Heritage Education in the curricula of Social Sciences in Spain and Portugal

Over the last few years several European countries have modified their school curriculum. This is the case of Spain where in December 2013 a new curriculum (LOMCE) was passed. Since 2012 Portugal's education system has been undergoing a similar process of change through the regulation of Curricular Outcomes. These reforms have affected the Social Sciences plans and, eventually, teaching and learning practices. This has led us to inquire whether or not the new plans involve an improvement regarding how heritage education is dealt with, in particular in Spanish Primary Education and Portuguese Elementary Education. We seek to analyse what the conceptualisation of heritage proposed in the new regulations is, what heritage areas are being prioritised, and what goals are pursued through heritage education in these new regulatory texts. In order to answer these questions a content analysis of the documents was carried out, as well as a comparative analysis of Spanish (focusing on the case of Murcia as an example of the Spanish territory) and Portuguese sceneries. The results here highlighted reveal that there is a significant gap between the didactic potential of heritage in social sciences subjects, and its presence in the curriculum guidelines. Leaving aside some differences between Spanish and Portuguese official documents, both approaches are underlined by a limited and partial view of heritage education.