Abstract
Music in all levels of education in Greece has attracted considerable interest during recent years. Despite the efforts being made to develop music education, much still needs to be done on certain aspects, such as the primary school music curriculum, teacher effectiveness in the classroom, whether or not music can/should be taught by a specialist or the general class teacher, and many more. The aspect mentioned first has represented a serious impediment, in the sense that the existing curriculum is not based and structured on newly, internationally acquired pedagogical and psychological foundations. The main interest of this research was, thus, focused on the description of such a curriculum which would eventually be of benefit to both the instructors and the instructees. As part of the research, a questionnaire was sent out to three groups of persons involved in music education of the primary schools: (a) General Class Teachers who are already serving in primary education, (b) Students at the end of their studies, prior to the appointment in schools as general teachers, and (c) Parents of children of primaries. Informal interviews were also completed with general class teachers as well as music specialists regarding the effectiveness of current music education in primary schools and their opinions on whether their tasks in music classrooms may be interchangeable or not. Document analysis was also employed to provide additional, supporting evidence. In order to provide the research with real life evidence, two music classrooms were videotaped, thus giving a clear picture of primary school children in action during music lessons. The information and evidence that was gathered and presented indicated the specific needs of the Greek primary schools in respect of curriculum planning and also the particular aspects of practices that could be adopted for the amelioration of the deficiencies in our country. Prominent among these figure the pedagogical matters that should be included in the Teachers’ initial education, general educational issues, as well as an important amount of music teaching practice. Thus, a proposal was formed which might present a solution to the research problem.