[…] Extracurricular educational institutions and informal, special-interest activities had a marked influence on the decision of our participants to study fine art at university level. Furthermore, most of them arrived at this personal realisation at the end of their primary school studies during the middle stage of growing up.

During this period, some of them progressively ceased devoting their time to sport and decided to apply to a secondary art school, or a few years later to a tertiary-level art school. This was due in part to dissatisfaction with the sport milieu and in part to a growing appreciation for new – primarily informal – ways of spending free time.

For a number of the respondents, admission to study art at secondary or tertiary level was made easier as a result of previously attending primary art schools. These introduce pupils to key art techniques and develop their basic creative expression abilities. Although knowledge transfer is mostly formalised, this form of education (in our social situation) is probably the most functional instrument enabling children from different social strata to get access to tertiary, state-owned, fine art education establishments.

To a not insignificant degree, the decision of some of the study participants to apply to study fine art at tertiary level was also influenced by their informal, special-interest activities. Lacking institutional constraints, they offered them unforeseen possibilities of self-realisation. For some, they became one of the only ways to acquire knowledge and experience (independently of their parents) while growing up. At an important moment in their lives, they furnished them with the self-confidence needed for discussions with their parents regarding their future studies at university level.

Free time activities are thus one of the only positive societal instruments that develop important social values in young people, such as a sense for aesthetics and an appreciation of art. They have a fundamental influence on their development, as well as enabling them to break free of confined family relations and find alternative ways of self-realisation within the framework of the world at large. […]

You can find the full essay Free-time Activities: Between Family, Self-expression and Capital in the book The Boundaries of Opportunities. It is available for purchase at the ArtMap online bookstore.