Abstract:

The first formalization of program lines concerning the introduction to musical education in primary school in Italy takes place in 1985 (D.P.R. of 12/02/1985). The next legal documents (D.L. of 19/02/04, n. 59; D.M. of 31/07/07) underline the formative importance of doing music and the quality of cognitive processes which are involved and activated in this experience.
However, an incongruent problem had emerged since 1985 and it is still considered as such: the introduction of a professional figure owning specific competences has not been taken into account for musical education at school. The remarks on the educational effectiveness of various teaching-musical activities also highlight the differences and discrepancies between ministerial program lines and real curriculum. In fact, a recent study (Marzano, A., Notti, A., M., 2007) has underlined the absence of correspondence between students’ real learning and what is expected according to the Educational Programs of 1985 until the recent National Indications. The main difficulty consists in training teachers who are able to carry out this task. “The problem of a music education also in a primary school can be only solved by a systematic and generalized utilization of specifically trained teachers” (Sansuini, S., 1978, p. 184). This statement dates back thirty years ago while the introduction of the degree course in Primary Education Sciences is relatively recent (For instance, this course has been activated since 1998-99 at the University of Salerno).
The purpose of this study is to give an answer to the following question: what can be the pedagogical coordinates for the definition of a possible university studies curriculum for music teaching in primary school?
A questionnaire, which has been submitted to 629 primary school teachers, has stressed a substantial inconsistency concerning the following factors:

- the relation between awareness and competences owned by every teacher and the consequent effect in daily teaching activities
- every teacher’s idea about the importance of education, contents and professional competences which are essential in order to organize and carry out formative paths.

These significant factors can be surely useful to identify some specific areas of competences that the students of the degree course in Primary Education Sciences should be able to acquire (or develop) in order to organize, plan and carry out a study path which can be coherent with the aims linked to the objective need of education. In fact, the quality of future teachers’ learning depends on the quality of the university formative offer. Since a learner is not a simple listener but he is able to manipulate and produce sound events (Delalande, F., 1993; Stern, D., 1985), it is very important to give future teachers basic competences useful for music teaching (Dubet, F., 2002; Colwell, R., Richiardson, C., 2002).

Keywords:

University studies curriculum, initial training, music teaching, primary school.