From youth club to culture club

Culture should be far more of an integrated part of young people's learning experience, according to two pieces of research published by the cultural sector.

Learning to Live: Museums, Young People and Education was published last month by the Institute for Public Policy Research and the National Museum Directors' Conference.

It pulls together the experiences of museum directors, cultural educationalists, politicians and funders. The booklet argues that during the recession, young people need to develop skills for the emerging economy, and museums should be central to this.

Get It: The Power of Cultural Learning is the result of two years of research by the Culture and Learning Consortium, which includes Arts Council England, the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, the Clore Duffield Foundation and the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Both papers call for cross-government working and complement the Every Child Matters programme and Creativity, Culture and Education, the body that runs two national learning initiatives, Creative Partnerships and Find Your Talent.

And both pieces of research argue that the way of making cultural learning a national priority in education is through more effective policymaking and more collaboration between the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Department for Children, Schools and Families.

Tate director Nicholas Serota went a step further and proposed joint ministerial posts, in which, according to Serota, the shadow culture minister has shown interest.

Learning to Live and Get It are calls to action - and the feeling is that action is needed urgently. Sally Bacon, executive director of the Clore Duffield Foundation, contributed to both booklets.She says a call to action is not about asking for more cash but is about "commitment, coherence and leadership".

Bacon says it is more important than ever for museums to regard themselves as part of the wider cultural offer. In the introduction to Learning to Live, it is noted that although some museums are doing this, many still need to change substantially.

The 10 recommendations in Get It include the need for local and regional learning partnerships. Museums and galleries working with children's services may not be a novel idea, and some such as the Great North Museum and Manchester Art Gallery (MAG) have models in place. Manchester has been working with the city council's children's services on the Magpie (Museum and Gallery Project in Education) for the past four years.

Sara Holdsworth, head of programmes at MAG, says working with children's services has concentrated on increasing the use of the museums and galleries at a primary level to increase literacy levels among children. Independent evaluation found that literacy attainment among participants rose 35 per cent faster than teachers' expectations.

The experience of education staff is touched on in Learning to Live. One insider says education staff are often treated as "second-class citizens" within museums. They are rarely referred to as experts, says the insider, more as a service department. And the situation appears to be worse in larger museums.

Learning to Live also suggests that some museums still struggle with the needs of the whole population. David Anderson, director of learning and interpretation at the Victoria and Albert Museum, calls for a Cultural Rights Charter for Children in which the voices of the young would be heard and that would also provide "a practical statement of the minimum provision that any child could reasonably expect to receive from any publicly funded cultural institution".

Learning to Live and Get It both come up with interesting recommendations, but there is lack of clarity about what cultural learning actually means. This should have been made clear at the start of the documents. John Holden of thinktank Demos is looking into a definition for a forthcoming US book on the subject. And as he says, without a solid definition, there can be only confusion.