Culture in the Schools program

The Culture in the Schools program is designed to produce citizens who are actively involved in cultural life by increasing the number of cultural experiences offered to students.

The program achieves this through collaboration with cultural resources listed in the Répertoire culture-éducation. This unique directory includes:

• artists
• writers
• cultural organizations (including science culture)

The Culture in the Schools program has four components: 

• Cultural Workshops at School
  This component helps bring artists, writers and cultural organizations into the schools to share their creative processes with students in a workshop setting.
• Science Culture
  This component enables people from science organizations to come into the classroom and share their scientific and technological processes with students in a workshop setting. It also enables students to go on field trips to organizations that contribute to science culture.
• Schools Host an Artist or Writer
  This component of the Culture in the Schools program allows students to participate, for a period of 4 to 12 weeks, in a project involving artistic exploration. It also offers professional artists and writers the opportunity to spend time in a school environment and to find inspiration there for their own creative pursuits.
• Partnerships
  This component, carried out in conjunction with Culture pour tous and Vision Diversité, enables students to participate in art workshops and to enjoy cultural experiences that foster exploration and creativity as well as a better understanding of themselves and their environment.

To be eligible, projects must be carried out in public or private schools with students in:

• General education in the youth sector:
  • preschool education
  • elementary education
  • secondary education
• Vocational training
• Adult general education

More specifically, the Culture in the Schools program is designed to:

• ensure that the cultural dimension is integrated into classroom and school activities in accordance with the Québec Education Program
• offer students a range of cultural experiences that may have a positive impact on their learning and allow them to develop open-mindedness, curiosity, critical judgment and aesthetic appreciation
• promote more joint action among schools and cultural organizations, while taking into account the diversity of regional realities

Students are therefore encouraged to play an active role in these activities in order to derive lasting benefits, such as the development of creativity and critical and aesthetic judgment. As adults, they will be more likely to participate in the cultural life of their communities.

The Culture in the Schools program provides assistance only for cultural activities that are carried out in the school, with the exception of projects in the Science Culture component, which can include school field trips to science organizations. Other visits to cultural venues listed in Répertoire culture-éducation fall under the measure Field trips to cultural venues.