c e p s Journal Center for Educational Policy Studies Journal Revija Centra za študij edukacijskih strategij Vol.5 | No4 | Year 2015 editor in Chief / Glavni in odgovorni urednik Slavko Gaber – Pedagoška fakulteta, Univerza v Ljubljani, Ljubljana, Slovenija Deputy editor in Chief / Namestnik glavnega in odgovornega urednika Iztok Devetak – Pedagoška fakulteta, Univerza v Ljubljani, Ljubljana, Slovenija editorial Board / Uredniški odbor Michael W. Apple – Department of Educational Policy Studies, University of Wisconsin- Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, usa CÉsar Birzea – Faculty of Philosophy, University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania Vlatka Domović – Učiteljski fakultet, Zagreb Grozdanka Gojkov – Filozofski fakultet, Univerzitet u Novom Sadu, Novi Sad, Srbija Jan De Groof – Professor at the College of Europe, Bruges, Belgium and at the University of Tilburg, the Netherlands; Government Commissioner for Universities, Belgium, Flemish Community; President of the „European Association for Education Law and Policy“ Andy Hargreaves – Lynch School of Education, Boston College, Boston, usa Jana Kalin – Filozofska fakulteta, Univerza v Ljubljani, Ljubljana, Slovenija Alenka Kobolt – Pedagoška fakulteta, Univerza v Ljubljani, Ljubljana, Slovenija Janez Krek - Pedagoška fakulteta, Univerza v Ljubljani, Ljubljana, Slovenija Bruno Losito – Facolta di Scienze della Formazione, Universita' degli Studi Roma Tre, Roma, Italy Lisbeth Lundhal – Umea Universitet, Umea, Sweden Ljubica Marjanovič Umek – Filozofska fakulteta, Univerza v Ljubljani, Ljubljana, Slovenija Silvija Markić - Institut für Didaktik der Naturwissenschaften, Universität Bremen, Deutschland Mariane Moynova – University of Veliko Turnovo, Bulgary Hannele Niemi – Faculty of Behavioural Sciences, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland Mojca Peček Čuk – Pedagoška fakulteta, Univerza v Ljubljani, Ljubljana, Slovenija .n. Pešikan-.vramović– Filozofski fakultet, Univerzitet u Beogradu, Beograd, Srbija Igor Radeka – Odjel za pedagogiju, Sveučilište u Zadru, Zadar, Croatia Pasi Sahlberg – Director General of Center for International Mobility and Cooperation, Helsinki, Finland Igor Saksida – Pedagoška fakulteta, Univerza v Ljubljani, Ljubljana, Slovenija Michael Schratz – School of Education, University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria Keith S. Taber – Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, uk Shunji Tanabe – Faculty of Education, Kanazawa University, Kakuma, Kanazawa, Japan Beatriz Gabriela Tomšič Čerkez – Pedagoška fakulteta, Univerza v Ljubljani, Ljubljana, Slovenija Jón Torfi Jónasson – School of Education, University of Iceland, Reykjavík, Iceland Nadica Turnšek - Pedagoška fakulteta, Univerza v Ljubljani, Ljubljana, Slovenija Milena Valenčič Zuljan – Pedagoška fakulteta, Univerza v Ljubljani, Ljubljana, Slovenija Zoran Velkovski – Faculty of Philosophy, SS. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, Skopje, Macedonia Janez Vogrinc – Pedagoška fakulteta, Univerza v Ljubljani, Ljubljana, Slovenija Robert Waagenar – Faculty of Arts, University of Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands Pavel Zgaga – Pedagoška fakulteta, Univerza v Ljubljani, Ljubljana, Slovenija Current issue editor / Urednik številke Slavko Gaber Revija Centra za študij edukacijskih strategij Center for Educational Policy Studies Journal issn 2232-2647 (online edition) issn 1855-9719 (printed edition) Publication frequency: 4 issues per year subject: Teacher Education, Educational Science Publisher: Faculty of Education, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia Managing editor: Mira Metljak / english language editing: Terry Troy Jackson / slovene language editing: Tomaž Petek / Cover and layout design: Roman Ražman / Typeset: Igor Cerar / Print: Tiskarna Formatisk, d.o.o. Ljubljana © 2015 Faculty of Education, University of Ljubljana e p s Journal Center for Educational Policy Studies Journal Revija Centra za študij edukacijskih strategij The CEPS Journal is an open-access, peer-reviewed journal devoted to publishing research papers in different fields of education, including sci.entific. Aims & Scope .viewed journal with an international board. It pub.lishes original empirical and theoretical studies from a wide variety of academic disciplines related to the field of Teacher Education and Educational Sciences; in particular, it will support comparative studies in the field. Regional context is stressed but the journal remains open to researchers and contributors across all European countries and worldwide. There are four issues per year. Issues are focused on specific areas but there is also space for non-focused articles and book reviews. About the Publisher .est universities in the region (see www.uni-lj.si) and its Faculty of Education (see www.pef.uni-lj.si), established in 1947, has the leading role in teacher education and education sciences in Slovenia. It is well positioned in regional and European coopera.tion programmes in teaching and research. A pub.lishing unit oversees the dissemination of research results and informs the interested public about new trends in the broad area of teacher education and education sciences; to date, numerous monographs and publications have been published, not just in Slovenian but also in English. In 2001, the Centre for Educational Policy .tablished within the Faculty of Education to build upon experience acquired in the broad reform of the national educational system during the period of so.cial transition in the 1990s, to upgrade expertise and to strengthen international cooperation. CEPS has established a number of fruitful contacts, both in the region – particularly with similar institutions in the .ested partners in EU member states and worldwide. • Revija Centra za študij edukacijskih strategij je mednarodno recenzirana revija z mednarodnim uredniškim odborom in s prostim dostopom. Na.menjena je objavljanju člankov s področja izobra­ževanja učiteljev in edukacijskih ved. Cilji in namen Revija je namenjena obravnavanju naslednjih področij: poučevanje, učenje, vzgoja in izobraže­vanje, socialna pedagogika, specialna in rehabilita­cijska pedagogika, predšolska pedagogika, edukacijske politike, supervizija, poučevanje slovenskega jezika in književnosti, poučevanje matematike, računalništva, naravoslovja in tehnike, poučevanje družboslovja in humanistike, poučevanje na področju umetnosti, visokošolsko izobraževanje in izobraževanje odra­slih. Poseben poudarek bo namenjen izobraževanju učiteljev in spodbujanju njihovega profesionalnega razvoja. V reviji so objavljeni znanstveni prispevki, in sicer teoretični prispevki in prispevki, v katerih so predstavljeni rezultati kvantitavnih in