Abstract
Initial pre-service teacher training should include insights and learning that are closely related to classroom practice. In this paper, we analyse the expectations voiced by pre-service teachers studying toward a master’s degree in secondary education as well as by in-service teachers. Both groups participated in a 6-month professional development project focusing on the competences they need as music teachers in order to achieve inclusion in the classroom. Results from interviews and focus groups confirm that music teachers require multidimensional and correlated training that combines and integrates didactic, pedagogical, disciplinary, and transversal competences in their professional practice. Multidimensional correlated training and a critical teaching attitude are essential for teachers to be equipped to rationally address music learning needs and problems in the inclusive classroom. Findings of this exploratory study can be used as guidelines for policy makers and curriculum developers.
Introduction
Individual access to music education is an issue of social justice, a right that should be granted to all students (Green, 2003; M. B. López, 2017; Wright, 2015). Among the policies that define a nation’s educational system, individual access to music education should be included as a factor that promotes cultural education, encourages the development of artistic abilities, and brings substantial benefits to a country’s citizens in terms of well-being, creativity, and learning (Hallam, 2010). Music is a thoroughly relevant subject within the educational system, but it requires an increased focus on teachers: it is they who are responsible for demonstrating the efficacy of music education in attaining the goals of compulsory education (Rusinek & Aróstegui, 2015) and in fulfilling the principles of fairness and inclusion as a guarantee of a more equitable education system in which all students find an appropriate educational response to their needs and their way of learning.
Inclusion, understood as an ongoing task and commitment designed to provide access to education and equal opportunities to all students with equal learning opportunities (Plancarte, 2017), requires teachers to become highly professionalized (Ainscow et al., 2013; Sales et al., 2019). Thus, the better prepared teachers are, the better they will be able to detect and respond to different educational needs. Educational institutions need to be restructured, and teacher training should be actively oriented toward the purpose of guaranteeing student access to learning, allowing students to participate in groups and communities that enable them to improve their academic performance (Ainscow et al., 2006; Raffo et al., 2009).
“Ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education” is Goal No. 4 agreed upon by the UN in its Sustainable Development Agenda 2030 (United Nations General Assembly, 2015). In the area of music, this requires a fundamental acknowledgment that students and their needs should be the focus of every educational process: the role of teachers is to orient student learning. The pedagogical, psychological, sociocultural, and contextual understanding of inclusive education (Ruairc, 2013) can improve the interpretation and application of inclusion as educational process. Inclusive education is understood as an education of all students on equal terms, requiring an adjustment of theoretical and psycho-pedagogical musical approaches to student needs and their divergent learning rhythms (Díaz-Santamaría & Moliner, 2020). The music teachers should apply different musical, didactic, and organizational strategies to respond to students with differing abilities (Begić et al., 2017; Figueiredo et al., 2015; Wong & Chik, 2016). By considering the transformation of epistemological, methodological, and practical knowledge and the integration thereof into professional practice, research in initial pre-service teacher training can acquire greater significance in the specific area of musical pedagogy.
Gaps in the research literature linking music education, inclusive education, and initial teacher training affect the interpretation and scope of music education as well as the pedagogical underpinnings of professionalization (Figueroa, 2019; Ginsburg et al., 1988). Its study should raise specific challenges in its intersections as a way to achieve inclusive education and teacher training for inclusion. This gaps from the literature review led to the need for a theoretical framework.
Theoretical Framework
This section provides a literature review related to the background of initial teacher education and equipping student music teachers for inclusive education.
The Background of Pre-Service Teacher Training
In 2006, the observed need for lifelong learning as a global educational strategy led the European Union to establish a set of Key Competences designed to serve as a framework of reference for educational systems in EU member countries (European Commission, 2018). Most research on teacher training focuses on how such training should be organized in order for university students to acquire an adequate degree of competences that they can later apply in the classroom (Darling-Hammond, 2017). What is meant by competence?
The “competence” construct is defined as a quality involving “complex interactions influenced by learning styles and motivational conditions represented by mastery of knowledge of instructional relevance, methods applied to solve problems of teaching practice, and attitudes-values” (De la Orden, 2011, p. 53). “Competence” indicates the ability to adequately apply learning outcomes in a specific educational context (IBE-UNESCO, n.d.). In Spain, the term of competence for the improvement of education quality (Jiménez Vivas & Montero de Espinosa Ramos, 2017) has been handled in the Educational Organic Law (Ley Orgánica) 2/2006, of 3 May 2006, which bases teaching on the development of the eight key European competences.
Music teacher competence training involves a set of teaching abilities related to knowledge, skills, methods, and attitudes designed to encourage professional development, combined with a particular focus on inclusive education. The fundamental educational principle of “inclusion” can be defined as an attribute of educational systems that should ensure that everyone is provided with access to quality education, which, in itself, is a fundamental human right (Echeita, 2011). Inclusive education therefore requires for teacher training to provide the knowledge, methodologies, and attitudes necessary to ensure that all learners are educated to the best of their abilities.
Equipping Pre-Service Music Teachers for Inclusive Education
Three fundamental processes for teacher training have emerged in the wake of educational reform in Spain: teacher activity in the classroom, lifelong learning, and the training of teacher competences that improve educational quality (Coll, 2013). Faced with a group of students who have a wide range of experiences, interests, motivations, and learning rhythms, teachers’ efforts to make inclusion a reality require that they develop a high degree of responsibility and deploy a considerable pedagogical and organizational effort to ensure that all students can participate on a regular basis and enjoy successful learning experiences (Arnaiz, 2012; Echeita, 2013).
To achieve this, initial training should include a significant proportion of hands-on didactic experience in the field (París, 2020) while encouraging pre-service teachers to develop inclusive attitudes focused on educating the most vulnerable learners (Horne & Timmons, 2009; Idol, 2006; Pegalajar-Palomino & Colmenero, 2017). An inclusive teacher who pays special heed to diversity needs should possess competences such as: valuing the human dimension, providing support for all students, collaborating with educational agents, and assuming personal responsibility for the acquisition of ongoing professional training (European Agency for Development in Special Needs Education [EADSNE], 2012). The European Commission (2010) proposes the following teacher capacities to respond to the challenge of diversity: (1) identifying each student’s needs and addressing them with a variety of specific didactic strategies; (2) encouraging students to develop independent learning while helping them to acquire the Key Competences foreseen in the European Framework; (3) creating multicultural contexts that enable all participants to grasp the value of diversity and respect for difference while collaborating with parents, teacher colleagues, and the entire community. This involves learning to work in teams, developing a series of shared educational goals (Ashton, 2010; Brendle et al., 2017; Wexler et al., 2018), and proposing a series of mixed projects where general teachers work together with specialized educators (Olson et al., 2016; Strogilos, 2012). The goal of inclusive education places new demands on teacher qualifications with the promotion of constructive learning, learner autonomy, teamwork, transfer of learning, research, transversality, use of ICTs, and the implementation of formal, non-formal and informal learning modalities. The Teacher Education for Inclusion project (EADSNE, 2012) has investigated how pre-service teachers undergoing initial training are prepared to assess their students’ needs.
