Music Teacher Training in Spain

The social and cultural environment in Spain has changed enormously in the last few decades. This country, by area the second largest in Western Europe and the European Union after France, with a population of over 46 million people, is now a multicultural and multilingual society where several official languages (Spanish, Catalan, Basque, Galician) and other dialects coexist. Nonetheless, this new situation has also brought challenges associated with a global world. The current financial crisis represents an added problem for this country, in particular for all areas that are considered ‘superfluous’ by neoliberal policy makers, for instance the arts and music (see LOMCE, 2013).

In the last three decades, Spain has implemented many different laws in education to bring the new reality closer to schools and universities. Nevertheless, in the important area of education, a consensus between the main political parties does not exist. As a consequence, the weakest subjects are the most affected by the current educational policies (Rodríguez-Quiles, Reference RODRÍGUEZ-QUILES2014). Music and music education represent a case in point, as will be discussed in this paper through a study conducted on the curricula for Music Teacher Training (MTT) at Spanish Universities and Colleges of Music for both primary and secondary schoolsFootnote ¹ .

In contrast to Spain, many European universities offer a specific Bachelor of Arts for Music Teacher Training based on the following three main pillars (see Malmberg and Niermann, Reference MALMBERG and NIERMANN2009):

• • Musical training (in several instruments, singing, ensemble, conducting. . .)

• • Theoretical aspects (music theory, analysis, musicology, music psychology. . .)

• • Pedagogical aspects (general pedagogy, musical pedagogy, didactics, practicum at school. . .)

The project meNet Footnote ² has analysed the situation across Europe and provided an informative panoramic of the conditions. In spite of the Declaration of Bologna and the intended idea of a ‘convergence’ into a common EHEA as stated in this declaration, the situation is still quite different for the countries of Southern EuropeFootnote ³ . Spain represents a good example of ‘non-convergence’ for this university field or knowledge area in the framework of Bologna as traditionally a degree for training music teachers for secondary schools has never existed. The two possible paths to become a music teacher in this country are to complete a degree in musicology at a university or to pursue a degree as an instrumentalist, musicologist, composer, conductor, etc. at a College of Music. These two paths are plagued with shortcomings, as I will show through the analysis of the curricula at these institutionsFootnote ⁴ .

Bachelor's and master's studies in musicology are offered by few Spanish universities. As Table 1 and Figure 1 showFootnote ⁵ , the bulk of the curriculum is composed of courses that focus only on the history of (classical western) music and music theory. Although these Tables refer to the former curricula implemented in musicology, the situation of music pedagogy within the new curricula does not differ from the previous one at all. As can be seen, neither artistic skills nor pedagogical aspects of the transmission of music play any role among the core subjects:

Table 1.

Musicology: core subjects at universities

Figure 1.

Musicology: core subjects at universities

It can be said that there is a general consensus among Spanish universities to ignore the importance of music teaching training. As an exception, only the Autonomous University of Madrid included both compulsory courses in music didactics (6 ECTSFootnote ⁶ ) and student teaching training (6 ECTS) as a part of its curriculum, which is insufficient within the four semesters of this degree.

Table 2 shows the non-core optional courses available to students to become a music teacher in Spain:

Table 2.

Musicology: optional subjects at universities

As can be seen, even among optional subjects Spanish universities do not offer proper training for future secondary school music teachers (even more so when the classes are online in spite of the 14.28% allocated to the University of La Rioja, because no school practising with real pupils was considered). The Autonomous University of Madrid, with the goal of distancing itself from the University Complutense located in the same city, offers a different amount of artistic and pedagogical skills in its curriculum. Unfortunately, teaching practice, a crucial part of a MTT in a European sense, is not considered by any of these nine universities.

