Controversies of expressive arts education in Portugal: Insights from policies and practices

Shaped by the pedagogical relationship that teachers create in their school places, the relevant curriculum corresponds to this learning experience, a curriculum that is guided by international policies that have been changing school practices over the years. Expressive arts’ education is one of the curriculum areas and seeks to create an integrated and flexible curricular knowledge through activities that promote children’s development. Primary teachers are promoters of such experiences. This research aims to discover and explore teachers’ perceptions of the process of teacher education and of their work context in the global promotion of the expressive arts area, contextualizing historical processes. To achieve this goal a mixed methods approach was used. The research had a total of 98 participants from ten school clusters. Findings highlight an unclear teacher profile, revealing controversy from teacher education courses and the conditions they find in their schools.