In Spain, the master’s degree in secondary education is a university study program with a duration of 60 ECTS credits, taken in the course of 1 year after undergraduate studies. This initial training aims to provide the necessary pedagogical and didactic training to understand the teaching profession, including subject-specific training, psycho-evolution, school organization, and didactic training. The training of pre-service secondary education teachers for inclusion involves the development of competences (Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia, 2007) related to acquiring familiarity with normative curriculum, managing the teaching-learning process, transforming information into knowledge, and applying inclusive education based on the stimulation of student effort and independent learning, as well as mastering a series of subject-specific skills, social skills (the promotion of harmonious coexistence), and abilities that enable trainees to design and provide inclusive learning spaces.
The studies found in the review have been classified into two types: studies that analyse music competences related to music teaching (Abramauskienė, 2002; Addessi, 2005; Eros, 2013; Koca, 2017; Rohwer & Henry, 2004; Teachout, 1997) and studies that analyse personal, psychological, and pedagogical competences associated with successful music teaching, focused on the planning, practice, and evaluation of teaching sequences designed to improve student attention and learning (Abramauskienė, 2018; Begić et al., 2017; Carbajo, 2009; Carrillo & Vilar, 2014; Isbell, 2008). In addition, two projects were designed to develop the competences of music teachers: (1) Centre de Formation des Musiciens Intervenants (2005), which classified such competences along three dimensions: musical/artistic competences, didactic/pedagogical competences, and organizational/relational competences; and (2) the European project meNet Learning Outcomes in Music Teacher Training (Music Education Network, 2009), which, along similar lines, classifies them into musical, didactic, pedagogical, and generic competences.
Initial music teacher training for inclusion requires didactic preparation to ensure that the same content and skills function well for all pupils and promote the achievement of their personal educational goals. Didactics for inclusion require that teachers should know how to assist their students in adopting didactic strategies that promote their own autonomous learning (EADSNE, 2012), combining formal, non-formal, and informal learning. The music teacher becomes the facilitator of an educational process that combines creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, effective communication, and information literacy (Feichas, 2010; Ovcharenko et al., 2021). During this process, the teaching role evolves from that of a music specialist to one that is more akin to a generalist teacher (Burnsed & Jensen, 2021; López Rupérez, 2014).
In summary, the professionalization of pre-service teachers requires knowledge and mastery of a set of “strategies and resources that guarantee access to music education for all people according to their characteristics, interests, abilities and learning needs” (Sabbatella, 2008, p. 260) as a basis for the endeavor to acquire teaching competences that guarantee inclusion in the classroom.
This study is necessary to improve the orientation of the initial training of music teachers towards inclusion, taking into account the educational value of difference and coexistence.
Objectives of This Study
The aim of this research was to identify and analyse the expectations of a group of students studying toward a master’s degree in secondary education in terms of which professional competences and what type of training they should acquire as music teachers to achieve an inclusive learning environment for students.
Method
Research Questions
The research questions that guided this study were the following:
(1) “What professional competences does music teaching require in order to support inclusion in secondary education?”
(2) “What are the correspondences between the required competences stated by in-service teachers and those evoked by pre-service teachers studying toward a master’s degree in secondary music education?”
Methodological Design and Procedure
These two research questions motivated us to conduct a systematic research review on this study topic in the SCOPUS and WoS databases using the English keywords: “music teacher,”“pre-service,”“skills,” and “inclusion” as search criteria. Two results were obtained. One article aimed to explore how Early Childhood educators use music-based pedagogies to exert a positive impact on children’s communication skills and language development of children (Arasomwan & Mashiy, 2021). The other article studied the views held by Australian pre-service music education teachers and their university professors regarding artist-in-school programs in the area of school music (Dawn & Southcott, 2013).
This paucity of studies determined the nature of our exploratory qualitative research designed to elicit the competences of secondary school music teachers required to achieve inclusion. A mixed research design (Hernández-Sampieri & Mendoza, 2018; Ponce & Pagán-Maldonado, 2015) was applied combining quantitative and qualitative research concurrently and sequentially to achieve a deeper understanding. This study featured a quasi-ethnographic method encompassing a descriptive-analytical approach and participatory research methodology aimed at improving educational practice. Our research team facilitated a process of practical actions and joint reflection with trainees on the subject of the needs related to the professional competences of music teachers (Efron & Ravid, 2020; Latorre, 2003). Systematic observation, a field diary, an initial evaluation questionnaire, semi-structured interviews, a focus group with in-service teachers and two focus groups with pre-service teachers, combined with the application of collective knowledge-building techniques were the sources used (Table 1).
Methodological Design.
This research project was deployed over a period of 6 months and consisted of four phases: (1) inquiry; (2) analysis; (3) formative phase, and (4) evaluation-reflection in dialogue, a process integrating initial knowledge, expectations, training, and the pre-service teachers’ reflections on the subject of professional teaching competences.
Phase 1 (the preliminary inquiry phase) consisted of two actions: (1) a review and analysis of background research on the subject under study, and (2) an initial evaluation questionnaire that analyzed the music trainees’ beliefs, assumptions, experiences (Creswell, 2013; Grinnell, 1997), and initial expectations regarding inclusive music education and the required teaching competences associated with it. This 21-item instrument with a series of 5-point Likert-type questions (evaluated with responses ranging from “1” in total disagreement to “5” in total agreement) and further questions in hierarchical order aimed to assess the trainees’ degree of experience and their opinion regarding the inclusive dimension of music education, its implications for teaching, and the actions that would be required to improve inclusion. When they expressed their initial expectations, all trainees found that music education should be an educational and integrating experience for all students. Regarding teaching competences, 64.7% of trainees considered musical competences to be the ones most important for inclusive teaching, whereas 23.5% regarded didactical and pedagogical competences and 11.7% viewed personal competences as the most important ones. The relevance these trainees tended to ascribe to musical competence with respect to personal, didactical, and pedagogical competences reveals the need for increased training on “how to be” and “how to do” in the endeavor to improve the quality of educational action. This need, declared by 88.2% of trainees, points toward the crucial challenge of orienting their musical attitude toward didactics. The results gathered from our questionnaire provided decisive diagnostic information that guided us in our subsequent research.