The second path to become a music teacher in Spain is through studying a degree at a College of Music (Conservatorio Superior de Música). Usually, music teachers from these institutions previously studied an instrument as soloists. Obviously no subjects in music didactics orientated to schools are taught to these students at all. The same occurs in the case of degrees for singers, composers or conductors. It is no surprise then that these students feel frustrated when they are unable find a job as instrumentalists or singers after finishing their studies (in particular in the current financial crisis situation) and lack pedagogical skills to aid them as music teachers at school. A master's student who finished a degree as a flautist expresses here a common opinion among an overwhelming number of Spanish instrument players:

Similar opinions can be found in the empirical study by Quijano (Reference QUIJANO2014) carried out on music academies of Southern Spain among students in their last year of studies before entering a College of Music. This study dealt with young boys and girls making the difficult decision to choose music as their major with the objective of pursuing it as a career after 14 years of previous training as musicians or to give it up and study something completly different.

A third option to become a music teacher in Spain is through studies in musicology at a College of Music (Conservatorio Superior de Música). As can be seen, the only exception in the whole country is represented by the College of Music of Navarra (Northen Spain), where 9.84 % of the curriculum (which is absolutely insufficient) is devoted to pedagogical skills. The rest of the Colleges ignore this possibility, as Table 3 and Figure 2 show:

Table 3.

Musicology at colleges of music

Figure 2.

Musicology at colleges of music

According to the Spanish Ministry of Education, more than 90% of Spanish musicologists work as music teachers in secondary schools (Ministry of Education, 2005, p. 63). From a European perspective, it is obvious that something wrong is happening in this country and that the teacher training system must be changed. Even the recent compulsory master's degree for teaching at secondary school has only 24 ECTS orientated at MTT (the rest are lectures related to general curriculum for secondary school, organisation of schools, legislation, etc.) and does not solve the problem. Some Spanish universities are using this precarious situation to implement two-semester master's degrees (60 ECTS) which offer a low amount of ECTS in MTT in a context that does not usually have anything to do with music education sensu stricto. Such is the case for the Master in Musical Heritage (International University of Andalusia) or the Master in Research in Arts, Music and Aesthetic Education (University of Jaén), among others. The question is, why is this change so difficult in Spain? Is it solely due to the financial crisis that has seriously destroyed the social welfare state in the last few years and drastically cut the budget destined to education and research? Obviously, this cannot be the reason. In the next section I will reveal some key points in order to provide a more extensive understanding of this particular issue.

Music (education) as a precarious subject

After reading an article by Naomi Klein (Reference KLEIN2003) I realised a certain parallelism between her ‘fortress continents’ in a global world and the current situation of MTT in Spain within the frame of the European Union. The Canadian author writes:

In fact, we could also talk about the ‘fortress subject’ made up by a group of professors, lecturers and collaborators of different universities and Colleges of Music joining forces to extract favourable benefits from other subjects (that is, music education, general and specific didactics), while carefully controlling the boundaries to keep educationalists out of music teaching training. This is done for instance by taking part in the selection committees both for teaching and researching or being advisors at universities and in both regional and national ministries; in a word, making up a lobby against the right to a better music education within a democratic society.

Following this parallelism, to become a real ‘fortress subject’, those persons (usually musicologists and/or instrumentalists) have to invite one or two ‘poor siblings’ (that is, educationalists) within its walls, because somebody has to do the ‘dirty work’, namely teaching the few ECTS in music education the official curriculum prescribes. Of course, researching in music education is not well esteemed by the members of the fortress. The ‘guests’ within the walls usually are docile and less demanding lecturers from the departments of Music Education who accept without any criticism what they are requested to do. Committed and critical researchers and lecturers from the field of music education are obviously not welcome in the fortress.

At the beginning of 2009, I was asked by my department to design a proposal in order to improve the music teaching training for the students of the new musicology curriculum according to Bologna. After several hard months working on this topic I handed in a hefty dossier to my colleagues for its supervision. It was the so called Q-Proposal, a Mention for Pedagogy of Music and Music Didactics, as an optional part of the future Bachelor in Musicology from the academic year 2010/2011 and on, a bachelor's degree which lasts eight semesters in the new curriculum instead of the four semesters of the previous one.

