Page 82 - Glasbenopedagoški zbornik Akademije za glasbo, letnik 16, zvezek 32 ◆ The Journal of Music Education of the Academy of Music in Ljubljana, year 16, issue 32
P. 82
sbenopedagoški zbornik ◆ letnik 16 ◆ številka 32 The analysis of internationally binding and national formal documents fa-
cilitated the identification of legal arguments for the music education of SEN
students, and a lot of attention is devoted to pedagogical arguments derived
mainly from the complex concept of inclusiveness. Despite some convincing
arguments that SEN students should also be given the possibility of music ed-
ucation, the research points to the key role of attitudes, prejudices, and stereo-
types that may be raised by principals and teachers in the process of involving
SEN students into MS.
Although SEN students are much less often mentioned in MS compared
to elementary schools, it is important to be well acquainted with the basic char-
acteristics of individual groups of SEN students in order to carry out quality
teaching work in MS, especially the characteristics of learning and teaching.
Therefore, various strategies of music teaching (instruments, notation), which
could be helpful for teachers in MS, are presented.
In the empirical part of the research, questions and hypotheses are pre-
sented. Qualitative and quantitative research methods have been used, and the
data were collected with questionnaires administered to a representative sam-
ple of principals and teachers from Slovenian MS, and by means of semi-struc-
tured interviews with three SEN students, their parents, and teachers.
The results of the research showed that the majority of principals some-
what unexpectedly recognize the “co-shaping of the personality and planned
improvement of the music education of the population” as the most important
goal rather than the aim to “discover and develop musical and dance talent”.
The majority of school principals and teachers estimate that the musical talent
is conditioned by a student’s disorder or deficit; therefore, the assessment made
by principals and teachers that students with speech-language disorders would
be the easiest to include in MS, while deaf and hard of hearing students would
be the most difficult to include, is not surprising. The vast majority of princi-
pals and teachers expressed doubts regarding the entrance examination crite-
ria in terms of recognizing the musical talent, as well as the doubt that the re-
sult of an entrance examination is a sufficient criterion for enrolment in MS.
The obtained data on the number of all students in MS and, in particular, the
number of SEN students in MS, indicate that a quarter of the principals report
that there are no SEN students in their MS, therefore, the calculated share of
SEN students in Slovenian MS is very low, amounting to only 0.25 % of all stu-
dents included in the MS. From the perspective of experience with teaching
SEN students, the data are consistent with the established low share of SEN
students in MS, as only just over two fifths of the teachers and just under a half
of the principals have this type of experience. One of the most important find-
ings of teachers that have experience with teaching SEN students is that, ac-
cording to a good third of these teachers, the experience contributed to person-
al growth, and more than a third emphasized that the experience of teaching
SEN students contributed to professional development, as they learned new
82
cilitated the identification of legal arguments for the music education of SEN
students, and a lot of attention is devoted to pedagogical arguments derived
mainly from the complex concept of inclusiveness. Despite some convincing
arguments that SEN students should also be given the possibility of music ed-
ucation, the research points to the key role of attitudes, prejudices, and stereo-
types that may be raised by principals and teachers in the process of involving
SEN students into MS.
Although SEN students are much less often mentioned in MS compared
to elementary schools, it is important to be well acquainted with the basic char-
acteristics of individual groups of SEN students in order to carry out quality
teaching work in MS, especially the characteristics of learning and teaching.
Therefore, various strategies of music teaching (instruments, notation), which
could be helpful for teachers in MS, are presented.
In the empirical part of the research, questions and hypotheses are pre-
sented. Qualitative and quantitative research methods have been used, and the
data were collected with questionnaires administered to a representative sam-
ple of principals and teachers from Slovenian MS, and by means of semi-struc-
tured interviews with three SEN students, their parents, and teachers.
The results of the research showed that the majority of principals some-
what unexpectedly recognize the “co-shaping of the personality and planned
improvement of the music education of the population” as the most important
goal rather than the aim to “discover and develop musical and dance talent”.
The majority of school principals and teachers estimate that the musical talent
is conditioned by a student’s disorder or deficit; therefore, the assessment made
by principals and teachers that students with speech-language disorders would
be the easiest to include in MS, while deaf and hard of hearing students would
be the most difficult to include, is not surprising. The vast majority of princi-
pals and teachers expressed doubts regarding the entrance examination crite-
ria in terms of recognizing the musical talent, as well as the doubt that the re-
sult of an entrance examination is a sufficient criterion for enrolment in MS.
The obtained data on the number of all students in MS and, in particular, the
number of SEN students in MS, indicate that a quarter of the principals report
that there are no SEN students in their MS, therefore, the calculated share of
SEN students in Slovenian MS is very low, amounting to only 0.25 % of all stu-
dents included in the MS. From the perspective of experience with teaching
SEN students, the data are consistent with the established low share of SEN
students in MS, as only just over two fifths of the teachers and just under a half
of the principals have this type of experience. One of the most important find-
ings of teachers that have experience with teaching SEN students is that, ac-
cording to a good third of these teachers, the experience contributed to person-
al growth, and more than a third emphasized that the experience of teaching
SEN students contributed to professional development, as they learned new
82