Phase 2 (analysis) juxtaposed the study of the reality of in-service teachers’ needs with the expectations expressed by pre-service teachers during their studies. Didactic limitations and needs voiced by ten in-service teachers (six working in primary education, four in secondary education) derived from restrictions associated with the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on inclusive education were analyzed. A focus group with primary school teachers and semi-structured interviews with secondary school teachers analyzed their musical didactic needs. Practical organization limitations due to the pandemic obliged us to use two different tools with the two groups of informants. The main didactic needs (DN) expressed by in-service teachers, the frequency thereof and the rationale they stated were as follows:
DN1. Contextualized teaching experiences: it is necessary to bring initial training closer to the reality of the classroom and to learn to design educational processes based on real-life scenarios. This didactic need (Wright, 2015) was mentioned by 90% of the in-service teachers;
DN2. A teacher training model for inclusion: it is necessary to adapt a productive, flexible teaching attitude to diverse contexts and student needs, involving the development of musical and corporeal creative didactics (Burnard & Murphy, 2017). This didactic need was mentioned by 80% of the in-service teachers;
DN3. It would be necessary to learn to collaborate on musical projects in teamwork with other teachers (Vaillant & Marcelo, 2015), integrating Service-Learning (Bartolome, 2017; Burton & Reynolds, 2009; Cabedo-Mas & Díaz-Gómez, 2013; Pike, 2017; Power, 2013) as a manner of musical learning that responds to the needs of the educational community. This didactic need was mentioned by 80% of the in-service teachers.
DN4. It is deemed necessary to implement psycho-educational and socio-educational goals, including strategies to reinforce self-awareness, empathy, assertive communication, interpersonal relationships, and the management of stress and stage anxiety. This didactic need was mentioned by 100% of the in-service teachers.
The consideration of real-life school contexts (DN1) should serve as a guide for teaching plans. Teachers can learn to adopt inclusive behavior by adopting a flexible, creative teaching attitude adjusted to the needs of a specific context (DN2). Teaching methodologies are affected by psycho-educational and socio-educational objectives (DN4) along with professional collaborative work (DN3). These voiced needs were used as a basis for planning a series of workshops about teacher training (Phase 3).
Phase 3 (formative) consisted of three 4-hr formative workshops (W) and a stage drama project (SP) designed according to Project-Based Learning (PBL) methodology (Taboada et al., 2010). The topics and the didactic needs we addressed (Phase 2) in each workshop are shown below:
- (W1) Musical sound production, improvisation, and interpretation incorporated Didactic Needs DN2, DN3, and DN4.
- (W2) Body language and movement incoporated Didactic Needs DN2, DN3, and DN4.
- (W3) The preparation of the staged project included the need DN1.
- (SP) The staged project encompassed all the Didactic Needs mentioned above: DN1, DN2, DN3, and DN4.
Elaborated on the basis of the needs expressed by the in-service teachers (Phase 2), these workshops were designed for participants to work on the musical, didactical, pedagogical, and personal competences that are necessary for music teaching practice in activities of musical semiotics, sound exploration, sound and performative interpretation of pictorial masterpieces, composition and sound story building (W1); drama and performing arts using music and movement following the principles of Dalcroze eurhythmics (W2), and the study of the phases of a stage performance project: presentation, creative process (plastic and corporal activities onstage, music and script offstage), performance, and evaluation (W3). These tasks were distributed among workgroups, who prepared and presented their results in front of their colleagues in class. Inclusive didactics in these workshops consisted of working on the same contents integrating listening, creativity, collaboration and respect. Some illustrative statements from the workshops can be quoted:
(W1): For me, it was easier to create sound landscapes related to the pictorial masterpieces where the support provided by the image helped us to create an instrumental ensemble sound rather than [achieving it] through timbre exploration alone. (Informant 14) [I14] (Field Diary)
(W2): I had never previously experienced music performance through the body in movement. It is natural, intuitive, and accessible to all. [I6] (Field Diary)
(W3): Artistic, social, and human dimensions of a staged project involve commitment and a cooperative approach. [I11] (Field Diary)
The collaborative, creative stage project (SP) was on a subject chosen by the trainees: the impact of COVID on daily life. The project involved working with emotions, music, and movement to elaborate and perform a series of stories. It also featured reflection on musical competences by creating, composing, recording, and presenting a staged proposal.
Phase 4 (dialogic/evaluative-reflective) assessed the degree of learning acquired by the trainees, along with their assessment of the competences they should acquire as music teachers. Two focus groups (A and B) comprising a total sample of 17 music trainees were formed. The proposed questions were as follows: which musical, didactic, pedagogical, and personal competences should music teachers cultivate in order to optimally exercise their profession in an inclusive environment?
The professor-researcher moderated the sessions, which were recorded for subsequent exhaustive analysis. The discussion of the acquisition of competences featured in group learning experiences sought to promote collective knowledge, encourage critical thinking, and transform the learning context (Ballestín & Fàbregues, 2018; Denzin & Lincoln, 2011). The information-gathering method in this study fulfilled the ethical principles of informed consent, confidentiality, and anonymization of data.
A process of classification and manual axial coding was applied to analyse the information. A data matrix was designed, consisting of aprioristic categories and emergent subcategories (Cisterna, 2005) designated as competences and subcompetences. Each competence (domain of knowledge) covered a set of subcompetences (knowledge, skills, and attitudes)
To name an aprioristic set of musical, didactic, pedagogical, and personal competences, a deductive approach in line was followed from literature review (Abramauskienė, 2018; Begić et al., 2017; Carrillo & Vilar, 2014; Isbell, 2008; Music Education Network, 2009), which justified a selection of competence categories as follows: “Cognitive” (knowing) integrated “Musical competence” along with subcompetences related to disciplinary skills; “Cognoscitive” (knowing “how to do”) included “Didactic competence” with subcompetences associated with the skills, strategies, and resources that relate theory and practice as applied in music teaching methods. “Pedagogical” competence included subcompetences related to the conception, planning, organization, and transmission of music teaching. Finally, the “Metacognitive” order (knowing “how to be”) integrated Personal competence with subcompetences associated with individual attitudes and social skills (Table 2).
System of Music Teacher Competences and Subcompetences.
An inductive approach was applied to name emerging subcompetences. Data were studied and classified by observing the utterances voiced by participants throughout the theoretical and practical phases, and by recording the trainees’ statements obtained in the workshops and final focus groups. Inductive derivation of data from the particular to the general was based on a preparation of summaries, codifications, lists of topics, and classifications of data by subject for purposes of generalization. All of this led us to name the following subcompetences:
Musical: “Listening (Ear training),”“Performance,” and “Creation” were derived from reflection and discussion regarding the musical skills that a teacher should possess related to musical perception and expression with the purpose of improving students’ musicianship.
Didactical: “Knowledge of musical methods,”“Management of the teaching-learning process,”“Technical training,”“Technological (ICT) training,”“Independent learning,” and “Invention of resources”: all of these subcompetences were obtained by identifying skills, teaching strategies, and resources required for a teacher to make music learning accessible and attractive to all students according to their specific needs.
Pedagogical: “Communication,”“Cooperation,”“Collaborative learning environments,”“Reflection,” and “Ongoing learning.” These were obtained by identifying abilities and teaching methods that enable a teacher to structure the teaching-learning processes.
