deeplyeffective.