Investigating Students’ Attitudes Towards Music Lessons In Primary Education, Listening To Music And Musical Taste
Author(s):
Tamas Szalai (presenting / submitting) Bella Emerencia Héjja (presenting) Judit Váradi
Conference:
ECER 2017
Network:
29. Research on Arts Education
Format:
Paper

Session Information

29 SES 11, Music Education

Paper Session

Time:
2017-08-24
17:15-18:45
Room:
W2.06
Chair:
Rolando Angel-Alvarado

Contribution

Our research mainly focuses on the correlation of students' attitudes attending primary education and music lessons in Hungary. Among other goals our investigation also includes shedding light on students' habits of listening to music and deals with young people’s musical taste focusing primarily on classical music genre. Since the National Curriculum was created in Hungary in 1995, music lesson belongs to the content area of arts which resulted fewer music lessons per week (Takács, 2001; L. Nagy, 2012). From 1948, the Kodály concept is accepted as the dominant music concept in education with the nationalization of educational institution (L. Nagy, 2004) and when the First National Curriculum was introduced in 1996, the curriculum of music lessons was based on this concept. The Kodály concept is a widely used method around the world from Europe to America, contents of this curriculum as an applied repertoire in education begins with children's rounds, rhythm games, rhymes, verses etc. in kindergarten then traditional folk songs of the child's country, and finally classical music (Bagley, 2009; Comeau, 1995; Gönczy, 2009). Contemporary music such as pop music is accepted by music teachers but the basis of teaching has to be the valuable music which mediates character-shaping high-class value from an aesthetic aspect. L. Nagy underlines that although mass culture is not included in music education, but it has to be represented in it somehow. One has to move with the times thus understanding entertaining music genres like jazz, pop and contemporary music is important since this surrounds young people. In addition, since the democratic transformation of neighboring and related ethnicities’ music and ecclesial music contents are also important parts of the curriculum, without barriers (L. Nagy, OFI; Marosz, 2013). In Hungary, children's music learning in the curricular education scene is based on classical music and folk music althought people’s musical preferences and taste is influenced by social status as well (Hausmann, 2011). The present Hungarian National Curriculum comprises of only one music lesson per week which causes a deep impact on the quality of music education. Elementary schools of music are an exception regarding the number of lessons. These type of schools have four lessons per week and also choir sessions. In 2015, the idea of 'everyday singing' has appeared on a governmental level, the 'Committee of Everyday Singing' (Mindennapos Éneklés Bizottsága) was created for implementing that purpose. Smuta (2015) discusses about the educators’ role if that idea would come into use. Nemes's (2014) study reports about spread of musical ignorance and present issues of music teacher's efficiencies: a significant number of them are unmotivated and unprepared which has negative effects on students' attitude in connection with music lessons. It follows that nowadays music teaching represents lack of prestige as a profession (L. Nagy, 2004; Marosz, 2013; Nemes, 2014). The majority of children do not face valuable and demanding music at home, neither in everyday life (Marosz, 2013). Nemes expresses his aversion of today's music education in Hungary. According to him, instead of lexical knowledge endearing music would be the point and also indtroducing shared musical experience. This subject is characterized by underdevelopment in the ever-developing world (Nemes, 2014).

Method

The study is meant to be the basis for an international comparison which implementation is part of remote plans. That comparison will cover elementary schools in Hungary, Romania, Serbia and Slovakia. For the time being five elementary schools of Debrecen were surveyed, including three religious schools and two public schools. Our present research uses both qualitative and quantitaive methods and questionnaries for gathering data. The questionnaires were made for 8 to 12 year-old elementary school students. Most of the participants were 10 years old (43%), the rest of them 11 years old (28,5%) and 12 years old (17,6%). The questionnaires contain 46 questions about their age, class, parental background, musical preferences and attitude, listening attitudes and attitudes of cultural consuming. Principally the questions were multiple-choice, although some of the questions were open ones. A research group deals with the processing of the data. The goals of the investigation was to gain information on the relation between students' parental background and their musical preferences and the students' musical preferences and attitude. At the current state of our research we expect feedback from 221 children. Three hypotheses were set up: H1: Parents who also went to music school are more likely to enroll their children there. H2: Mostly children of higher educated parents go to music school. H3: Almost every student listen to music and popular music genres are more preferred than classical music or folkmusic.