kvalitativnih empiričnih raziskav. Še posebej poudarjen je pomen komparativnih raziskav. Revija izide štirikrat letno. Številke so tematsko opredeljene, v njih pa je prostor tudi za netematske prispevke in predstavitve ter recenzije novih pu­blikacij. The publication of the CEPS Journal in 2015 and 2016 is co-financed by the Slovenian Research Agency within the framework of the Public Tender for the Co-Financing of the Publication of Domestic Scientific Periodicals. Izdajanje revije v letih 2015 in 2016 sofinancira Javna agencija za raziskovalno dejavnost Republike Slovenije v okviru Javnega razpisa za sofinanciranje izdajanja domačih znanstvenih periodičnih publikacij. Contents 5 Editorial — Slavko Gaber 9 Preschool Teaching Staff ’s Opinions on the Importance of Preschool Curricular Fields of Activities, Art Genres and Visual Arts Fields Vrednotenje pomembnosti kurikularnih področij dejavnosti, umetnostnih zvrsti in likovnih področij med predšolskimi pedagoškimi delavci — Tomaž Zupančič, Branka Čagran and Matjaž Mulej 31 The Importance of Visual Reading for the Interpretation of a Literary Text 50 Pomen likovnega branja ilustracije pri interpretaciji leposlovnega besedila — Janja Batič and Dragica Haramija 67 Opportunity Makes the Cheater: High School Students and Academic Dishonesty Priložnost dela goljufa: srednješolci in akademske nečednosti — Andrej Šorgo, Marija Vavdi, Urška Cigler and Marko Kralj 89 The Use of Compliment Response Strategies among Iranian Learners of English: Researching Interlocutors’ Relative Power and Gender Uporaba strategij odzivanja na pohvale iranskih učencev angleščine: raziskovanje sogovornikove relativne moči položaja in spola — Seyyed Hatam Tamimi Sa'd 109 Introducing Teacher Mentoring in Kosovo Schools – Potential and Challenges for Sustainability Uvajanje učiteljevega mentoriranja v kosovskih šolah – možnosti in izzivi za trajnost — Eda Vula, Fatlume Berisha and Blerim Saqipi 125 Teachers’ Attitudes towards Behaviour Patterns in Social Conflicts in Primorsko-Goranska County in Croatia Stališča učiteljev do vzorcev obnašanja v socialnih konfliktih v Primorsko-Goranski regiji na Hrvaškem — Nataša Vlah, Lucija Jančec and Renata Čepić 141 Art Appreciation as a Learned Competence: A Museum-based Qualitative Study of Adult Art Specialist and Art Non-Specialist Visitors Likovna apreciacija kot privzgojena zmožnost: muzejska kvalitativna študija odraslih obiskovalcev – poznavalcev in nepoznavalcev likovne umetnosti — Rajka Bračun Sova Reviews 159 Baranović Branka (Ed.) (2015). Koji srednjoškolci namjeravaju studirati? – Pristup visokom obrazovanju i odabir studija [What Do High School Students Plan to Study? – Access to Higher Education and Choice of Study]. Zagreb: Institut za društvena istraživanja. — Slavko Gaber 163 List of Referees in Year 2015 Editorial Dear Reader This issue of Center for Educational Policy Studies Journal brings us ar­ticles covering different areas of education, its challenges, and its practices. A relatively diverse content of discussion as well as assorted pedagogic practices reflected in the articles invites readers to a genuinely comparative journey in the education of our times. Durkheim would claim that they reflect the diverse con­cepts, interests, and investments in education in areas from pre-primary educa­tion, curricula questions, the role of visual art in and all the way to an investiga­tion of cheating as a type of rationality in upper-secondary education in Slovenia and responses to compliments in language teaching in Iran. The spectrum cov­ered by the issue is obviously wide, both in terms of content and geography. Education is today, as it was in the times of Durkheim, obviously not the only agent of education in its environment but, as we know all too well also an arena structured by guiding principles of our pedagogical ideas, concepts and wider social rationalities. In the first article, entitled Preschool Teaching Staff ’s Opinions on the Importance of Preschool Curricular Fields of Activities, Art Genres and Visual Arts Fields, authors Tomaž Zupančič, Branka Čagran and Matjaž Mulej pre­sent preschool teachers’ and assistant teachers’ opinions on the importance of selected fields of educational work in kindergartens. The article first highlights the importance of activities expressing artistic creativity within modern curric­ulums and then presents an empirical study that examines the preschool teach­ers’ and assistant teachers’ opinions on the importance of the educational fields, art genres, and visual arts fields. In their research hypotheses, the authors have presumed that preschool teachers find individual educational fields, individual art genres, and individual visual arts activities to be of different importance and thus stress some of them. In their research, they have demonstrated that the greatest importance in lived curriculum in Slovenia is attributed to movement and language, followed by nature, society, art, and mathematics. At the same time, within art genres, the greatest importance is attributed to visual arts and music and the least to audio-visual activities. In the second article, authored by Janja Batič and Dragica Haramija and entitled The Importance of Visual Reading for the Interpretation of a Literary Text, the results of a research survey on the role of illustrations in the interpre­tation of literary texts are presented. The survey sample included students of primary education and preschool education, who were given the poem Učenjak (Scholar) by Niko Grafenauer and asked to answer questions regarding the character’s personality and appearance, the literary space, and other elements. The first group of interviewees was given the poem illustrated by Lidija Osterc and the second the same poem illustrated by Marjan Manček. The results of the research show that the illustration had a significant impact on the message conveyed by the poem, particularly when the illustrator added a context by pre­senting the character’s environment (that was not explicitly given in the text). Moreover, the results demonstrated the need for the comprehensive reading of illustrated text, given that it is the interaction between the verbal and the visual that provides vital information necessary for the reader to understand the mes­sage of the literary work. The third article is titled Opportunity Makes the Cheater: High School Students and Academic Dishonesty. Authors Andrej Šorgo, Marija Vavdi, Urška Cigler and Marko Kralj present the results of their research of cheating behav­iour in Slovenian upper secondary schools. Their stated aim is to raise aware­ness of it and to lower the tolerance of such behaviour. To acquire information about it and opinions on such behaviour, they have compiled a questionnaire