Working Group for Cultural Policy, Immigrants and Promotion of Cultural Diversity

Goals and results

The task of the working group is to prepare proposals for policies and measures by which cultural diversity and immigration are made visible and have an impact in cultural policy in line with demographic trends. The aim is to strengthen the social inclusion and participation of people of foreign origin through arts and culture in order to increase dialogue and understanding between different population groups.

The proposals and measures should cover at least the following topics:

a)the realisation of cultural diversity and multilingualism in creative work and production, arts and culture content and cultural services;

b)opportunities for those of foreign origin to engage in professional and other artistic and cultural activities and to participate in arts and cultural life as users of culture;

c)the role of cultural and art activities and actors in helping immigrants integrate and promoting interaction between different groups;

d)the realisation of cultural diversity in cultural policy development and decision-making;

e)research work and needs under the mandate of the working group, as well as devising monitoring and evaluation procedures and indicators that encourage awareness of diversity in the field of arts and culture.

The aim is to take into account the need voiced by the cultural field to move from temporary projects promoting diversity to a more permanent approach, where diversity is an integral part of core activities, and to promote cooperation between administrative branches.

Starting points

The Ministry of Education and Culture has advanced cultural diversity by taking participating in the work on the systems of guidance, government grants, and analysis and development across in the administrative branch of culture and by taking part in implementing government integration programmes.

The Ministry has published two immigration policy guidelines this century (in 2003 and 2009) and a comprehensive final report on access to art and culture (2014). In 2016 –2019, three reports were published detailing the sore points in the administrative branch, and proposals for measures were drawn up to resolve them in response to the widespread immigration that began in autumn 2015.

Cultural diversity covers a wide area that refers to linguistic and cultural minorities and the opportunities for people belonging to these groups to engage in culture on equal terms and to show their creativity on a level playing field. This working group aims to focus on the challenge of cultural diversity in cultural policy from the perspective of immigration and its growth and the multiculturalism this involves.

The Government Programme of Prime Minister Sanna Marin includes a pledge to safeguard non-discrimination. The basic premise in the strategy of the Ministry of Education and Culture is that all action is based on non-discrimination. One concrete measure in the Ministry's cultural policy strategy is to prepare guidelines for taking cultural diversity into account in cultural policy to encourage people with a foreign background to participate in cultural life and to integrate.