Urban heritage icons and the creation of didactic itineraries among future Early-Childhood and primary school teachers

Abstract

This paper aims at analyzing the conception of cultural heritage underlying didactic itineraries developed by childhood and primary education future teachers. The itineraries were designed through the selection of urban heritage icons based on inter-university work between students of the primary education training program and the early childhood education training program at two universities in two different cities, La Laguna and Barcelona. The designed didactic itineraries were expected to be applicable in the two cities, and with children 5 to 6 years old. After six weeks of joint and online work by students of both universities, the itineraries were collected, and their characteristics. Through the use of descriptive statistics, we observe that in the designed itineraries students prioritize monumental heritage for didactic use and rarely consider other types of heritage. Likewise, from a didactic point of view, it is observed that students’ proposals tend to use classic guidance models and written worksheets. However, in front of this more traditional trend, the integration of diverse curricular areas is positively appreciated, showing an educational use of the interdisciplinary environment. In conclusion, the results show the importance of cultural tourism and textbook contents when designing heritage itineraries, even when there is an effort to carry out interdisciplinary work with them.