We seem to have a problem in arts education at pre-school level: the lack of specific training for teachers teaching this subject to very young children. The future preschool teachers’ training seems to be focused on the teaching and learning aspects of artistic education however they receive little training on methodologies and philosophies. Therefore, when teachers have to face the classroom, the methodologies they use are usually quite traditional and do not favour the development of critical thinking skills in the students. There are different philosophies of arts education that might embed opportunities for reflection, art interpretation, experimentation, expression of emotions and feelings that if, in the case these philosophies, reach the classroom, may doubtlessly enrich the student’s artistic training. Thus a conceptual framework based on one of these philosophies, named Reggio Emilia, arises. A systematic review of the literature which has been developed by categorising criteria from research papers and from examples of good practices. This categorisation might allow us to establish a framework that can be useful in the classrooms and can establish parameters of action that may have an impact on students, teachers and teachers’ practice in general.

Effective mentoring is an integral component of the doctoral dissertation process. This study aimed to determine the psychometric properties of two questionnaires developed to assess research self-efficacy and the mentoring/supervision process. The sample comprised 1265 doctorate students (mean age = 32.36 years; standard deviation = 8.20). Items in both questionnaires had adequate discrimination indexes and principal component analysis supported the unifactorial structure of each questionnaire, with adequate percentages of explained variance (47.5% and 60%, respectively). Reliability was good or excellent: α = 0.71 and α = 0.94. In the research self-efficacy questionnaire, there was a significant interaction between gender and year of doctoral studies. Men had higher scores in the first, second and third years of their doctoral studies than women, but this ranking was reversed for the fourth and fifth years. In the mentoring/supervision questionnaire, PhD students in their first year had a higher score than those in the third, fourth and fifth years, and students in the second year had a higher score than those in the fifth year. Understanding students’ perception of their research self-efficacy and the mentoring process is of great importance given the relationship between the mentoring process and students’ academic performance and personal well-being.

Schools and museums represent essential spaces for the development of learning and understanding of the world surrounding us through the arts and heritage. One of the things learned in the COVID crisis is that it is key to build bridges between schools and museums to support their educational activities, regardless of the possibility to access these spaces in person. School teachers and museum educators have the opportunity to develop a critical and creative citizenry by collaborating in the design of learning activities that can bring the museums to schools and schools to the museum by adopting the Reggio Emilia approach. The results of the study arise from a triangulation of data, as we contrasted the literature about the Reggio Emilia approach with the practices of museums that use such a philosophy and with the analysis of a series of interviews with experts in early childhood education and Reggio Emilia in order to identify a series of good practices, which we used to delineate recommendations to foster the adoption of this model and establish relationships between schools and museums, enhancing the opportunities to develop critical and creative thinking throughout activities and to understand the heritage and the arts, thus fostering citizenship from an early childhood.

Se analizan las posibilidades de contribuir a la Educación patrimonial a través de la integración de la arqueología virtual (reconstrucciones y recreaciones virtuales, realidad aumentada, etc.) en propuestas didácticas planteadas desde diversas metodologías. Para ello se tienen en cuenta de diferentes proyectos de innovación y de investigación educativa que se han tenido como base visualización, manipulación, clasificación o construcción de objetos virtuales de carácter arqueológico, algunos de ellos en el entorno de la web social colaborativa o web 2.0.

Se presenta un estudio de caso sobre la aplicación del método pedagógico Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) a las visitas escolares del Museo Picasso de Barcelona. Teniendo como objetivo principal analizar las percepciones del profesorado de primaria y articular sus voces, se recurre a una metodología mixta a través de triangulaciones de instrumentos y técnicas de análisis. Para ello se opta por un análisis DAFO y se interrelacionan sus debilidades, amenazas, fortalezas y oportunidades mediante un mapa conceptual. Los docentes señalan muchos más aspectos positivos que negativos, concentrándose los primeros en tres áreas temáticas: los efectos cognitivos en el alumnado, el modelo educativo constructivista y significativo que impulsa y el concepto de museo como zona de confort donde el estudiantado puede participar y opinar libremente. Los aspectos negativos giran en torno a los rasgos propios del método, las características de la adaptación que de él hace la institución y las limitaciones estructurales del Museo Picasso. De acuerdo al profesorado, la implementación del método mejoraría al aplicarlo de manera más continuada y flexible, combinando las interpretaciones libres sobre obras de arte con contenido histórico-artístico. Al ser un método competencial se sugiere también un trabajo continuado en el museo y/o en la escuela.

The Sustainable Development Goals set by the United Nations in the 2030 agenda point out the need to safeguard cultural heritage and the importance of convergence towards quality education. Through different museum projects (between 2010 and 2021), the DIDPATRI research group of the University of Barcelona has developed heritage museum models following sustainability parameters. The lines of work have been based on the use of previous museum cultures (integrating existing models) to respond to the needs of the present. The working hypotheses have raised the need to build a new social museography around the historical heritage, which can respond to the social demands of citizen education and sustainability. Museography should be oriented to formal and non-formal teaching-learning environments. Social museography must be based on the understanding of historical heritage in broad sectors of the public as well as on the participation of social agents, civil society, and the scientific community. Social museography must be based on the enhancement of heritage resources (tangible or intangible) in a way that is compatible with sustainable development options; it must be built with the support of protocols that consider production costs that are consistent with the economic and social resources available and with the reasonable use of complex technologies. This desire for research (on the paths of a new social museography) has been channeled through the development of research and transfer projects. The results obtained have generated empirical models that have contributed (methodologically) to the development of museographic options that respond to emerging demands in the environment of historical-archaeological heritage.