Personal: “Professional qualities and values,”“Teaching vocation,”“Musical and pedagogical experience,” and “Creativity and innovation.” These were obtained by identifying the teacher’s individual qualities to create, lead and manage educational processes.
Participants
The study sample consisted of 27 participants divided into two groups: a first group of ten Spanish in-service music teachers [MT] (two male and eight female) with a mean age of X = 39.62 obtained by convenience, and a second group of 17 university students (nine male and eight female) studying at Zaragoza University (Spain) toward a master’s degree in compulsory secondary education, specializing in music and dance, with a mean age of X’ = 25.64 and a standard deviation of DS = 3.2584. The purposive convenience sampling used in both groups ensured accessibility to participants.
The group of 17 trainees, called the “Informants” group [I], all were in possession of a previously obtained higher education degree: 82.3% of them (n = 14) had a bachelor’s degree in music. They were involved in music performance and teaching. For 88.2% of them (n = 15), the main reason for studying toward a master’s diploma was the fact that a master’s degree is required in order to be allowed to teach in secondary education establishments and conservatories in Spain.
Regarding the group of 10 in-service teachers [MT], 60% of them (n = 6) were working on the job at the secondary education level, and 40% (n = 4) in primary education. Seven teachers worked in public education centers, and the three others worked in private education centers. In terms of professional experience, 70% of them (n = 7) had more than 12 years of experience in different centers; they thus knew the profession well. All of them had pursued music studies, and 60% of them (n = 6) had a bachelor’s degree in music. The study group of 17 pre-service trainees was taught by two university professors, while another research professor acted as a non-participating observer.
Results
A meaningful analysis of the results obtained from the 17 pre-service trainees is presented below, following the order of competences and subcompetences established in the data matrix (Table 2).
Musical Competences
Musical competences were related to the perception and expression of music. The subcompetences identified were: Listening (ear training), Performance, and Creation.
Listening (Ear Training)
Ear training involves the identification of musical elements (notes, rhythms, nuances, harmonies, textures) and their relationship with musical comprehension. To feature such elements in an inclusive way, the teacher should apply knowledge, skills, and teaching attitudes with the aim of achieving optimal musical learning.
In this study, ear training was determined as the process of identifying musical elements in their simplest form and associating them with the way we physically perceive sound. To develop ear training, our trainees affirmed that a teacher should have skills in sound discrimination, detection of difficulties in terms of sound emission, musical intonation, analytical capacity, knowledge of an extensive and varied musical repertoire, and the ability to cultivate a sensitive attitude combined with listening enjoyment and appreciation of qualities of interpretation. The informants stated: A teacher should master the four parameters of sound and the ways they change, as well as the basic components of melody, harmony, texture, and form, in order to be able to identify them in a basic musical fragment (Informant 14) [I14]; The teacher should be able to identify difficulties in intonation, vocal projection, and interpretation … [I1]; Educating a calm listening attitude that allows them to construct their own interpretation of what they are hearing [I3].
For trainees, ear training involved the respectful, attentive application of listening skills acquired as professional musicians to improve the ear training, performance and creative skills of all students. Participants stated that a teacher’s ear training and musical ear should be associated with an inclusive attitude that should: Allow each student to express themselves musically according to their own knowledge and abilities [MT2]; Incorporate values such as: attention, flexibility, respect and creativity that help students to enjoy active listening as an attractive, pleasurable and personally inquiring experience that motivates them to create their own interpretation [I6].
A rich and varied selection of musical repertoire was highlighted as knowledge related to cultural and musical ear training, determined by a teacher’s musical background and attitude to didactics according to the musical aspects that need to be worked on in class, as well as responding to specific, contextual educational needs: The more a teacher has in their musical baggage, the greater the amount of styles and possibilities they can use in performance and adaptation to the context [I5].
Performance
Performance was understood as the ability to reproduce and interpret musical content in new contexts of expression. Participants stated that a teacher’s technical and didactic skills in musical performance represent a meaningful competence, owing particularly to the practical and experiential dimension involved therein. They indicated that a teacher should possess technical knowledge of different means of vocal, instrumental and corporal expression in order to transmit an all-encompassing musical aptitude to their students. They affirmed that a teacher should acquire a global formation: To sing with adequate vocal technique, and to have notions of conducting in order to apply them in choral activities [I5]; A teacher should be able to play several monophonic and polyphonic instruments not only to teach, but also to accompany and perform with them in class [I9]; Although it is not my thing, I must admit I should improve my training in body expression, dance, choreography, and stage direction [MT7].
Trainees recognized that a teacher should possess a mastery of technique in order to facilitate optimal individual and group performance. Thus, a teacher should master sight-reading and transposition as instrumental techniques that enable him/her to accompany a student’s performance with ease: A music teacher must be an expert in musical language, interpretation, and sight-reading [I2].
To motivate pupils’ enjoyment of music performance, the teacher should encourage them to perform music in the medium they prefer: Ensure that students enjoy expressing their ideas through singing, playing, or whatever they prefer [MT6].
Performance was described by our group of pre-service teachers as an inclusive experience that should focus on process rather than outcome, seeking to encourage the participation and contribution of all pupils to musical learning while encouraging the development of personal and social skills.
Creation
Musical creation was described as an action that brings something new into being. As they noted, it is a necessary artistic skill for a music teacher to have in terms of didactics and inclusion. The trainees stated that a music teacher should possess knowledge and skills in harmony, transposition, transcription, improvisation, and composition. Informant 8 stated: Teachers should be able to harmonise song accompaniments and invent instrumentations adapted to the school context [I8].
Improvisation and composition were viewed by the informants as creative, didactic modalities that provide the musical experience with richness and meaning by allowing the teacher to invent and adapt new material to the students’ didactic interests and educational needs: Improvisation and transposition allow the teacher to adjust the instrumental accompaniment to the students’ vocal interpretation [I6]; When composing, the teacher must know how to include the [lesson content] they want to work on, whether they are intervals, rhythms, measures… [MT9].
Creation was viewed by trainees as an attitude that should be taught in a natural manner in order to bring students closer to experiencing the authentic dimension of expression: For musicians, creation is the culmination of their art, when they elaborate their own works; thus, a music teacher should work on this aspect [I3]; As a teacher, I observe that children have lots of fun improvising with their voices, with their bodies, or on an instrument, since such situations are the only ones in which they can truly be themselves [I11].
Our informants described a creative music teacher as a comprehensive person who respects individuality, allows students to develop their exploratory and expressive abilities to guide them and provide new experiences. A creative teacher must have an open, flexible, and stimulating demeanor. Participants said: Open, creative, and encouraging behaviour on the part of the teacher can motivate the students in their learning and their self-confidence in order to put musical creation into practice [I17].
Our informants affirmed that a teacher should serve as a creative musical role model who transmits to their students the sensation of freedom and enjoyment in making and representing music as an expressive activity within a co-educational environment: The teacher should be the first one to practice and enjoy improvisation and composition in order to transmit that sense of expressive freedom to the students [I12]; To create is to feel free while expressing yourself [I10].
