Challenges for primary music educators : preservice teachers' perceptions of the challenges to teaching music in primary schools in five countries

![CDATA[Music educators around the world have a mission to bring the world of sound into the classroom so every child has the opportunity to play music, to listen to music and to create their own music. Current preservice teacher education students are tomorrow’s teachers. What they believe about the priority and problems of music education in elementary schools is important as it will impact on their attitudes and practice when they are teaching in schools. This study investigates the perceptions of almost a thousand students from Australia, South Africa, Namibia, Illinois (USA) and Ireland in relation to the priority and problems associated with teaching music in elementary schools. The results indicated that 78% of all the students felt that elementary schools should give a high priority to music education however only 43% of the sampled students felt that elementary schools actually gave a high priority to music education. Of the problems identified, the teachers’ lack of musical experience (78%) and the lack of priority of music in schools (77%) were seen by the highest number of students as being significant problems to teaching music. Other problems which were seen to be significant were the lack of resources (66%), lack of time to teach music (63%), lack of knowledge (58%) and lack of adequate preparation time (49%). This study highlights the need for a higher priority for, and more experience in, music education in both teacher training institutions and in elementary schools.]]