that targeted a university population of first-year students (N=323). The results revealed that cheating is treated as an acceptable practice in the schools in Slovenia, and almost all students at least occasionally indulge in some kind of academic misbehaviour. It seems that a culture tolerant or even supportive of such behaviour has been established among students, parents, and teachers, all working together to “help” students climb the ladder of “success”. Cheating is most common in homework, but at the other end, even systems such as exter­nal exams are, in the eyes of students and authors, not immune to fraud. The Use of Compliment Response Strategies among Iranian Learners of English: Researching Interlocutors’ Relative Power and Gender, authored by Seyyed Hatam Tamimi Sa’d, reports on a study that investigated how Iranian EFL learners respond to compliments in English. The data collected by means of a discourse completion task (DCT) in a variety of situations that required the participants, 26 EFL learners (13 males and 13 females) to respond to compli­ments directed at them. The analysed (qualitatively and quantitatively) results indicated that, regardless of gender and power, the first three most frequent CR strategies were ‘Acceptance’, ‘Combination’ and ‘Amendment’. These findings were then analysed in light of previous similar studies that revealed that the participants had followed their first cultural norms not only in using the strate­gies mentioned above but also in employing such strategies as ‘Face Relation­ship’, ‘No acknowledgment’ and ‘Nonacceptance’ very infrequently. Further­more, study shows that males used more CR strategies compared to females. The qualitative analysis of the semantic formulas of the CR strategies revealed that, by accepting a compliment, Iranian EFL learners sought agreement and consequently relied on positive politeness to foster rapport and solidarity. In the article Introducing Teacher Mentoring in Kosovo Schools – Poten­tial and Challenges for Sustainability, authors Eda Vula, Fatlume Berisha and Blerim Saqipi present the study that examined the lessons learned from the introduction of a teacher mentoring culture within a teacher professional de­velopment program in selected pilot schools in Kosovo. Four mentor teachers and four mentee focus groups were involved in the open interviews, and their portfolios were also examined. The results identified the important themes in terms of developing a school mentoring culture in a system that had lacked mentoring practices and was embarking on an ambitious curricular reform. The study revealed that the individual, collegial, and institutional dimensions are critical for the formation of a mentoring culture. In the article, Teachers’ Attitudes towards Behaviour Patterns in Social Conflicts in Primorsko-Goranska County in Croatia, authors Nataša Vlah, Lucija Jančec and Renata Čepić aim to research primary school teachers’ attitudes to­wards behaviour patterns in social conflict. The authors see teachers’ attitudes as particularly important while the primary school teacher is the role model for his/her pupils. In their research, they have applied a scale of attitudes toward social conflicts (Tatalović Vorkapić & Vlah, Mejovšek, 2012) to a stratified sam­ple of 155 teachers in the Primorje-Gorski Kotar County, Croatia, measuring three patterns of behaviour: avoidance/adaptation, cooperation, and winning. According to the results, the teachers most frequently have positive attitudes toward a pattern of cooperation, and most seldom toward a pattern of winning. The winning pattern is negatively correlated with cooperation and positively correlated with avoidance/adaptation. In the conclusions, authors recommend­ed systematic social skills training with the aim to raise the ability for managing conflict for a specific group of teachers. Rajka Bračun Sova in the article Art Appreciation as a Learned Compe­tence: A Museum-based Qualitative Study of Adult Art Specialist and Art Non-Specialist Visitors presents the results of her qualitative study that examined art appreciation by exploring two different groups of museum visitors: art special­ists and art non-specialists. She conducted her research at Moderna galerija in Ljubljana. Twenty-three adults were recruited and accompanied during their visit to the museum. Participants were requested to “think out loud”, which meant to talk about what they saw, thought, and felt about the artworks. There was a short interview conducted with each participant before entering the mu­seum to gain insight into their art-related and museum-visiting experience. The analysis of the data revealed that some processes of art appreciation were similar within the two groups. Both art specialists and non-specialists interact with museum objects physically and intellectually; they see the contents and formal qualities of the museum objects as a whole; they respond emotionally to artworks; appreciation includes their personal experience, and they search museum interpretation/information for their understanding. Some notable dif­ferences were also found. Art specialists respond to artworks with more under­standing and are willing to put more effort into art appreciation, whereas art non-specialists respond with less understanding and put less effort into art ap­preciation. The paper focuses on the differences between the two groups; reflec­tive and spontaneous appreciation of art, objective and subjective appreciation of art and the effort put into art appreciation. The paper ends with a discussion of the implications of the study for the teaching of art and museum education. The current issue ends with a review of a book authored by Branka Baranović and her group of researchers from the Centre for the Study and De­velopment of Education, Institute for Social Issues in Zagreb. The book is en­titled: Koji srednjoškolci namjeravaju studirati? - Pristup visokom obrazovanju i odabir studija [What Do High School Students Plan to Study? - Access to Higher Education and Choice of Study]. The review of the book concludes with “[T]he research in question, the Croatian scientific community and political subsystem have gained a well-conceptualised and empirically supported inter­disciplinary study of one of the most relevant questions of the present and fu­ture in Croatia as well as in Europe.” Slavko Gaber Preschool Teaching Staff ’s Opinions on the Importance of Preschool Curricular Fields of Activities, Art Genres and Visual Arts Fields Tomaž Zupančič*1, Branka Čagran2, and Matjaž Mulej3 • This article presents preschool teachers’ and assistant teachers’ opinions on the importance of selected fields of educational work in kindergar­tens. The article first highlights the importance of