Moreover, one of the in-service teachers stated the following: If the teacher creates and provides the students with an opportunity to create, this gives him/her self-assurance by valuing and appreciating his/her own production [MT1].
Creative group improvisation environments were described as a teacher’s opportunity to develop ear training and to adapt their creative response to the results of group production.
Didactic Competences
Didactic competences were related to the technical and methodological skills. The subcompetences identified were: “Knowledge of methods,”“Management of the teaching-learning process,”“Technical training,”“Technological (ICT) training,”“Independent learning,” and “Invention of resources.”
Knowledge of Musical Methods
The trainees in our focus groups described the knowledge and application of methods as a key educational competence required to guide teaching and achieve student learning. For them, meaningful music teaching emanates from a teacher’s theoretical and practical mastery of the most important active, creative musical methods. This, in turn, leads to active, dynamic, and inspiring music teaching adapted to each learning situation: The teacher must acquire training in the main active and creative musical methods such as Dalcroze, Kodály, Orff, Willems, Schafer and their didactics [I4].
Comprehensive music education demands that pre-service and in-service music teachers apply multidimensional teaching featuring knowledge and didactic resources designed to adapt musical learning to student needs, using different strategies and methods. Interdisciplinary methodological training was mentioned by our trainees as a quality factor: If we purport to offer truly integral music education, teachers need to have received multidimensional training in different methodologies [I8].
According to the in-service teachers we interviewed, music learning requires a truly educational artistic approach, as music is, per se, a sensorial experience.
Music is learned by making music, so music class should be a time of exploration, interpretation, and creation [MT5].
Management of the Teaching-Learning Process
Our informants stated that the appropriate management of the teaching-learning process involves proficiency in designing and developing teaching processes understood as pathways that ensure successful learning. The pre-service trainees mentioned a series of skills related to autonomy in directing and adapting the design, management, development, and hands-on application of the teaching-learning process. They made the following statements: A music teacher should demonstrate mastery in programming and planning didactic processes on the basis of objectives by sequencing the proposed content units and activities [I1]; The teacher should not only know how to design activities but also how to apply and evaluate learning and deal with any difficulties that may arise [I15].
Technical Training
Technical training involves practical and expressive proficiency in a medium of expression where individual musicianship is trained. All participants (in-service and pre-service teachers) stated that a music teacher should have acquired multidimensional (i.e., vocal, corporal, instrumental, creative, technological) technical training in order to be able to stimulate students’ understanding and expression of music in a global way. Moreover, the in-service teachers stated the following: Students learn by imitation, so if the teacher demonstrates good technique, he/she will be a good role model [MT2].
The role played by the teacher’s attitude was regarded as essential in technical training. Curiosity, flexibility, responsibility, and dedication should motivate teachers to incorporate new competences into didactics: Training in new disciplines should allow teachers to develop a multidimensional didactic that determines their professional identity [I17]; A teacher with the curiosity to continuously learn and improve his or her musical knowledge will develop better didactics [MT8].
Participants acknowledged that multidimensional technical training is what best capacitates a teacher to bring music closer to students via different means of expression, thereby ensuring that a student’s personal situation or their social background do not need to be an obstacle that hinders their enjoyment of musical practice.
Technological (ICT) Training
Technological training was highlighted as a competence designed to enrich didactics by applying the acquired knowledge of digital tools (devices, programs, applications…). Our informants stated the following: Technological training must be applied to musical didactics by using presentation, edition, and recording tools [I2]; There are an infinite number of applications, so a teacher should use those that he/she knows best and is capable of adapting to the group’s educational needs [MT8].
Our informants stated that this competence should be combined with a critical didactic musical attitude in order to analyse the didactic potential of certain technological resources according to the purposes and the practical nature of the music featured in the lessons.
Technological training (ICT) was viewed as an inclusive type of training that stimulates attention and repetition while following up on students’ learning to monitor their improvement.
Independent Learning
Independent learning was described as an attitude that involves the self-confidence and autonomy required for learning. According to our group of pre-service teacher trainees, this competence requires that the teacher should possess psycho-educational knowledge that allows them to adjust their teaching to students’ needs and to the educational context. In so doing, teachers can monitor their students’ progress and encourage them to gain self-confidence, providing them with the empowerment and emancipation that allows them to learn. Informant nine referred to the teacher’s responsibility and motivation to improve their own training and the development of their own psycho-educational skills and abilities; these, in turn, allow the teacher to detect and deal with students’ needs: As a musician and a pedagogue, I think the music teacher needs to acquire a series of psycho-educational skills to assess students’ motor, communicative, cognitive, affective, and social difficulties, [finding out] how we can help them to become more self-confident when they are faced with new learning challenges [I9].
Our informants referred to independent learning as an attitude required for the development of co-educational learning experiences that reinforce active participation, personal attention, interaction, communication, exchange, and co-construction of learning. They stated: [We should] make good use of collaborative groups as resources that encourage attention to diversity, and where students learn from one another [I3]; Initial training should prepare future teachers in terms of teaching methodologies and resources, but it is the needs of the school environment that will [ultimately] motivate the orientation of teacher training [MT1].
Invention of Resources
The invention of resources was recognized as a creative competence that enables teachers to elaborate and adjust educational processes to the needs of students and study contexts. Our informants stated: [Teachers should] know how to use, transform, and adapt didactic resources to different educational interests [I2].
Resource creation was described as a competence that combines skills associated with didactic planning, methodology, and the use of analog and digital resources to enhance music teaching and learning. Informant 15 explained: One of the great teaching challenges is acquiring competences to make learning a tangible experience. For example: if you’re explaining a musical texture, it’s important for the students to be able to hear it, see it, and experience it first-hand in order to understand it better [I15].
This competence was identified as a capacity that should allow the teacher to guide learning for the benefit of all students. Creativity in teacher training leads to the improvement of a series of working skills that allow the teacher to invent appropriate resources: [If you have] a creative personality, it helps you train yourself to create new, useful products. But in any case, creativity can be worked on and learned, and should therefore be implemented in initial teacher education as an attitudinal teacher education [MT6].
Pedagogical Competences
Pedagogical competences were related to the organization and guidance of educational processes and the transmission of musical learning. “Communication,”“Cooperation,”“Collaborative learning environments,”“Reflection,” and “Ongoing learning” were the subcompetences identified by the informants.
Communication
Pre-service trainees described communication as a competence that involves clarity in expressing one’s ideas, as well as adapting one’s expression to the needs of learners while conveying values of fairness and respect for others. In addition to oral expression, our informants identified further skills such as tone and body language as key elements of communication. Moreover, communication is a skill that is necessary both in the classroom as well as in exchanges with one’s peers: The use of group dynamics could improve the students’ degree of communication and self-confidence by motivating them to express their opinions and improve their relationship with others [I11]; Inter-professional communication with the school’s psycho-pedagogical orientation team is essential to know and intervene adequately with the student. Sometimes music goes where words cannot, and musical work can strengthen the teacher’s bond with some students [MT4].