Expected Outcomes

It is not so common that the children’s (who are currently studying music) parents went to music school. Both parents attended music school in 14 families and in these families 4 children attend music school 10 children do not. In 46 families only one of the parents attended music school and about half of their children currently attend music school. In most families, neither parents attended music school, however their children do (77 %). We wanted to know the frequency of listening to music at home. When looking at people’s choices of music, one should be aware that everyone chooses what they are familiar (Váradi, 2010; Váradi, 2015). The result came out as we aniticipated: 81% of children listen to music frequently and 5% of them reported not listening to music at all. We were curious why they like listening to music. They had several answers to choose from and they could write a personal opinion if they wanted. Most of them listened to music because it makes them happy. Although the grouping of genres requires further refinement, pop music is the most preferred music genre between participating children and listening to music, especially those that go on the radio. We did not get answers related to the parents’ education levels because most of the children could not answer that.

References

Bagley, K. B. (2009): The Kodaly Method: Standardizing Hungarian Music Education. Fulbright Student Conference Papers, Budapest. http://www.fulbright.hu/book4/katiebrookebagley.pdf Downloaded: 2016.10.17. Comeau, G. (1995): Comparing Dalcroze, Orff and Kodaly: Choosing your approach to teaching music. Centre Franco-Ontarien de Ressources Pedagogiques. Gönczy László (2009): Kodály-koncepció: a megértés és alkalmazás nehézségei Magyarországon. Magyar Pedagógia. 109. 2. pp. 169–185. http://www.edu.u-szeged.hu/mped/document/Gonczy_MP1092.pdf Downloaded: 2016.05.14. Hausmann, A. (2011): Ízlés vagy sodródás? Összefüggések a romániai magyar középiskolások zenei ízlése, zenével kapcsolatos magatartása és értékrendje, kulturális fogyasztása között. Dissertation. Smuta, A. (2015): A mindennapi éneklés ügyének margójára. Parlando. 2015. 6. L. Nagy K. (). Az ének-zene tantárgyi helyzete és fejlesztési feladatai. OFI. L. Nagy K. (2004). Zene „oktatás-rejtett kincs?” A tantárgyi ének-zene tanítás szakmai jelen- és jövőképe. In Döbrösy (Szerk.). Ének – zene - nevelés. Az Eötvös Lóránd Tudományegyetem Tanító- és Óvóképző Főiskolai Karának Tudományos Közleményei XXV. Budapest: Trezor Kiadó. Marosz D. (2013). Van-e értelme emelt szinten ének-zenét tanítani? – Avagy a mai magyar helyzet kicsit távolabbról nézve. Parlando. 2013. 3. Nemes L. N. (2014). Az iskolai zeneoktatás válsága. Zenekar 2014/2. http://www.zene-kar.hu/tartalom/az_iskolai_zeneoktatas_valsaga/407 Downloaded: 2015. december 2. Takács V. (2001). Tantárgyi attitűdök struktúrája. Magyar Pedagógia. 101. 3. pp. 301-318. http://www.magyarpedagogia.hu/document/Takacs_MP1013.pdf Downloaded: 2017.01.17 Váradi, J. (2010): How To Educate An Audience To Aquire A Taste For Classical Music?. Dissertation. https://jyx.jyu.fi/dspace/bitstream/handle/123456789/24968/9789513938987.pdf?sequence=1 Downloaded: 2017.01.17 Váradi J. (2010): Incorporating Experience-based Concerts into Public Education. In Maticsák S. (Szerk). Tanulmányok a levelező és részismereti tanárképzés tantárgy-pedagógiai tartalmi megújításáért. Szaktárnet-könyvek. pp. 137-159. Debreceni Egyetemi Kiadó.

Author Information

Tamas Szalai (presenting / submitting)
University of Debrecen
Debrecen
Bella Emerencia Héjja (presenting)
University of Debrecen
Human Sciences
Debrecen
Judit Váradi
University Debrecen
Faculty of Music
Debrecen

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