activities expressing artistic creativity within modern curriculums. Then, it presents an em­pirical study that examines the preschool teachers’ and assistant teach­ers’ opinions on the importance of the educational fields, art genres, and visual arts fields. In research hypotheses, we presumed that preschool teachers find individual educational fields, individual art genres, and in­dividual visual arts activities to be of different importance; consequently, education in kindergarten does not achieve the requisite holism. The study is based on the descriptive and causal-non-experimental method. We have determined that the greatest importance is attributed to move­ment and language, followed by nature, society, art and mathematics. Within art genres, the greatest importance is attributed to visual arts and music and the least to audio-visual activities. Within visual arts, drawing and painting are considered to be the most important and sculpting the least. These findings can support future studies and deliberation on the possible effects on practice in terms of requisitely holistically planned preschool education. Keywords: curriculum, preschool education, preschool teachers, requisite holism, visual arts activities 1 *Corresponding Author. Faculty of Education, University of Maribor, Slovenia; tomaz.zupancic@um.si 2 Faculty of Education, University of Maribor, Slovenia 3 Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Maribor, Slovenia Vrednotenje pomembnosti kurikularnih področij dejavnosti, umetnostnih zvrsti in likovnih področij med predšolskimi pedagoškimi delavci Tomaž Zupančič*, Branka Čagran in Matjaž Mulej • Prispevek predstavlja mnenja predšolskih pedagoških delavk (vzgoji­teljic in pomočnic vzgojiteljic) o pomembnosti posameznih področij vzgojnega dela v vrtcu. Najprej osvetlimo pomembnost izrazno ustvar­jalnih dejavnosti znotraj sodobnih kurikulumov. V nadaljevanju pred­stavimo empirično raziskavo, ki zajema mnenja vzgojiteljic in pomočnic vzgojiteljic o pomembnosti vzgojnih področij, umetnostnih zvrsti in likovnih področij. V raziskovalnih hipotezah smo predvideli, da vzgoji­teljice in pomočnice vzgojiteljic različno vrednotijo pomembnost vzgoj­nih področij, umetnostnih zvrsti in likovnih področij. Raziskava temelji na deskriptivni in kavzalno-neeksperimentalni metodi. Ugotovili smo, da se največji pomen pripisuje gibanju in jeziku, sledijo pa narava, druž­ba, umetnost in matematika. Znotraj umetnostnih zvrsti se največja po­membnost pripisuje likovnim in glasbenim dejavnostim, najmanjša pa avdiovizualnim. Znotraj likovnih področij sta za vzgojiteljice in pomoč­nice vzgojiteljic najpomembnejša risanje in slikanje, najmanj pomemb­no pa je področje kiparstva. Spoznanja raziskave lahko predstavljajo osnovo za naslednje študije in razmisleke o mogočih vplivih na prakso v smeri uresničevanja primerno celovito zasnovane predšolske vzgoje. Ključne besede: kurikulum, predšolska vzgoja, vzgojitelj, zadostna in potrebna celovitost, likovne dejavnosti Introduction Art genres are of crucial importance in the preschool curriculum, which determines the content and work objectives in kindergarten. The fields deter­mined by the Slovenian Curriculum for Kindergartens (Bahovec et al., 1999) are language, movement, nature, society, art, and mathematics. In planning and implementing actual activities, these fields should be represented as equally intertwined; they should supplement one another. Martin-Kniep, Feige and Soodak (1995) define such interdisciplinary connections as an example of ho­listic learning and integration that is derived from the complexity of the world, bridges the boundaries between the disciplines and, therefore, supports the ho­listic development of the child. The UNICEF publication Programming Experi­ences in Early Child Development (UNICEF, 2006) emphasizes that “A holistic approach to Early Child development, first and foremost, is the child’s right” (p. 3), and states, “that this approach has been shown to be effective” (p. 4). A holistic approach and integrated approach to learning and intertwining of fields are important parts of different preschool curricula (Bose, 2010; Ministry of Education, 2012; Government of Saskatchewan, 2013; Devarakonda, 2013, etc.). The importance of the intertwining of fields also lies at the core of the Slovenian Curriculum for Kindergartens: The term curriculum in the kindergarten was implemented as it is a broader and more comprehensive term than programme and as it repre­sents a shift from the traditional emphasis on the content to the empha­sis on the process of preschool education, on the complexity of interac­tions and experience that children learn from (Bahovec et al., 1999, p. 3). One of the objectives of the curriculum is the “balanced offer of diverse fields and activities of preschool education in kindergartens” (Bahovec et al., 1999, p. 5). The curriculum-based principle of balance recommends that pre­school teachers should provide diverse activities and facilitate all aspects of the child’s development (Marjanovič Umek et al., 2011). It is important that the activities from different fields and thus the different aspects of the child’s de­velopment and learning be horizontally linked, as it is especially characteristic of children that the aspects of their development are co-dependent and inter­linked (Bahovec et al., 1999). The individual fields of development are intertwined, as different psy­chological functions run parallel to each other and are connected (e.g. the child perceives, experiences and gets to know himself, the world surrounding him, different relationships from the emotional, intuitive, social and cognitive aspect). Subject-specific objectives and individual activities in the kindergar­ten curriculum have to be read as an aid in the planning of concrete activities, which have to cover all areas of the child’s development as equally as possible following the general principle of balance (Kroflič, 2001). Such intertwining, including art education, should lead to increased comprehension and requisite holism, which is more realistic than holism because it includes all and only es­sential viewpoints rather than all existing ones that are included in the concept of holism, which cannot be attained by human beings, not even in an interdis­ciplinary creative cooperation (Mulej & Kajzer, 1998, based on Mulej, 1979). The importance of art education is not emphasized only by art teachers, gestalt (i.e. holistic) psychologists and researchers of creativity, but also by general educa­tors and educationalists. The White Paper on Education (Krek & Metljak, 2011) emphasizes that achievements in important knowledge fields, which also includes different artistic fields, are usually not included in international