Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate the official contemporary Greek Preschool curriculum for Visual Arts teaching, which was introduced in 2003. More specifically, the reform of the Greek compulsory education curricula at the beginning of the 21st century represented the implementation of the decisions of the European Leaders in Lisbon in 2000 regarding the establishment of a new European knowledge society. The reform of the Pre-school curriculum introduced the teaching of the subject areas of Language, Mathematics, Environmental Studies, Computer Science and Creation and Expression, a significant part of which is the Visual Arts. The sociological theory of Basil Bernstein on pedagogic code and curriculum was utilized and the method of content analysis was applied to investigate the modern curriculum in pre-school Greek education and its official commentary, the ‘Kindergarten Teacher’s Guide’. In addition, the following research questions were explored and discussed: a) what is the relationship between the Visual Arts and other knowledge areas of the pre-school curriculum? And b) what are the didactic/interactive relationships between kindergarten teachers and their pupils in the teaching of the Visual Arts?