THE MAIN CHARACTERISTICS OF CULTURAL EDUCATION IN HUNGARY

Abstract

Hungarian cultural education is a special system of concepts and activities that is unique in Europe. Its historical roots can be traced back at least to the first third of the 19th century, the Hungarian Reform Era. The institutional system and the legal background of the supply of cultural tasks are completely established. Laws refer the supply of these tasks to the authority of local governments. However, available data show that besides the nearly four thousand local government institutions, there are two thousand non-governmental and church-run cultural education organizations operating in Hungary. Our present study aims to give an overview of the special characteristics and the current situation of the institutions in the scope of local governments based on application of genneral and special research methods: historical, systemic and structural-functional analysis. On the one hand, it takes into account the information provided by the mandatory statistical data. Furthermore, data from professional publications and conferences on cultural education are also important sources. However, the personal experience of the authors of this study cannot be left out of consideration either. Performing tasks as professional supervisors and qualifying auditors for nearly two decades is an important basis of the findings. Based on the results of the research, we formulated some proposals for professional improvement: (1) Creating a registration system for cultural education institutions, (2) Developing the supply of cultural tasks in sub-counties, (3) Fostering the implementation of quality art programs. We believe that these improvements would also help research in the cultural field: the development of a registration system would help in the continuous monitoring of cultural institutions, and action research could be linked to new methodological developments for in-process development.