studies of knowledge (TIMSS, PISA, PIRLS), even though they are an important part of knowledge and education. We also need to strive towards excellence in these fields (visual arts, music, etc.) (Krek et al., 2011). The importance of art education European policy is attempting to introduce more artistic content into school curricula: knowing and understanding art, critical evaluation, under­standing the importance of cultural heritage (Ivon & Kuščević, 2013), un­derstanding cultural diversity, abilities to express and develop one’s identity through art and creativity are the fundamental objectives of cultural and art education (Bračun Sova & Kemperl, 2012). Kroflič (2007) emphasizes the edu­cational value of the aesthetic experience in education. The key dimensions of an artistic experience, which ensure its status as one of the authentic forms of an individual’s entry into relationships with his/her environment and his/her realisation of the truth of his/her own being are imagination, metaphor and narration [...] Engaging in art turned out to belong to the most efficient tools, not only for an individ­ ual’s personal development, but also for ensuring quality of life (Kroflič, 2007, p. 27). Artistic expression enables the child to develop various potentials: creativity, imagination, conceivability, sensitive perception, and conceptions. Early education is known for its creative approach (Jeffrey & Craft, 2004); furthermore, art activities are important activities in which “the relation be­tween teaching creatively and teaching for creativity is an integral one” (Jeffrey & Craft, 2004, p. 84). Art supports the multi-layered development of a child’s cognition, from the coherence of adopted knowledge (i.e. the ability to con­nect parts into appropriately holistic realizations and actions), knowledge, and skills, to the development of imagination and aesthetic feelings (Efland, 2002). Visual arts function in much the same way. Visual arts activities develop a child’s understanding of the space that he/she inhabits. This comprehension of space is complex and intertwined. It encompasses, firstly, the three-dimen­sional Euclidian space and its symbolic representations on the surface. It also encompasses the social and cultural space that surrounds us. Visual arts ac­tivities also support the development of visual thinking (Arnheim, 2009), i.e. that part of thinking that deals with the visual: spatial relationships, distance, and overlapping. Visual arts activities enhance the development of the ability to communicate with the language of visual arts: colour and form relationships, compositions, rhythms, contrasts, and proportions (Didek, 1982; Butina, 1997; Eisner, 2002). Also supported are components of general development that en­rich the child’s emotional viewpoint and intelligence, develop divergent think­ing, and contribute to the child’s social, ethical and moral development (Herne, Cox, & Watts, 2009; Hickman, 2010). Contemporary art education studies emphasize the importance of an early introduction into the world of art, the importance of scheduled planning, content planning (Lindstrom, 2011), understanding the process of learning art and being educated in art, and conducting studies in art education (Hickman, 2008; Addison, Burgess, Steers, & Trowell, 2010). Getting to know art should be requisitely holistic and therefore intertwined. In Slovenian compulsory schools’ syllabi, the time devoted to art (music, visual arts, and literature) is determined by the number of hours that are allo­cated to individual subjects, which, formally, also determines their importance and intertwining. The Slovenian Curriculum for Kindergartens is designed as an open syllabus (Kroflič, 2001; Zupančič, 2008). It provides directions for content and objectives for individual fields but not the number of daily or weekly hours. The frequency of teaching a field depends on preschool teachers; “a substantial share of direct professional decisions is of course transferred to the level of the kindergarten principals and the individual teacher, which is planned to lead to even more active innovations in public kindergartens in the future” (Kroflič, 2001, p. 24). Achieving the requisite holism thus largely depends on the requi­site personal holism (Šarotar Žižek, 2012) of teachers and assistant teachers, as well as kindergartens’ principals and kindergarten children’s parents. The number of individual activities, accordingly, depends on preschool teachers’ inclinations toward individual fields of the curriculum. It stems from the teachers’ 1) belief in the relative importance of fields within the curricu­lum, 2) the individual’s level of qualification for implementing a field, and 3) personal affinities for individual fields. An additionally important question re­lates to their inclination towards the intertwining of fields. In open curriculum systems, teachers’ opinions are, thus, even more important. In a previous study (Zupančič, 2012), we established that preschool teachers find environmental problems, which relate to protecting the environment and preserving natural resources, to be very important. They place them above the economic, politi­cal, and health issues of modern society. Hence, one may conclude they teach environmental content more frequently than visual arts. Garvis and Pendergast (2011) studied the qualifications of preschool teachers for teaching individual art genres. They first emphasize that every pre­school teacher is responsible for the daily implementation of visual arts activi­ties. They further quote UNESCO’s guidelines (Road Map for Arts Education, 2006) that especially emphasize the importance of art education. They note that art education is an essential component of general education; it requires appropriately qualified teachers. Their study (covering Australian preschool teachers) showed that more than 50% of respondents did not feel qualified to implement art activities, especially visual arts and music. Only 14% felt they were completely qualified and competent to implement music activities. No single teacher felt qualified to implement visual arts activities. Denac (2010) studied Slovenian preschool teachers’ perceptions of the importance of individual educational fields, specifically the teachers’ interest in implementing various activities from the kindergarten curriculum. She es­tablished that teachers ranked these activities as follows (from the most to the least preferred): language, art, movement, nature, mathematics, and society. Within art, teachers expressed the highest interest in visual art, followed by music, dance, drama, and finally audio-visual activities (Denac, 2010). She did not investigate the intertwining of fields. The importance of the intertwining of