Arts and Academia- join efforts for social inclusion CASE OF MALAGA and participation within symposium 'Social Engagement Through Cultural Heritage. Experiences of European Universities.

Abstract

The proposal of this paper is to present the state of the art of UMA participation, which would through light to interesting data on the topic of the symposium. To achieve this goal, we had already held several in-terviews to cultural agents, museums directors and professors at Malaga University. Should we highlight the peculiar transformation the city has experienced in the last sixteen years, as a consequence of the openings of several new Museums and Art Centers such as Picasso Malaga Museum, Centre Pompidou Malaga, Carmen Thyssen Museum Malaga, Ruse Mu-seum, Contemporary Art Center of Malaga, etc. Although it is known that massive tourism trend seems to be a threat, several pedagogic equipments at Museums and cultural initiatives spread Cultural Heritage knowledge, sometimes within University of Malaga support. That is the reason why the need of dialogue among institutions and University is an essential option for inclusion. We already found out that students between eight-een years old and people in their thirties do not visit these cultural sites and do not understand properly cultural institution contents. Besides, an important number of older citizens in their sixties –mostly retired ones– start to be highly interested in Art and Cultural Heritage conferences, de-bates, exhibitions, etc. With the proposal to contribute to this study we will introduce poll questions either to HE students and Adult education ones, of Malaga University, concerning art/Cultural Heritage teaching and learning interests and barriers. Furthermore, gender perspective will be provided in Cultural Heritage visits.