The arts occupy a special place in human culture: they are an alternative way of understanding and interpreting the world to scientific inquiry. This is what Aristotle's notion of catharsis refers to, which in its original sense means "initiation into the highest laws of reality". Although art is often contrasted in the European tradition with science, the difference lies in the way of understanding: in contrast to the analytical, analytical understanding that is common and accepted in the sciences, in the arts we are dealing with a kind of holistic, deep understanding, a kind of insight. Nowadays, more and more educational researchers stress the importance of art education, but there are still many questions and doubts about the subject. Although there have been several studies on the equalizing and disadvantage compensating effects of arts education (Sz.Fodor, Kerekes, 2020; L. Ritók, 2010), often it is precisely those social groups who need it most that do not have access to the right quality and quantity of education (Katz-Buonincontro, 2018; Váradi, 2020). The cultural and economic capital of families is a major determinant of whether or not children participate in some kind of artistic activities outside school (Kis, Bartalis, Boros, 2020), i.e. whether they acquire cultural capital (e.g. through the arts) that, according to Bourdieu's (1998) theory, can be transformed into economic capital in adulthood. Most experts agree, however, that the role of the teacher is crucial in the experience and study of art. So, in teacher training, particular attention should be paid to training teachers who will in the future provide opportunities for children to encounter the arts.

The more positive a teacher's experience in arts, the more effective and successful he or she feels in different artistic fields, the more likely he or she is to use the arts in his or her everyday pedagogical practice (Orek, 2004; Garvis, Pendergast, 2011; Pinczésné-Palásthy et al,). On the other hand, teacher education (especially preschool and primary school teacher education) is characterised by a high proportion of students with low socio-economic status, who have had limited exposure to the arts as part of high culture during their family socialisation and school years (Bocsi, 2017). Nevertheless, there is hope that a well-constructed arts education programme in initial teacher education which provides authentic activities and many practical experiences can reframe students' perceived competences, self-eficacy and prior emotional experiences (Gatt and Karppinen, 2014).

In our research we investigated preschool and primary school teacher training participants' attitudes towards arts, perceived competences and self-efficacy in arts. We wanted to know how students perceived their own content knowledge and competencies in six different art areas (music, dance, drama, literature, crafts and visual arts, and media), how difficult they perceived the tasks to be, how important they considered proficiency in these different art areas as future teachers, and how this influenced their pedagogical views on teaching arts.

The survey was carried out using an online questionnaire. The questionnaire was completed by 100 female students from two different higher education institutions in Romania, all of them enrolled in pre-service teacher training. From previous research, we know that the teacher education programmes of both institutions under study are characterised by regional recruitment, a high proportion of non-traditional students, coming from families with limited financial resources, lower social classes, and from families with different cultural backgrounds (Nyüsti and Ceglédi, 2012; Pusztai, et al., 2012). In compiling the questionnaire, we drew on previous research (Pinczésné Palásthy et al., 2021). In addition to demographic questions, we also asked about the educational qualifications of parents and the students' previous school and extracurricular artistic experiences and cultural consumption habits. The central part of the questionnaire is made up of questions about different artistic activities. Here, we formulated tasks related to the respective artistic disciplines, in relation to which the respondents expressed their opinion about their importance, how often they meet these activities, how competent they feel in it, how difficult they find the task. For assessing perceived importance, perceived task difficulty, and perceived competency a 6-grade Likert scale was used. In the last block of questions, questions were asked about the teaching of the arts. The statistical analysis of the data was realised with SPSS. In order to compare the standard deviation squares of different subsamples we used F-test and Anova, and to compare the mean of subsamples, we used T-test for Two-Sample Assuming Equal Variance or T-test for Two-Sample Assuming Unequal Variance. Searching for significant correlations between parents' educational level and students' extracurricular artistic experiences chi-square test was applied.

Our results are in line with other research on the subject (Pinczésné Palásthy et al., 2021; Oreck, 2006; Váradi, 2020; Gatt and Karppinen, 2014; Garvis, Pendergast, 2011). Prior experiences of art in and out of school are related to feelings of competence and perceived difficulty of tasks. We found a difference in attitudes towards the six arts: the first results show that respondents are least satisfied with their musical skills, while as future pre-school teachers and teachers they consider the improvement of their knowledge and skills in music and visual arts as the most important. Demographic indicators (place of residence, subjective economic situation of the family) mainly affect cultural consumption patterns, as in the research of Bocsi (2017) and Váradi (2020), these results can be explained by the theory of cultural capital. The secondary aim of our research was to rethink the arts education offer in our institutions according to the needs and demands of students. It is important that students in teacher education have a positive experience of the arts, gain the experiential knowledge and content knowledge that will provide them with the basis to move confidently in the field, feel competent and have the confidence to use the arts creatively in education. A sense of achievement and competence can increase their willingness and motivation to participate in teacher training (Sz.Fodor, Kerekes, 2020).

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