‘문화예술교육’이 무엇이냐에 대한 논의는 그리 간단하지 않다. 문화예술교육이란 세 개의 명사가 혼합된 문화(culture)+예술(arts)+교육(education)의 합성어이다. 먼저 사전적 의미를 살펴보면, 문화란 ‘인지(人智)가 깨어 세상이 열리고 생활이 보다 편리하게 되는 일’이다. 철학적 의미로는 ‘진리를 구하고 끊임없이 진보?향상하려는 인간의 정신적 활동, 그에 따른 정신적 물질적인 성과’이며 교육학적으로는 ‘특정한 집단의 구성원에 의해 습득되고 공유되며 전달되는 행동방식 또는 생활방식의 체계’를 이르는 말이다. 또한 예술이란 ‘어떤 일정한 재료와 양식, 기교 등에 의하여 미(美)를 창조하고 표현하는 인간의 활동, 또는 그 산물(문학, 음악, 회화, 조각, 연극, 영화 등)’이며, 교육은 ‘인간의 정신적?신체적 성장과 발달을 어떤 이상이나 목적, 혹은 가치기준에 의하여 통제하거나 조력하는 일련의 인위적 과정’을 말한다(서울대학교 교육연구소, 2004; 국립국어원, 1999; 동아출판사, 1994).
The art and culture education is one of the capstone for the increase of cultural capital in Korea. The support project for the school art and cultural education, as one of the policies of an art and culture education in general, is composed of two section: supporting a professional teacher of an art and culture education for the school, and pilot project for the community relations. Various art educational activities are included in these programs. However, the most of peoples in action and program organizers in these areas are not the professionals in a fine art education. The orientation of art and culture education is also pursing the social rather than pursuing an esthetic sense. The purpose of this study was to analyze the reasons for the loss of genuine fine art educational purposes in the most of art and cultural activities in the schools focusing on the cases of Gwangju province. In the main sentence, this study provided the genuine roles of a fine art education in the art and culture education. This study also identified the way of constructing the mutual consensus through the visual image expression activities, and the way of increasing the communication skills through internalized power. Based on these works, this paper suggested the revival of liveliness through a fine art education. As a conclusion, the roles of the fine art education in the art and culture education suggested in this study can be summarized as follows: 1) to stimulate a creative art spirit of individual student, 2) to increase idiosyncratic identity and spirituality, and esthetic consciousness of Korean, 3) to nurture international sense as a matured international man who has a win-win strategy and a power of coexistence of peace with other people in the world.