From a didactical point of view, music and its verbal and non-verbal expressive dimension were valued both as a means of transmitting learning in action and of promoting communication in a series of multidisciplinary experiences such as: podcasts, presentations, drama, theater, or a radio channel. In addition, teacher training in music therapy was viewed as an interesting means of addressing educational needs from an interdisciplinary vantage point.
Cooperation
Cooperation means that through teamwork (i.e., cooperation), the teacher is able to develop and apply communicative and socio-educational abilities: listening to student needs, organizing class sessions, and distributing tasks. The roles of leader and participant are associated with different ways of contributing to learning through collaborative ventures that require commitment, communicative skills, didactical skills, and personal interaction skills: Musicians are generally quite individualistic people. Music teaching requires that we [music teachers] learn to work with other colleagues on projects and activities [I8]; In the staged project, it was necessary to know how to manage, organize, and distribute tasks; to listen to other options and analyse them, as well as to take consensual decisions, manage conflicts, and encourage collaboration [I13].
Our informants underscored the socializing dimension of musical activity. Teamwork was acknowledged as an integrating strategy that fosters individual involvement and group autonomy through the active participation of all students.
Collaborative Learning Environments
The promotion of collaborative learning environments was recognized as a key competence in terms of inclusion. In such peer-to-peer learning spaces, the teacher is responsible for planning student interaction and stimulating student participation, motivation, confidence, and autonomy. Our informants pointed out that working in small groups requires the teacher to promote interactivity and positive interdependence, which can make learning a meaningful experience: The creation of collaborative learning environments requires the teacher to design projects that take students’ interests as a starting point [MT3].
The trainees in our focus groups stated that the creation of peer learning should involve the teacher in guiding and motivating individual and group responsibility, trust, and autonomy while sharing efforts and benefits. They affirmed: Participating in collaborative learning environments associated with musical or stage projects requires personal responsibility, working as a team toward a purpose from which you derive a common benefit [I8].
Reflection
Reflection was identified by informants as a standard competence of didactic evaluation, which exerts a determining function in a teacher’s professional development and classroom interventions. As an analytical attitude, reflection fosters critical thinking as a manner of continuously reflecting on reality and one’s response as a teacher. The informants stated: Reflection as a regular teaching practice should be regarded as a didactic strategy to improve teaching intervention. To achieve that goal, the teacher should incorporate reflection on oral expression, methodology, resources, and evaluation as elements that should guide his/her practice [MT6]; Critical thinking is necessary to develop behavioural approaches to teaching difficulties and guidance [I9].
Ongoing Learning
Ongoing learning was recognized as a key attitude that continuously updates a teacher’s didactics. The type of training chosen may be determined by the interests and needs of teachers and of the community, as well as by overall trends in the education sector. Knowing the most innovative teaching methodologies and resources and their didactics was identified as a competence that can improve the quality of teaching: Lifelong learning reflects teachers’ interest in renewing and improving the quality of teaching. Comprehensive training involves technical, pedagogical and didactic training, with a view to providing a balanced education [I7].
According to the participants in the study, the wide range of training modules on offer and the variety of ways in which such training can be carried out (face-to-face, blended, virtual) should motivate teachers to select those that ensure personal and didactic training aimed at improving their teaching qualifications and the development of comprehensive and inclusive music education. Informant 5 said: The learnings obtained in training activities through different classroom or virtual channels should encourage the teacher to look beyond their own resources; they should inspire them to adapt the acquired learnings to the reality of teaching in the classroom [I5].
According to these statements, a teacher who shows a continuous interest in lifelong learning develops a renewed pedagogical outlook.
Personal Competences
Personal competences were related to teaching skills and individual qualities that enable the teacher to create and manage personal and group educational processes. The subcompetences identified in our informants’ discourse were: “Professional qualities and values,”“Teaching vocation,”“Musical and pedagogical experience,” and “Creativity and innovation.”
Professional Qualities and Values
Our pre-service teacher informants highlighted professional qualities and values of music teachers in view of their impact on student motivation and the development of inclusion in the classroom. The traits in professional qualities and values they identified were personal, socio-emotional, ethical, and linguistic traits.
Proactivity, creativity, dynamism, and optimism were recognized as personal values that motivate students to learn. Moreover, self-confidence was recognized as a capacity that encourages a teacher to embark on new experiences or musical projects with foresight, decision, and determination. Participants stated: A music teacher is a leader, a role model for his or her students. He/she must show enthusiasm, dynamism, initiative and transmit confidence in order to create an atmosphere of trust [MT10]; A music teacher should be a curious, active person who loves to learn new things every day and embark on new projects [I1].
Respect, tolerance, and empathy were also recognized as socio-emotional values capable of stimulating learning environments that foster harmonious coexistence and trust. They said: To boost group music performance to reinforce trust and self-confidence and minimising stress and anxiety caused by the assessment of musical skills [I3]; In choral singing, students learn music while getting to know each other and learning to coexist [I16]; Educating [students] in [the values of] tolerance and respect implies that the teacher pays closer attention to particular difficulties that can arise in the way things are said and interpreted, due to different learning rhythms, or the interpretation of mistakes [I4].
Equal access and inclusion are principles that require the application of ethical qualities such as accountability and fairness.
Teaching Vocation
The teaching vocation was understood as an attitude of commitment stimulated by enthusiasm, motivation for music, didactics, and the satisfaction of working in an environment that values one’s practice. The teacher should acquire a vocational attitude to make music teaching methodologically attractive through his or her dedication and mastery as a musician, composer, performer, and social motivator. Our informants stated: Teachers should be motivated to show love for what they do, inspiring respect and enjoyment, sharing and transmitting their artistic mastery in practice. If you’re a musician or a dancer, share what you do [I8]; A dedicated and passionate music teacher is the personification of “MUSIC” experience for the whole educational community [MT2].
Musical and Pedagogical Experience
Musical and pedagogical experience was viewed by participants as an experience-based competence that combines cognitive, technical, interpretative and creative skills. Informant 14 stated: A music teacher should use their musical ‘baggage’ to teach, applying their technical and methodological knowledge to create and adapt resources… [I14].
In addition to these abilities, our participants highlighted certain humanistic skills essential to familiarize oneself with the target learning group. They are thus necessary for the teacher to create a cordial, honest, and inclusive educational environment based on trust and participation, where personal and co-educational initiative, action, and reflection can be encouraged: If a classroom atmosphere doesn’t work, then learning won’t work either. It is necessary to trust the students by stimulating their skills and attitude to learning [MT6]; I must acknowledge my limitations as teacher, for instance by admitting: “I don’t know how to do this, but let’s try it anyway” [I17].
