Heritage and key competences in Primary Education. Analysis of teacher-in-training perceptions

Abstract

The main target in this investigation is to analyze the conception that future teachers of Primary Education have about the utility of heritage education to work the key competences proposed by the official curriculum. The reach that goal, a questionnaire (Likert scale 1-5) was designed, validated and implemented among 279 future teachers of Primary Education, now studying the Primary Education Degree in the University of Alicante (Spain). The analysis and procedural were carried by the SPSS v. 24 statistical package. The results show that future teachers consider heritage a valid resource to work the key competences in classroom, although it is important to note that, for the participants, is particularly adequate to work the competence of awareness and cultural expressions or social and civic competences. Instead of that, the rest of key competences obtained lower results, which indicate that future teachers do not consider heritage in a holistic and transversal way. These results show up, in conclusion, the need of teaching heritage education with wider approaches, taking in account its main potentialities, as transversality and interdisciplinarity, what could make heritage a better resource to work on the different key competences.