Culture and Popular Education

The Ministry of Culture and Communication engages in cultural democracy and democratization policies. It promotes access to the greatest number of artistic and cultural works and practices, and recognizes the plurality of artistic expressions carried by all the components of the populations living in our territory. It conducts a public policy of cultural and national cohesion.

It considers as a priority the cultural law established by Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948. It thus particularly encourages actions that contribute to the defence of this right and respect for cultural diversity.

Popular Education Federations, in multi-annual agreement with the Ministry of Culture and Communication, contribute to the constant transformation of society and contribute to the advent of a more just and supportive society, based on the confrontation of viewpoints and the evolution of human relationships from the representations and opinions of each. The fundamental values which they uphold, and which are the basis of their action, are citizenship, emancipation, cooperation, solidarity, justice.

They have identified emerging societal problems and have been able to develop and experiment with methods and modes of action to respond to them and create the conditions for everyone to enjoy their civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights.

As such, Popular Education federations contribute to cultural policies:

• developing artistic and cultural practice, sharing cultures and collecting memories in order to strengthen personal and collective identities and work for citizenship;
• supporting artists and creation through residencies, workshops, and disseminating their works to a wide audience.

By their territorial roots, the diversity of their interventions, the size of the populations concerned, the Popular Education federations, present throughout the territory, are essential links of cultural development.

Therefore, the present convention wishes to reaffirm the continuity of the partnership between the Ministry of Culture and Communication and these federations, and the shared commitments in favour of social cohesion and the recognition of the diversity of our country.

In accordance with the roadmap set by the Prime Minister at the Interdepartmental Committee for Equality and Citizenship (ICCS) On 6 March 2015, Popular Education federations are encouraged to work in the four areas of intervention specified in the following article.

Priority areas for action

In order to meet these missions, the federations undertake to carry out these actions in four areas covering 13 priority objectives:

1-The transmission of knowledge through access to artistic and cultural practice

• The development cultural
• Arts and Cultural Education
• The training of actors cultural
• The development, accompaniment and qualification of amateur artistic practices

2- Expression and learning of critical sense

• Cultural action for mastering the French language
• The digital as a discovery lever and cultural creation
• Media literacy andto the information

3- Civic responsibility

• The exercise of citizenship
• Defence and recognition of the cultural contributions of minorities
• Engagement, volunteerism and civic service

4- Territorial development

• The mesh of the territory
• Taking into account priority territories and specific populations
• The European and international dimension

1- The transmission of knowledge through access to artistic and cultural practice

Culture is not limited to its artistic dimension but encompasses everything that allows, individually or collectively, to understand the world and social relationships in order to build and act. Access to art and culture contributes to the formation of the citizen and is a guarantee for democracy, as set out in the 1998 law on the fight against exclusion.

• 1/1 Cultural development

One of the founding missions of the Popular Education federations is to make architectural and artistic heritage and works of contemporary creation accessible to as many people as possible. Popular Education thus conducts a policy aimed at putting culture at the heart of people’s lives and acts within the framework of the State’s obligation to ensure that everyone exercises his or her right to culture. Cultural development takes into account all artistic and cultural disciplines.

• 1/2 Arts and Cultural Education

The Popular Education federations are committed, in coherence with the different offers of arts and cultural education, to take into account the different times of the child, the young and their families: school, extracurricular and extracurricular time and ensure their role as a bridge between these different stages of life. They are actively involved in building a continuum throughout schooling, from kindergarten to university.

• 1/3 Training of cultural actors

The training of different types of stakeholders in cultural issues is a prerequisite for successful cultural development. The awareness-raising, training and professionalization of social and cultural stakeholders should make it possible to intensify the skills of the relays in terms of cultural mediation, support for artistic practices of amateurs and dissemination. It makes it possible to offer and share the tools necessary for the construction of coherent cultural projects, attentive to the specific qualities and living conditions of the people to whom they address.

• 1/4 The development, the accompaniment and the qualification of amateur artistic practices

The actors of Popular Education wish to act on the modes of cultural intervention in the territories and to bring a reinforced attention to artistic creation, whether it emanates professionals or amateurs. They reinforce the training of professionals who accompany the artistic creation of amateurs.