Pedagogical expertise implies that a teacher possesses a degree of methodological proficiency that allows them to orient processes and didactic intervention in function of learners’ needs. Our informants stated that inclusive pedagogy should determine how activities are planned, implemented, and evaluated according to individual abilities, specific needs, and emerging needs. Informant 10 stated: The teacher knows that each student is unique, so he/she should implement tasks with different degrees of difficulty, in pairs and role-playing activities [I10].
Creativity and Innovation
Teacher creativity and innovation were mentioned by trainees as personal and professional qualities that exert an impact on didactics and the development of professional identity. They acknowledged that creativity should involve a degree of didactic autonomy that allows the teacher to relate musical purposes with one another and adjust one’s classroom intervention to the needs and autonomy of the learners. Our informants stated: The teacher should develop his or her creative ability to adapt teaching to reality [I17]; A creative teacher continuously asks questions about what he/she wants to teach and how to teach it to involve all students [MT4].
Innovation as a teaching competence was described as an attitude of seeking and creating new approaches, methods and strategies to address diversity and achieve a higher degree of student engagement in learning. They said: Innovation requires us [music teachers] to constantly renew our training in order to be up to date in the use of methodologies and didactic tools for up-to-date and competent teaching [I3]; The management of interdisciplinary music projects that incorporate live music, technology and the social transfer of learning should integrate all students in new and stimulating ways of teaching [I9].
Discussion
We begin by assessing this study’s contribution to the advancement of knowledge and the perspectives it offers on secondary music teacher education for inclusion in response to our first research question: “What professional competences does music teaching require in order to support inclusion in secondary education?” This question elicits a review of the assumptions underlying the study of teacher competency training models. That study involves a series of challenges in pedagogy, teaching strategy design, and educational resource research with the aim of improving our understanding of music teacher education and teaching competences (Fernández Batanero, 2013; Ovcharenko et al., 2021; Power, 2013; Torres Rivera et al., 2014).
We have analyzed the initial expectations expressed by a group of pre-service trainees on the subject of music teacher competences for inclusion, and compared them with the statements provided by a group of ten in-service music teachers. Our study’s findings highlight the significant role played by pedagogy and didactic training in the construction of professional identity (Haning, 2020). In initial teacher training, reflection and dialogue (Figueroa, 2019) serve as co-educational strategies of analysis and discussion of the competences of music teachers, while promoting critical thinking on the subject of professional development.
For educational training to achieve its goals, pre-service teachers need to be immersed in practical, real-life situations (Abramauskienė, 2018). Such training requires a personal and transversal preparation based on the analysis and development of musical, didactic, pedagogical, and personal competences for inclusive education.
According to our results, music teacher training requires that pre-service trainees develop in-depth knowledge of musical qualities, as well as of how they emerge and are put into practice. Knowledge and mastery of these parameters enhances the development of a teacher’s self-efficacy in music training (Biasutti & Concina, 2017). As an inclusive attitude, self-efficacy leads a music teacher to develop a series of personal and professional competences that allow him/her to view music-educational activity as an artistic experience accessible to all.
In terms of music teacher training, the musical competences, ear training and listening skills developed over the years by pre-service trainees in their activities as professional musicians should be exploited and oriented toward an inclusive didactic of listening that enables students to gain a grasp of music through active listening (Kährik et al., 2012). Music teachers should integrate abilities to discriminate, recognize, and describe sounds; this constitutes a cultural preparation because they familiarize themselves with a rich, varied amount of musical repertoire in terms of styles and periods. At the same time, it is also an analytical preparation that enables them to interpret and grasp the structure of musical pieces. Moreover, it is an aesthetic preparation that enables the teacher to instill a flexible, sensitive listening attitude in their students, and it is likewise a didactic preparation based on active, creative learning methods (Murillo et al., 2018) that promote education of all learners.
Music is an art of expression of our inner world. Music education should contemplate both the interpretation and the creation (i.e., the imagination) of the music we want to create. As a musician, a music teacher must possess and apply their musical technique in didactics, thereby enhancing the artistic dimension of their students’ musical experience. Appropriate training in the theoretical and practical bases of improvisation and composition can enrich the quality of inclusive music teaching in the classroom, encouraging students to take part in a productive model that highlights music creation as a natural human activity (Burnard & Murphy, 2017; Hogenes et al., 2016).
In terms of didactic competences, the training of music teaching skills requires teachers to prioritize student independence and active participation (Silva & Maturana, 2017). Teachers must be well-trained in the main active musical methods (Koca, 2017) and know how to apply them to the learning context, as pupils tend to learn from their own experience (Facione, 2007; Fernández Guayana, 2020).
An inclusive didactic attitude requires that the teacher ensure adequate management of the teaching-learning process to display flexibility in the incorporation of didactic strategies while reinforcing personal achievements and offering the same learning to all students. Some of the inclusive strategies our informants proposed were the following: screening didactic resources using visual, corporal and auditory means to facilitate learning; multi-level learning with common tasks and different levels of achievement; diversified response and interprofessional intervention.
Multidimensional technical training in different musical means of expression can encourage the musical development of all students and bring out their optimal expressive potential. A music teacher needs to develop a series of psycho-educational skills to identify motor, vocal, corporal, cognitive, social, and affective barriers as possible difficulties the students might be experiencing, thereby enabling the teacher to help the students to feel more motivated, enthusiastic, and confident. From a constructivist perspective (Flores-Cuevas, 2018; Valarezo & Santos, 2019), teachers should be trained to evaluate their own teaching activity on a daily basis. Their technical and technological preparation should enable them to analyse the potential offered by different tools to create new resources that improve educational quality. In this way, the sensory dimension of musical experience can be enriched with technological resources applied as didactic tools that stimulate a teacher’s creativity by means of composition, editing, sound recording, and new performance media with the purpose of offering a diversified response. Moreover, the teacher should act as a facilitator for learning (Feichas, 2010) by creating and adapting educational resources, while combining different kinds of dynamics and modes of intervention to ensure that students with different abilities have a satisfactory learning experience. This requires higher-order thinking processes (J. López & Whittington, 2014) that associate a teacher’s creative and synthetic capacity with a methodological, organizational, and adaptive approach.
In their pedagogical training, teachers should acquire abilities and attitudes that capacitate them to organize and guide educational processes. Communicative competency requires clarity and attention to one’s mode of expression, as well as to a series of socio-educational values, including respect and fairness. This also includes communication associated with teaching (Gràcia et al., 2020), interaction with students, with their families (Van Niejenhuis et al., 2020), and interaction with other professionals in the design and application of novel didactic musical processes and classroom interventions. Cooperation with other teachers (Reason, 2007) requires a series of socio-emotional abilities, including the capacity for listening, communicating, working as a team member, and assuming responsibility. A collaborative learning environments requires the teacher to analyse the educational influence exerted by participants (Coll & Engel, 2018) on cognitive, communicational, and social-musical processes of positive interdependence.
