Music teaching in the Chilean rural multigrade school: study of multiple cases

Abstract

The importance of music education for the formation of Chilean girls and boys is crystallized in the presence of the subject of Music Education in the national curriculum. This article seeks to examine the current situation of music teaching in two multigrade basic schools, in order to identify the characteristics of their practice, given the particular conditions of the context. This context corresponds to rural schools in the south-central zone of Chile. From a qualitative approach and through the application of in-depth interviews to teachers in charge of these establishments. The analysis of the results showed that even though both school communities lack specialist teachers in the discipline, they do make efforts to implement music teaching-learning spaces, which vary according to the possibilities of each school community, and of whom they impart such teaching. The foregoing also shows the positive impact that these musical activity spaces have had on the development of students as well as on the educational communities in question.