Interdisciplinarity in Aesthetic Education: Ideas, Results, Prospects

This article reports on an international seminar entitled "Interdisciplinarity in General Education with Special Regard to Integrated Aesthetic Education" (INTART) that took place at Veszprem, Hungary, from May 21 to 25, 1984, under the auspices of the National Center for Educational Technology (OOK being its Hungarian acronym) and the sponsorship of UNESCO. We consider the issues raised there, and the solutions offered, significant for international research in this field; indeed, several of them have already been selected for further study by organizations whose members met at Veszprem. Over the past few decades, one of the most frequently discussed and researched topics in Hungary has been the development of a theoretical foundation for and research into the educational feasibility of the integration of the arts and sciences in general education. Inquiries into the history of curriculum development revealed that the separation of art forms from one another is a relatively recent and insufficiently justified phenomenon. Furthermore, current approaches to defining the content of culture show that theories about the so-called "two cultures" can no longer be maintained.