fields Intertwining matters: it trains learners for connective observance, which supplements unavoidable, narrow specialization in a field, and helps people (in this case, teachers and children) perceive the broadness of influences and their connections that run into team synergies. Here are a few extreme examples: individually, sodium and chlorine are dangerous poisons, but in synergy they c e p make edible salt; hydrogen and oxygen are gases, but together they make water; together the bee and the flower give us honey, as they are co-dependent, and their lives are thus intertwined. Let us stress again: total holism, which many recklessly use the term “holism”, cannot be achieved in human thinking and actions: it would completely cover all aspects, all connections between them and all synergies. Nature and life are too complex for the total holism of human insight, so people have always specialized in knowing: to understand/master a specific part of life-practice. The saying “my knowledge covers but a drop in the ocean, nothing more” applies; therefore, “one hand washes the other, both wash the face”. Limiting the holism of approaches to a single chosen aspect is the other extreme, which is necessary for specialization, but also dangerous: it assumes that the ocean surrounding our drop does not exist or is at least not important or deserving our attention. This is obviously not correct. The middle way between the two extremes is the dialectical system as an intertwining of all essential and only essential viewpoints; it enables the requisite holism (Mulej, 1974; Mulej & Kajzer, 1998). What people choose to deem essential and what they leave aside as less essential or even completely unessential and unconsid­ered is the responsibility of the people making the choice (Figure 1). Specialization: Requisite holism: Total holism: limited to a single a dialectical sys­ a system of com­ chosen aspect: tem of all essential pletely all view- fictitious holism and only essential points: no oversight, and realism causing viewpoints: less but infeasible in (dangerous) over- dangerous for over- practice, including sight of many facts sight, and feasible in in creative interdisci­ practice plinary cooperation Figure 1. The law of requisite holism of approach Among the actual characteristics, every specialist puts his/her chosen part of the characteristics of the same subject matter in the centre (e.g. the pre­school curriculum). Each choice is important and exact, but only partially so, as it cannot explain the total truth or facts. The dialectical system is difficult to cover in empirical studies for methodological reasons; it is, however, possible (Čančer & Mulej, 2010). We could find no sources covering the present subject matter. The question remains for future theoretical, methodological, and em­pirical studies. The empirical study The study inquired which: 1) educational fields, 2) art genres, and 3) visual arts fields that teaching staff in preschool institutions find more or less important. Research hypotheses H1: Preschool teachers find individual educational fields to be differently important; language, movement, art, nature, society, and maths are not found to be equally important; consequently, education in kindergarten does not achieve the requisite holism. H2: Preschool teachers find individual art genres to be differently important; dance, music, literature, visual arts activities, puppets, drama, and au­dio-visual activities are not found to be equally important; consequently, artistic actions in kindergarten do not achieve the requisite holism. H3: Preschool teachers find individual visual arts activities to be differently important; drawing, painting, sculpting, stamping, spatial designs, and art evaluation are not found to be equally important; consequently, vis­ual arts actions in kindergarten do not achieve the requisite holism. Methodology The research method This study is based on the descriptive and causal-non-experimental method. Research sample, population The studied population covers preschool teachers and assistant teachers in Maribor kindergartens (i.e. 231 preschool teachers and 264 assistant teachers, or a total of 495 teaching staff members) (source: Municipality of Maribor, the Social Activities Department; December 2012). The study comprised a random sample of 52 teachers and 51 assistant teachers, or a total of 103 teaching staff members, or 20.8% of the studied population. Surveying was conducted in No­vember of 2012. Half of the sample included preschool teachers and the other half as­sistant teachers. It is expected that almost one half (48.54%) of the sample com­pleted high school (9 + 4 years), because this is required for assistant teachers. Denac (2010) established the same. The remaining 51.46% completed higher education (a vocational three-year degree or a bachelor’s degree). Two thirds of the respondents have ten or more years of work experience. Process of data collection We prepared a questionnaire. Its first part includes questions on years of service, educational degree and position (preschool teacher, assistant teacher). In the questionnaire’s main part, respondents used a 10-point scale to rate the importance of individual aspects of the preschool curriculum; “1” represents the least important and “10” the most important aspect. In the first set of items, respondents rated the importance of educational fields from the Curriculum for Kindergartens (Bahovec et al., 1999): movement, language, art, society, na­ture, and mathematics. In the second set, they rated individual art genres per activities as determined by the curriculum: visual arts, music, dance, drama, literary, puppet, and audio-visual activities. In the third set, respondents rated the importance of visual arts fields. As the curriculum does not specify these fields, we adopted the prevailing artistic and art didactic experts’ views (Berce Golob, 1993; Duh & Zupančič, 2003): drawing, painting, sculpting, stamping (graphics), spatial design, and the basics of aesthetic evaluation. The same fields are specified in Slovenian compulsory schools’ syllabi. The outline is presented in Figure 2. Figure 2. The presence of visual arts fields within art genres and fields of activity in the Slovenian kindergarten curriculum Data-processing Procedures Data were processed employing the following procedures: frequency distributions (f, f %) of categories of the controlled data of the respondents; means (x) of the levels of importance of individual fields of the curriculum on a 1 to 10 scale; repeated measures ANOVA to test the differences between the curriculum fields’ importance; a t-test of differences in rating the importance of curriculum fields related to the degrees of preschool teachers. Results