Abstract:

The study focuses on the changes in the content of education in Latvia during the last twenty years, which significantly influenced the learning of music and visual arts in grades 10-12. The theoretical part of the article analyses the learning of music and visual arts in grades 10-12 in the context of the historical development of Latvia and in a comparative aspect with other countries. The aim of the study is to find out the students’ choice of learning music and visual arts in Latvia in the last twenty years. The study is based on two study questions. The first question intended to find out which one of the two subjects, music or visual arts, the students have chosen to learn since 2016. The second study question was focused on the determination of the trends in students’ choice of learning music and visual arts in grades 10-12 in Latvia during the last twenty years. In order to determine this trends, the empirical part of the study analyses the curriculum of 27 schools and the subjects choices of 930 students (N=930) in the school year 1996-97, as well as the final results appeared in the appendix to certificate of general secondary education for 229 students (N=229), who graduated in the school year 2016-17. The study found that there are no statistically significant differences in the choice of learning music and visual arts since 2016. Since 2013 all students in grades 10-12 had to acquire music or visual arts. Before 2013, the students preferred to acquire cultural history, and it was possible that almost every third student in grades 10-12 could not learn music and visual arts. This is also proved by the coefficient of the acquisition of arts subjects, which is less than one (0,71).

Keywords:

Students’ choice, music, visual arts, 10-12 grades.