Towards relevant Teacher Professional Development: challenges for Art Education in the Chilean school system

Abstract

This exploratory research aims to illustrate the training opportunities available to practicing teachers, comparing them with research conducted on initial teacher training, in order to argue for the need for the State to maintain and strengthen ongoing professional development for teachers in the field of Arts Education. The analysis was carried out in three phases. The first phase, using open data, quantified the postgraduate and specialization training opportunities in the arts, identifying the extent to which these opportunities had a pedagogical focus and their relevance to the established curriculum for formal education in Chile. The second phase, using publicly available information from websites, determined the training focuses of teacher-oriented programs. Finally, a training proposal developed within the framework of the Arts Education Policy in Chile was analyzed, examining its availability, thematic relevance, and the number of places offered by a state entity. The results show that the availability of continuing arts education for practicing teachers is limited, geographically concentrated, and focuses on less relevant aspects of the curriculum. It is concluded that the progress made by the government, although modest, is a step in the right direction to strengthen Arts Education through continuing teacher training, but that this first step needs to be sustained over time and expanded to address all the challenges that have been addressed in this educational field.