In November of the same year I received a formal invitation by the chancellery to defend the proposal in front of a committee of about 20 members, among which no music educationalists were present. For this important task I was given only five minutes to speak and was denied permission to use e-media (presenting only with my voice and the photocopies I had prepared for the occasion). Two days later we were informed that the proposal had been refused by the committee. No reason for this decision was provided in writing. Three months later it was unexpectedly announced without any period for negotiation that two educationalists (and only these two) would be responsible for the few ECTS related to the pedagogical content which would be eventually implemented in the future bachelor's and master's degrees directly related or not with music teacher training (that is, the new Bachelor in Musicology, the compulsory master's degree for future teachers at secondary schools, Master in Musical Heritage, PhD programme in Musicology, etc.). In other words, two particular lecturers were designated by one particular department to leave their natural field (Music Education) in order to go beyond the walls to an alien field. After this outrageous manoeuvre, the doors of the fortification were carefully closed to give the impression ‘we all lead a normal life here’. The frustration in my department because of this unfair and antidemocratic decision was immense, leading me to publish the Q-Proposal with the hope that it could be useful for other institutions in the country which are more forward-looking and have a better understanding about what education in the 21^st century and what a real ‘European convergence’ for all knowledge areas could be (Rodríguez-Quiles, Reference RODRÍGUEZ-QUILES2010).

Some questions I asked myself after this experience were: How is it possible that Spain wants to follow the guidelines of the Declaration of Bologna without seriously taking into account the opinions of all knowledge areas, including those from the area of Music Education? Why are some knowledge areas so much more possible Footnote ⁷ than others? How can individuals be open to Europe but closed to education? How it is possible that Bologna ignores the importance of a good teacher training programme after the worrying results of the Pisa Studies for Spain in the last few yearsFootnote ⁸ ? Similar questions related to problems of the current global economy can be read in Klein's article:

Klein gives us an easy explanation, which can also be useful for the ‘fortress subjects’ at Spanish universities. She concludes: ‘[The answer is] [e]asy. First you expand the perimeter. Then you lock down.’ (Klein, op. cit.)

In fact, during the last few years, Spanish policy makers have been excellent at selling the idea of a ‘European convergence’ for all knowledge areas. Just when the agenda was closed and changes were not possible, the suppression of some degrees were subtly announced. As an illustrative (and very sad) example of this, the Bachelor in Music Education orientated to primary schools was completely eliminated in Spain after a short life span of about 18–20 years (depending on the university) and, as I said above, no Bachelor in Music Education for secondary schools has been considered until now (and is still not being considered in any political agenda for the next few years).

Obviously the term ‘European convergence’ has become an expression sous rature used in a Derridean senseFootnote ⁹ and consequently devalued even before the new degrees post Declaration of Bologna have been totally implemented. Of course these words sous rature generate a semantic confusion which originates a sort of social chaos within the Academy over what Bologna really is and over what education and teacher training inside Europe should be. The hazard of its continued use (in other words, its performativity) is that it manages to transmit a wrong idea (about the situation of MTT in Europe) and therefore manages to preserve the rights of the already consolidated knowledge areas. At the same time it reduces the impact (and even the sense) of a legitimate struggle by those that are non-consolidated.

Both feminism and queer studies have shown how language impacts us through the iteration of the rules it defines. Through this iteration the majority of the population understands concepts related to gender in one particular way. Deviations of the norm are seen as undesirable, inappropriate, abject and these people are immediately excluded from the select group of ‘normal persons’ (see Soley-Beltrán & Sabsay, Reference SOLEY-BELTRÁN and SABSAY2012; Wilchins, Reference WILCHINS2006). Something similar occurs within the Academy. In music education, there are serious tensions between music educationalists and other colleagues such as musicologists, general educationalists and musicians who view the first as inappropriate because the scope of their teaching and researching does not always follow the rules the consolidated areas conceive as correct. These tensions generate Foucaultian relations of power inside the Academy (Foucault, Reference FOUCAULT1993). These tensions lead to mechanisms of vigilance and punishment (e.g. not being allowed to publish in some journals, exclusion from certain conferences, the inability to pass assessments which would lead to promotion, or simply not considering MTT as a legitimated knowledge area inside the University and thereby eliminating such a degree on the current map of bachelor's degrees, independent of the importance a solid and homogenous knowledge base would have for the students if implemented from the very beginningFootnote ¹⁰ ).

