Music in Early Childhood Education: generalist teachers versus specialist teachers

Today, there is still a debate in schools about who should be the teacher responsible for teaching music in Early Childhood Education: some believe that it should be the Early Childhood teacher and others believe that it should be the specialist music teacher who takes on this task. The objective of this work is to know the opinion of future teachers of Early Childhood Education on some aspects of their training and methods of teaching music, with special attention to whether they consider that this discipline should be taught by them or, on the contrary, by music teachers. The group of participants of the study was formed by the students of the last year of the Degree in Early Childhood Education of the University of Murcia (Spain). For the collection of information an ad hoc questionnaire was designed structured in two sections: (1) personal data and musical training and (2) Music Education in Early Childhood Education. The results reveal a lack of consensus on the specialist who should teach music in this stage. Likewise, the following are indicated as factors that influence this conception: university training, the importance that future teachers attach to music, as well as its potential to be related to other areas.