When do we do the Macerena?: Habitus and arts learning in primary pre-service education courses

Arts education is an area that has undergone enormous change over the last two decades. The renewed understanding of the area declares that the arts is an academic area of study that requires learners to use creative and complex thinking, active investigation and reflective skills to engage in the creation, presentation and evaluation of the arts. However, pre-service teachers’ perceptions of the arts frequently misrepresent the area, often as a result of societal values or their own school experiences. In this paper lecturers facilitating primary arts education units reflect on pre-service teachers’ perceptions of the arts, and the ways in which the facilitation of learning experiences may address those perceptions. The research also examines the various strategies used by participants to address the existing habitus in relation to arts education and the ways in which the participants themselves are affected.