Young People’s Perceptions of World Cultural Heritage: Suggestions for a Critical and Reflexive World Heritage Education

Verena Röll,Christiane Meyer

doi:10.3390/su12208640

Abstract

The paper analyses and discusses the perspectives of young people on World Cultural Heritage (WCH), focusing on their presumed reasons of its imbalanced global distribution. The qualitative study is based upon focus groups conducted with 43 secondary school students aged 14–17 years from Lower Saxony, Germany. The findings reveal Eurocentric thinking patterns. Furthermore, a site visit took place after the focus groups exploring the universal and personal values the participants attach to the WCH using hermeneutic photography. Due to these results and building upon an education for sustainable development that empowers learners to become sustainability citizens, the authors provide suggestions for a critical and reflexive World (Cultural) Heritage education.

Highlights

Adopted in 1972, the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and World Natural Heritage describes the protection and conservation of sites of “outstanding universal value“ (OUV) [1] (p. 19) as a task of the global community
While the data collection of this study was limited to Lower Saxony, its results correspond with studies that go beyond World Cultural Heritage (WCH) and were conducted in other geographical contexts
This paper presents and discusses selected results of a qualitative study exploring WCH from the perspective of young people

Summary

Introduction

Adopted in 1972, the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and World Natural Heritage describes the protection and conservation of sites of “outstanding universal value“ (OUV) [1] (p. 19) as a task of the global community. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) calls for protecting the OUV of World Heritage Sites (WHS), but to foster culturally, economically, and ecologically sustainable uses that are based on the guiding principles of sustainable development [1]. The UNESCO states that “the Education Sector will further strengthen its inter-sectoral partnership with other Sectors, especially Culture and Science, integrating the implementation of ESD for 2030, where possible, into their relevant programmes. These include, among others, World Heritage sites [ . The learning objectives for ESD formulated by UNESCO mention cultural heritage in relation to SDG 11 [6] (p. 32)

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