Opting for art: the distribution, organisation, structure, accessibility and attractiveness of part-time art education in Flanders

This study aims to contribute to the evaluation of the decree on part-time arts education (2018).  The system of part-time arts education (PTAE) in Flanders has experienced a considerable growth in terms of the number of enrollments over the past decades. Nevertheless, the student population is still not an accurate representation of the overall population of Flemish citizens. The socially unequal participation can be explained sociologically using Bourdieu’s theory on the different forms of capital that encourage participation. These forms of capital or resources are not distributed evenly across society. In between each (potential) student and the PTAE provision itself, there are also a set of thresholds and motives, which can determine both the inflow and outflow and which can be linked both to personal resources and to the design of the provision itself (the location, the curriculum, etc.). This research combines these two perspectives - the perspective of the student and the perspective of the organizing academies - to analyze three core themes: 1) the geographical distribution of the PTAE offer across the Flemish territory, 2) the organization and structure of the PTAE provision and 3) the match between the indiviual student and the PTAE curriculum design.. The core themes chosen are themes on which the 2018 decree on PTAE introduced policy innovation. Thus, by an in-depth analysis of these themes, we will also evaluate some of the major policy aspirations and achievements of that decree so far.