Transforming "non-users" into "users".

Cultural participation among kids in a Norwegian multicultural suburb.

This paper is about cultural participation among children who are not common users of cultural institutions. The paper gives a description of a public short term initiative where an entire group of six years olds are taking part in music, dance, new circus and visual arts activities. The activities are organized in the school context as part of the compulsory programme, but intends to recruit the children into further cultural participation in their leisure time.The paper asks what is needed to increase the cultural participation of groups of children who traditionally do not take part, what barriers there are for such increased participation, and whether it is possible to reduce them.