Intercultural Competence of Future Music Teachers: Social Reality and/or Need

Sa？etak Intercultural competence is developed and upgraded throughout the lifetime, but its foundations should be first laid during studies. This is only possible if the course and syllabus design in higher education helps develop the intercultural competence of students (future teachers) who should then in turn be able to pass this competence on their students in both urban and especially rural areas, where it might not be sufficiently recognized. Researchers warn that music academies in the near future might face difficulties because classical music of Western Europe may stop being interesting for the European population as a whole. Therefore, the intercultural approach to teaching at academies, which implies the introduction of different cultures and their musical traditions across continents, is necessary for their further successful functioning. This paper aims to determine whether the education of future elementary and high school music teachers in the Republic of Croatia is focused on interculturalism, what their attitudes on intercultural teaching and intercultural education are and whether they evaluate themselves as interculturally competent. Some socio-demographic variables are also examined (gender, urban/rural secondary school education) to see if and how they affect the students’ attitudes as well as differences in their opinions with regard to the city where they study. The survey research included 46 final year graduate students of Music Pedagogy from 17 Croatian counties who came to study at four Music/art academies (Zagreb, Split, Osijek and Pula). The results show that teaching at Croatian academies is still focused on acquiring professional competencies and the number of courses with intercultural content is very small. There are no significant differences regarding urban/rural background of students but opinions on intercultural approach to teaching differ depending on the town where they study. A lot of students are aware of their lack of intercultural competence but are willing to improve it. It is therefore necessary to enable all students to acquire intercultural competence and ensure its continuous development in the lifelong learning process