and discussion The results are presented in three chapters; first, analysis of educational fields; second, analysis of art genres; and third, analysis of visual arts fields. Each chapter provides 1) distribution of means of the attributed fields’ impor­tance, 2) results of the analysis of differences of importance between fields, and 3) results of the analysis of ratings’ differences related to staff ’s degrees. Rating of importance of educational fields Table 1. Educational fields ranked according to the mean attributed importance (x) Educational fields x Movement 9.776 Language 9.514 Nature 9.048 Society 8.893 Art 8.737 Mathematics 8.601 Within the scale from 1 to 10, all fields are rated highly (Table 1), which means that teachers find all educational fields to be important. The most im­portant fields are movement and language. These are also the activities most frequently implemented in practice and emphasized by the heads of kinder­gartens. Mathematics, which appeared in the kindergarten curriculum as an independent educational field only in the year 2000, is perhaps seen as a nov­elty that is still finding its way into the consciousness of teachers. Table 2 shows whether the differences from Table 1 are statistically significant. Table 2. Results of the repeated measures ANOVA testing the differences between six educational fields Standard Mean Wilks’ Lambda Test Deviation Educational fields x s FP Movement 9.776 0.641 Language 9.514 0.927 Art Society 8.737 8.893 1.357 1.328 24,203 0,000 Nature 9.048 1.240 Mathematics 8.601 1.437 The results of the Wilks’ Lambda multivariate test show a statistically significant difference in importance (P=0.000) of educational fields. This con­firms the hypothesis (H1) that teachers find educational fields to be differently important, which endangers the implementation of the requisite holism in edu­cation. Table 3 shows the differences between pairs of fields. Table 3. Results of the Bonferroni test for pairs of educational fields Educational fields x1 – x2 P Movement Language Art Society Nature Mathematics 0.262 1.039 0.883 0.728 1.175 0.126 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 Language Art Society Nature Mathematics 0.777 0.621 0.466 0.913 0.000 0.000 0.016 0.000 Art Society Nature Mathematics -0.155 -0.311 0.136 1.000 0.209 1.000 Nature -0.155 1.000 Society Mathematics 0.291 0.485 Nature Mathematics 0.447 0.000 The majority (9) of the pairs of educational fields show statistically sig­nificant differences concerning their attributed importance. The fields of move­ment and language stand out. There is no statistically significant difference be­tween them, but they are statistically more important than the other fields (art, society, nature, and mathematics). Nature has a statistically higher rating than mathematics. Art’s, society’s and nature’s importance are rated similarly. The results coincide with (unfortunately, still occasionally present) the views of ed­ucational fields that we can see in practice. Movement and living in nature and the development of language skills are important fields that enable the child’s healthy development and present a basis for a successful life. Art is seen as a fun activity whose task is to relax the child. Society and nature are important but not as important as language and movement, while maths should be taught in school. Perhaps the terms that are used to denote these activities partially contribute to this, as the Slovenian preschool curriculum took over the termi­nology from school subjects (mathematics) and a different view of this activity might be reflected by a different term, e.g. numeracy (Ministry of Education, 2012). The holistic approach to a child’s development and learning should be emphasized and to a greater extent included in their subjects by teachers of educational fields in preschool teacher training programmes. Rating the importance of art genres Teachers rated the importance of seven art genres as defined by the Slo­venian Curriculum for Kindergartens: visual arts, music, dance, audio-visual, drama, puppets, and literature (Table 4). Table 4. Art genres ranked according to the mean attributed importance (x) Art genres x Visual arts 9.194 Music 9.019 Literature 9.010 Dance 8.301 Puppet 8.078 Drama 7.534 Audio-visual 6.709 Compared to educational fields (Table 1), the average attributed impor­tance of art genres is lower. Visual arts activities were ranked the highest, fol­lowed by music and literary activities, while dance and puppet activities follow and were both attributed average importance. Drama activities and audio-vis­ual activities were ranked the lowest. It can be assumed, on the basis of this attributed importance, that among the art genres, visual arts (drawing, paint­ing), music (singing, listening), and literature (listening to stories, storytelling) activities prevail in practical work in kindergartens. The low ranking of pup­pet activities was surprising, as all preschool didactics view the puppet as an ideal didactic means to be used in diverse situations. Audio-visual activities were found to be the least important, which (similar to mathematics) can be attributed to the fact that these are newer to the curriculum. Table 5 provides the results of verifying the statistical significance of the differences between the covered art genres. Table 5. Results of the repeated measures analysis ANOVA testing the differences between seven art genres Mean Standard Deviation Wilks’ Lambda Test Art genres x s F P Visual arts 9.194 1.067 Music 9.019 1.221 Dance 8.301 1.526 Audio-visual 6.709 1.829 41.758 0.000 Drama 7.534 1.656 Puppet 8.078 1.724 Literary 9.010 1.264 There are statistically significant differences in the ratings of the impor­tance of the covered art genres (P=0.000). The hypothesis (H2) is thus con­firmed. Teachers, therefore, also find art genres to be differently important. These are their chosen views, and the realization is subjective. Consequences include differences in children’s knowledge and values, perhaps even long-term ones. Table 6 shows the results of the analysis of differences among all seven pairs of art genres. Table 6. Results of the Bonferroni test for pairs of art genres Art genres Activities x1 – x2 P Visual arts Music Dance Audio-visual Drama Puppet Literary 0.175 0.894* 2.485* 1.660* 1.117* 0.184 1.