The Concepts of Heritage and Education for Active Citizenship in the Representations of Future Teachers: A Survey

In the context of school education, the notion of active citizenship is configured as an educational methodology that is transversal and integrated with knowledge. It is combined with the teaching of Citizenship and Constitution, pertaining to the historical, geographical and social areas of the study paths, which is carried out in a perspective of interactive dialogue between the various curricular disciplines in order to activate participatory learning of cultural processes and the formation of the individual. In relation to the European key competences and the cultural axes of the Italian national system, the acquisition of the principles of active citizenship is achieved through an educational path inherent in the three dimensions of person, citizen and worker and it is established as a theoretical-practical value profile oriented towards preparing young people for civic responsibility and social participation. At the same time, scientific research in the field of didactics of history has long underlined that historical knowledge allows citizens to be educated to understand the present; values, the development of strategies to deal with the uncertainty of the future; the ability to deal with relevant social problems and to deepen a democratic citizenship; to the enhancement, enjoyment, defense and conservation of cultural heritage and the development of a global awareness. In this context, the principles of active citizenship are strongly relevant and complementary to the cognitive path of historical and transversal issues such as the protection, safeguarding and accessibility of cultural heritage. Working on these issues at school allows, in fact, to develop objectives such as the concepts of identity and otherness, of relationship and participation. In order, therefore, to evaluate how historical and heritage education are involved in formal education, a questionnaire on the theme of heritage and on the teaching, methodologies linked to it was administered to 167 future teachers, university students belonging to the Single-cycle Master's Degree course in Primary Education of the University of Bologna in the academic year 2019/2020. Therefore, through survey-based exploratory research, it was possible to identify bivalent opinions: on the one hand, the interviewees recognize a significant educational impact on the heritage, aimed at developing the skills of active citizenship; on the other hand, during the years of compulsory schooling and during secondary school, they had to deal with a teaching that left very little room for an adequate treatment of the heritage in the classroom.