They renovate, develop and generate new types of encounters between amateur and professional practices: by appropriating innovative practices, by encouraging the encounter amateurs/ artists, by imagining and designing new tools of mediation in all registers of expression and creation. This development also involves advice and support for initiatives and projects, especially for young people.

2- Critical expression and learning

• 2/1 Cultural action for mastering the French language

Federations strive to reduce inequalities in language proficiency that contribute to widening the gaps in individual social, cultural and professional trajectories.

• 2/2 Digital as a lever for discovery and of cultural creation

While digital technology has quickly become a major tool for discovery, artistic and cultural expression and creation, the challenges of the digital divide seem to transcend technical aspects and thus put into perspective economic, social and cultural differences. It is in this context that the Popular Education federations are committed to developing actions so that the greatest number can appropriate its uses, its practices and its codes by mobilizing, in particular, the actors of the digital ecosystem.

• 2/3 Media literacy andto the information

Encouraged by the transmission of the values and knowledge specific to each federation, media education must develop a critical sense of personal and collective responsibility.

From media education to pre-professionalization, editorial or dissemination actions will be implemented for young people, especially in the time outside school, but also for all audiences. Federations may also have to participate in the creation and development of local media and, in this context, will have to foster bridges with other media, local, regional or national.

3- Lhas civic responsibility

• 3/1 The exercise of citizenship

Associative mobilization is at the heart of this action and encourages: the expression of citizens, the capacity for public debate, cooperation, respect for the diversity of beliefs, opinions and cultures, civism, knowledge of institutions, the history of political ideas and systems.

• 3/2 LDefence and recognition of the cultural contributions of minorities

Recognition of the contributions of cultural minorities, and their free expression, must help to combat discrimination, racism, anti-Semitism and trafficking in human beings. It is a question of changing attitudes and representations about what is foreign to us, from reception to integration and of associating the contributions of minorities such as those of travellers, migrant, immigrant and immigration populations, in national construction.

• 3/3Engagement, volunteerism and civic service

Commitment is a prerequisite for any Popular Education process. The Popular Education federations promote it and accompany, in this context, the volunteers of the supervision and animation, and the volunteers of the civic service.They allow the latter to strengthen their learning of citizenship, participating in actions that promote access to culture for all and put it at the service of republican values.

The federations thus contribute to the programme Citizens of culture » in various forms: training of tutors, civic and citizen training for young people, taking charge of the accreditation of the reception of volunteers.

4- Territorial development

• 4/1 The network of the territory

Popular Education federations are committed to valuing the diversity, especially that of the cultural resources of the territories and to promoting the recognition of all cultures and their actors. At the same time, they participate, in partnership and in complementarity, in the dissemination of works of contemporary creation with the artistic structures of the territory within the framework of the circuits of creation and dissemination of their cultural structures. They make it possible to better conduct participatory strategies. The national operations and mechanisms implemented in the fields of media, heritage and creation can be levers deployed in the territory of this field of intervention. Participation in enhancing the cultural attractiveness of territories will also be encouraged.

• 4/2 Taking into account priority territories and populations in specific situations

Particular attention will be paid to actions directed at the most remote audiences for geographical, social or economic reasons. Isolated or vulnerable areas require voluntary action. This will help the inhabitants of the priority areas (city policy districts or rural areas) and people in specific situations (placed under the control of the courts or under judicial protection, disabled or hospitalized, etc.). The interdepartmental agreements put in place could serve as frameworks for these interventions.

• 4/3 The European and international dimension

The dimension of intercultural education, the dimension of international solidarity in the fields of culture and education, and that of the development of forms of European citizenship, In order to develop exchanges, meetings and cross-projects with many partners, the Popular Education federations are building on three major orientations.

In conclusion

To do this, popular education federations are committed to animate and qualify their networks. The heads of networks rely on their local structures to develop a territorial cultural policy that meets all the objectives set out above.

At the same time, they ensure the exploitation and synthesis of the actions carried out, particularly in terms of innovative practices and identification of affected audiences.

Thus, by strengthening networks and heads of networks in their role of animation and coordination, the networking of territories will be amplified.

On the other hand, the MCC mobilizes its cultural affairs departments in the application of this convention at the territorial level.