Teacher training and Heritage education

Abstract

This paper deals with the development of professional skills on the part of trainee teachers carrying out work in the primary classroom on elements of heritage found in nearby landscapes, especially those which provoke conflicting points of view, such as sites associated with the Spanish Civil War. This research is qualitative and interpretive in nature and has made the ethnographic model compatible with the case study on the basis of an incidental sample of primary teachers working collaboratively. The data analysed is mainly taken from teaching practice carried out in the primary classroom, although the trainee teachers' prior experience at university has been taken into account. We have observed that the teachers who assumed and learned to develop a critical model of heritage, incorporating rational and emotional dimensions into the construction of identities, were able to successfully transmit these dimensions to their pupils, who, in turn, developed basic social skills in a successful way.