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 1.000 Music Dance Audio-visual Drama Puppet Literary 0.718* 2.311* 1.485* 0.942* 0.010 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 1.000 Dance Audio-visual Drama Puppet Literary 1.592* 0.767* 0.223 -0.709* 0.000 0.000 1.000 0.000 Audio-visual Drama Puppet Literary -0.825* -1.369* -2.301* 0.000 0.000 0.000 Puppet -0.544* 0.002 Drama Literary -1.476* 0.000 Puppet Literary -0.932 0.000 There are only four pairs of art genres for which no statistically signifi­cant differences were found. The first three are visual arts activities and music, visual arts activities and literary activities, and music and literary activities. The surveyed teachers attribute the highest importance to these genres (Table 4). The difference between the pairs of dance and puppet activities is also not statistically significant. To all other art genres, statistically significant different importance is attributed (P<0.001). Visual arts activities are ranked higher than dance, audio-visual, drama, and puppet activities. Music is ranked higher than dance, audio-visual, drama, and puppet activities. Dance is ranked higher than audio-visual and drama, but lower than literary activities. Audio-visual activi­ties are ranked lower than drama, puppet, and literary activities, while drama activities are ranked lower than puppet and literary activities, and puppet ac­tivities are ranked lower than literary activities. Rating the importance of visual arts fields Teachers also rated the importance of individual visual arts fields: draw­ing, painting, stamping, sculpting, spatial design, and art evaluation (Table 7). Table 7. Visual arts fields ranked according to the mean attributed importance (x) Visual art fields x Drawing 9.495 Painting 9.379 Aesthetic evaluation 8.476 Spatial design 7.990 Stamping 7.981 Sculpting 7.845 Teachers rate drawing and painting as the most important; aesthetic eval­uation is also rated high. Spatial design, stamping, and sculpting were attributed a slightly lower average importance ( <8). These facts match the directions of art didactics and the prevailing practices in Slovenian kindergartens. Drawing best develops the child’s visual perceptions and should be used the most frequently. Painting is an activity that (in addition to drawing) is used the most frequently in kindergartens, partially because the necessary materials (coloured pencils, crayons, etc.) are easy to use, and partially because of the child’s desire and need to express him/herself with colours. The high rating of aesthetic evaluation sur­prizes us. As these activities are connected with visits to galleries and in-depth artistic knowledge, Slovenian preschool teachers avoided them in the past. The development of aesthetic feeling is however integral to requisitely holistic visual arts education, so this result of the study is positive. Table 8 shows the statistical significance of differences between individual visual arts fields. Table 8. Results of the repeated measures ANOVA testing the differences between six visual arts fields Mean Standard Deviation Wilks’ Lambda Test Visual art fields x s F P Drawing 9.495 0.906 Painting 9.379 0.755 Stamping 7.981 1.726 23.375 0.000 Sculpting 7.845 1.655 Spatial design 7.990 1.671 Aesthetic evaluation 8.475 1.513 The Wilks’ Lambda multivariate test shows a statistically significant dif­ference (P=0.000) between the covered visual arts fields. On this basis, the hy­pothesis (H3) can be confirmed. The statistically significant differences of visual arts fields, as rated by preschool teachers, are professionally more justified, as drawing is the fundamental visual arts field that serves as a basis for all others. Nevertheless, the application of visual arts fields should be more harmonized in kindergartens in order to achieve the requisitely holistic children’s develop­ment. Even more could be gained from their intertwining, such as an attempted sculpture based on a child’s drawings. This applies not only to visual arts but also to other art fields, such as music (Sicherl Kafol, 2001). Table 9 shows the results of the analysis of differences between pairs of visual arts fields. Table 9. Results of the Bonferroni test for pairs of visual arts fields Visual art fields Activities x1 – x2 P Drawing Painting Stamping Sculpting Spatial design Aesthetic evaluation 0.117 1.515* 1.650* 1.505* 1.019* 1.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 Painting Stamping Sculpting Spatial design Aesthetic evaluation 1.398* 1.534* 1.388* 0.903* 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 Stamping Sculpting Spatial design Aesthetic evaluation 0.136 -0.010 -0.495 1.000 1.000 0.091 Spatial design -0.146 1.000 Sculpting Aesthetic evaluation -0.631* 0.002 Spatial design Aesthetic evaluation -0.485* 0.013 Pairs of visual arts fields with a statistically significant difference pre­vail again. Drawing is rated as statistically significantly more important than stamping, sculpting, spatial design, and art evaluation. Painting is found to be more important than stamping, sculpting, spatial design, and art evaluation. Sculpting and spatial design are evaluated lower than stamping and spatial de­sign, stamping and art evaluation, and sculpting and spatial design. The results indicate a relation between the technical complexity of the implementation of an activity and the frequency of such implementation in working with children. Less demanding art techniques are used in drawing and painting (pencil, cray­ons, etc.), while stamping or spatial design require more complex technical procedures. Preschool teachers feel less qualified to implement these activities. These results also indicate the need for a more holistic approach within the framework of art subjects during study years (Morley, 2014). Conclusions This empirical study, which addressed a random sample of preschool teachers and assistant teachers, revealed their perception of the importance of educational fields, art genres, and visual arts. The following basic results were obtained: • As regards educational fields in kindergartens, the greatest importance, which is statistically significantly higher than others, is attributed to mo­vement and language. Nature, science, and art are attributed a similar, but slightly lower importance; mathematics has the lowest average attri­buted importance. • As regards art genres in kindergartens, visual arts, music, and literary activities are art genres without statistically significant differences; they are rated statistically significantly higher than others (i.e. dance, puppet and drama activities). Audio-visual activities have the lowest average at­tributed importance. • Among visual arts fields, drawing and painting are rated the highest. There is no statistically significant difference between them; they are rated statistically significantly higher than the other visual arts fields. Spatial design, stamping, and sculpting enjoy a lower average attributed importance; there is no statistically significant difference between them. Art evaluation, however, is rated statistically significantly higher than any of them, (P<0.05), or with a tendency to be higher (0.05