Arts and Cultural Education in Kindergartens and Elementary Schools in Slovenia

Abstract

The study, involving Slovenian preschool teachers in kindergartens and teachers in elementary schools, focused on the assessment of preschool and elementary school teachers on the importance of different values for the life of an individual and society, and the teachers’ opinions on the inclusion of arts and cultural fields and objectives in the educational process. The results show that both preschool and elementary school teachers do not contribute significant meaning to spiritual, cultural and aesthetic values. Preschool teachers believe that when planning the inclusion of arts and cultural fields, performing arts, cultural heritage and musical arts should be given more attention, and the teachers in elementary school believe the focus should be on performing arts, cultural heritage, musical arts, and creating a reading culture. Although preschool and elementary teachers estimate that they often realise the majority of arts and cultural education’s objectives, the results show that they put less focus on the objectives, which impacts the shaping of a relationship towards our own and foreign national cultural heritage.