Heritage Education and Citizenship in Early Childhood and Primary Education Based on Controversy: Conceptions of Future Teachers

Abstract

This study is based on heritage education as the ideal framework for laying the foundations of a democratic, participatory citizenship that is committed to its community and to social and ecological justice from an early age. Thus, with the aim of improving teacher training, this research seeks to identify the conceptions held by trainee Early Childhood and Primary Education teachers regarding controversial heritage, heritage education and its link to citizenship education. To this end, a quantitative questionnaire was administered to 328 students on the Early Childhood and Primary Education Degree programmes at the University of Huelva (Spain). The data collected were analysed using Excel and JASP, with a system of categories serving as a framework for interpretation. The results indicate that trainee teachers consider it appropriate to address controversial heritage from the earliest educational stages and conceptualise citizenship through a combination of civic responsibility, sustainable development, and ecosocial transformation. Differences between degree programmes were limited to a small number of items and showed small effect sizes; these differences should be interpreted cautiously because prior training in heritage education was unevenly distributed across the two programmes.