Challenges and difficulties of Hungarian school music education among elementary and secondary school music teachers

Abstract

The aim of this article is to define the challenges and difficulties of Hungarian school music ed-ucation. Totally, 15 music teachers who taught music in special music and non-music classes were interviewed. Results indicated that school music education have been influenced by many factors such as (1) disproportion of timing and music curriculum, (2) students’ indifferent atti-tudes toward music lessons, (3) the lack of musical knowledge of the students, (4) pupils’ nega-tive attitudes toward singing and their low self-esteem, (5) generation gap between students and teachers, (6) the lack of positive feedback for the teacher, as well as (7) the lack of equipment in the music classroom. On the other hand, results also pointed out that Kodály method can fulfill its requirement in special music classes exclusively, but it can be also observed a declining state of school music education in these classes.