Students’, their parents’ and music teachers’ perspectives about the aim of school music

Abstract

In the last few decades, numerous negative feedbacks have shed a light on the decline of school music concerning the low prestige of music as a school subject and the lack of music experience. Previous studies pointed out that music is one of the least popular subjects among students (Csíkos, 2012; Dohány, 2013; Pintér, 2020a).
The purpose of this study is to investigate the aim and the role of school music among students, their parents and music teachers. In the first part of the investigation, a questionnaire asked music (N = 506) and non-music students (N = 536) and their parents about the degrees of their involvement with music, home musical environment, as well as their beliefs about the aim of school music. In the second part of the investigation music teachers (N=15) were interviewed to share their beliefs about the aim of school music. Results indicated that music students and their parents had more musical instruments at home and did more music activities together, than non-music pupils and their parents. Furthermore, music students and their parents considered music lessons as more active music activities and experience than non-music students and their parents, whereas non-music students and their parents basically expected the acquisition of lexical music literacy during the music lessons.
On the other hand, some non-music students expressed negative attitudes toward music learning. Music teachers reported that music experience and music literacy were equally important. However they added that the reduced hours for music education makes it difficult to achieve the goals set in school practice.