This situation exists because the performative character of music education at schools and the performative stress of music teacher training at colleges have everything to do with the differential ways in which this subject becomes eligible or not for both social and academic recognition. After the new bill for general education (LOMCE, 2013), music was removed from the compulsory curriculum in SpainFootnote ¹¹ . Thus we have moved from a situation of hope (in the last ten years music had been proudly talked about as one of the ‘emerging subjects’, that is, about subjects with a future both in the field of teaching and researching supported by different institutions) to a situation of precarity in Butler's senseFootnote ¹² . In fact, nowadays we could talk about ‘precarious subjects’ within the academic Spanish context; about subjects that wish to claim a better life inside a hostile system which does not consider any future for them in the frame of a controversial EHEA similar to that which consolidated subjects have. Butler (Reference BUTLER2009) writes:

And that is exactly what is currently happening in Spain: music teacher trainers are forced to comply with norms designed by others who have neither taken into account the specific characteristics of music education nor the historical development of this knowledge area in the country. Furthermore, music teacher trainers are periodically assessed by these other colleagues (particularly concerning their research and their promotion) and so it is quite impossible for them to escape from this circle. This assessment – they say – is based on the usual general rules for university issues (as if there were a sort of universal category of rules not made by members of this same Academy). However no one has taken into consideration that in previous centuries music education was not part of this elite universe and thus this knowledge area has been forced into a disadvantaged position that no one wants to recognize. As a consequence, this situation is provoking, even among music teacher trainers, a worrying separation between what they want and what they really are; which of course will have future consequences on what music education in a multicultural democratic society will look like. Political actions like those derived from the Manifest for Music Education and Music Teacher Training (Granada, 2006) and the Granada Declaration 2015 Footnote ¹³ have been started up by music educationalists within the Spanish university in a European framework.

Unfortunately, we live in a binary world (see Wilchins, Reference WILCHINS2006): black/white, cash/card, male/female, win/lose, science/art. However, music education is simultaneously both art and science (if not more). Therefore, for those who defend ‘science-only’ policies, music education represents a sort of threat, creating an artificial area of tension between music to be analysed and rationalised versus music to be lived; music to talk to versus music to live with; music as Wissenschaft Footnote ¹⁴ versus music as Lebensfreude Footnote ¹⁵ ; and all this because of the performative (yes, subversive) power making music can have. Butler, referring to the illegal immigrants in May of 2006 who took to the streets in Los Angeles and started to sing the national anthem of the United States in English and in Spanish, writes: ‘Indeed, the performativity of [. . .] the singing in the street is understood as an exercise of freedom. There is no freedom that is not its exercise; freedom is not a potential that waits for its exercise.’ (Butler, Reference BUTLER2009, p. 5)

Similar examples of protests by different groups have been seen in the streets of Spain over the last few years. One of the most significant is the group Flo 6x8, a non-violent ‘urban guerrilla’ whose weapons are flamenco music and dance. This group has been fighting corruption through many live performances in banks and others strategic financial and political spaces (including the Parliament of Andalusia), dancing and singing songs with stinging lyrics and afterwards uploading the recordings on the InternetFootnote ¹⁶ . A member of Flo 6x8 sums up the intentions of the group as follows: ‘Internationally flamenco is thought of as traditional Spanish music. But in reality it's always been more about giving voice to those on the margins of Spanish society’ (Kassam, Reference KASSAM2013).

We are living a contradiction in Spain between the important presence of choirs, bands and orchestras at universities (musical performances are requested throughout the year) and the negative pressure music education is suffering at the hands of both the government and the Academy itself. It seems that music education for musicians, students (including future music teachers), pupils of the general school system and common listeners must be pushed into the background; must be relegated indeed to the home; must be finally regarded as a pre-political sphere.