Teacher reflection and critical thinking involve analyzing, interpreting, and extrapolating learning to reality (Facione, 2007). This attitude encourages a transformative learning process on the part of the teacher as well as the learner (Mezirow, 2000). A critical thinking attitude should motivate teachers to identify their training needs and their interest in ongoing training as a means of updating their pedagogy. Pedagogical training for inclusion requires multidimensional, correlated preparation in the different media of expression with the purpose of promoting an integral education that enables students to enjoy the musical experience in any of its varieties or expressive forms.
Instruction in the area of personal competences involves the training of personal, socio-emotional, ethical, and linguistic competences (Alegre, 2010; Booth & Ainscow, 2000; Fernández Batanero, 2013) as a key element that enables teachers to develop an attitude that motivates learning and harmonious coexistence in their students. Proactivity, initiative, and flexibility in teaching emanate from a dynamic teaching attitude. Music education should be developed based on socio-educational values such as respect, tolerance, and empathy. Music teachers should create democratic educational environments that promote musical expression, encouraging mutual understanding among students in stage projects and musical projects involving interdisciplinary artistic work.
Music as an artistic discipline is not only a form of personal expression but also a language that facilitates interaction and communication. Initial training is a crucial period for pre-service teachers to gain a grasp of the relationship between music and didactics (Dawn & Southcott, 2013), of inclusive educational practice as an act of caring for others (Fernández Guayana, 2020), and of the possibility of transforming and improving the individual student’s outlook as a basic educational goal. Beliefs and convictions derived from music-educational knowledge, didactics, and educational praxis form the creative origin of a music teacher’s professional identity (Jourdan et al., 2016).
On the basis of our results, we now attempt to provide an answer to our second research question: ”What are the correspondences between the required competences stated by in-service teachers and those evoked by pre-service teachers studying toward a master’s degree in secondary music education?” As a pedagogical strategy, initial teacher training in real-life learning scenarios (Murillo et al., 2018; París, 2020; Wright, 2015) encourages teachers to develop inclusive competences as part of their professionalization. Technical and methodological teacher training for inclusion should be multidimensional and creative (Biasutti & Concina, 2017; Burnard & Murphy, 2017), operating within the different means of expression in order to adapt the teaching response to students’ educational needs, thereby making musical learning more comprehensive. Such multidimensional teacher training is more strongly valued by in-service teachers who identify the needs for specific educational attention they have noted in their students (Olson et al., 2016; Strogilos, 2012; Wong & Chik, 2016), who increasingly tend to present more numerous and more diverse learning difficulties. Critical thinking and autonomy are values that instill an inclusive attitude that enables teachers to address diversity more comprehensively. Teacher autonomy should be conceived as an individual moral responsibility designed to harmonise critical thinking with personal judgment, leading to an adapted response that inspires the individual to adopt a greater degree of commitment to society. This involves linking knowledge with teaching competence while providing a well-adapted response to social problems.
Another competence jointly evoked by pre-service and in-service music teachers is the socio-educational competence to work collaboratively with other teachers (Vaillant & Marcelo, 2015), thereby promoting educational and inclusive projection to musical learning, enhancing artistic value (Cabedo-Mas & Díaz-Gómez, 2013; Pike, 2017), and fostering participation in Service Learning projects (Power, 2013) and macro-projects. Therefore, collaborative work shared by teachers implies that they understand their students’ learning difficulties and can search together to develop better teaching practices. A music teacher should share useful music teaching strategies with other professionals with the purpose of working together more effectively on specific content, skills, or attitudes.
The humanistic dimension of music teaching involves the training of psycho-educational and socio-educational skills (Arasomwan & Mashiy, 2021; Eros, 2013; Ovcharenko et al., 2021) such as: self-awareness, empathy, assertive communication, and social relations, all of which are competences that foster the necessary degree of personal attention and motivation to explore the communicative, expressive, and artistic possibilities of music.
Limitations
The subjectivity of self-reported responses in the focus groups is one of the limitations that can affect the credibility and validity of this research. To enhance our study’s credibility, we have applied triangulation by combining a set of techniques and tools, including questionnaires, interviews, focus groups, field diaries, and the observation of participants, all of which helped us to better define, identify, and interpret the information.
Another limitation is the endeavor to achieve objectivity within a research context such as this one, since the class professors were also the researchers, and their interventions could eventually condition participants’ responses. The collaboration of an exterior researcher in our data analysis nevertheless allowed us to satisfactorily address the latter limitation.
The findings presented in this paper do not allow for a generalization of results, since our sample was non-probabilistic by convenience and availability. Our body of informants consisted of an academic group of master’s degree students studying to become secondary-level teachers in the speciality of music and dance, as they were available for the purposes of this study. Our sample is thus non-representative of the entire population. At any rate, the experience gathered herein can be transferred to similar study contexts for purposes of further research.
Conclusions
In light of the improvements proposed in this paper and given the lack of previous studies on the subject of training music teachers for inclusion, the exploratory research presented herein provides a contribution to the analysis, description, and substantiation of the professional competences that secondary school music teachers should acquire for purposes of inclusion, understood as an ethical commitment to guarantee that all students may have access to an equal education with the same learning opportunities.
The development of professional musical competences in initial pre-service teacher training on the basis of practice and critical reflection encourage teacher autonomy by connecting musical skills with methodological and didactic learnings in an activity where the professional teacher’s role is both trained and called into question. Inclusion is the basis of empowerment. Teacher training and teaching praxis for inclusion belong to an ongoing research process that combines inquiry, analytical, formative, and evaluative-reflective-dialogical phases with the aim of developing meaningful learning, while addressing concrete problems and considering the needs expressed by in-service teachers to guide education in diversity. Music teacher training involves the acquisition of musical, didactic, pedagogical, and personal competences applied to the education and empowerment of all students. A music teacher must have a comprehensive mastery of the discipline, along with solid methodological training and personal skills in order to be able to adapt their teaching to student needs, guide their learning process, and motivate their desire to learn. Results from this study show how the academic relationship between theoretical training, practice, and music teaching praxis as applied in practical and dialogic didactic experiences during teacher training can improve pre-service teachers’ overall grasp of the challenges involved in their profession while offering a series of didactic and pedagogical tools to master them.
This study opens up a line of research on the incorporation of critical and didactic competences into the initial training of music teachers for purposes of analysis of professional competences, while developing an inclusive approach to those same competences. Future research should be expanded to increase the measurable effectiveness and empirical relevance of initial music teacher training for inclusive education.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
We are grateful for the voluntary and interested participation of the group of pre-service music teachers who have facilitated the development of the work. We are also grateful for the contribution of the EDUCAVIVA research group of the University of Zaragoza.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The financial support of the research group EDUCAVIVA of the University of Zaragoza (Spain) is declared as two of the authors are members of this group.
Ethical Approval
The study had the informed consent of all the participants who verbally expressed their acceptance and participation in the research as competent persons.
Data Availability Statement
Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analyzed during the current study.