Place and role of music education in the planned curriculum for kindergartens

This article presents the results of a research study involving 159 preschool teachers from across Slovenia. The goal of the first phase of the research, the results of which were obtained through a questionnaire sent to preschool teachers, was to establish the difficulties preschool teachers face during curricular planning. The results of the first phase of the research show that the majority of teachers face problems in planning concrete music goals. The goal of the second phase of the research, the results of which were obtained through the analysis of lesson plans (i. e., the planned curriculum) over a period of three months, was to determine the extent to which preschool teachers took into account the principles of professional justification, horizontal integration and the development-process approach defined by the Slovene Kurikulum za vrtce (Curriculum for Kindergartens) in the planning of music lessons. The lesson plans of all the preschool teachers participating in the research were analysed in terms of structure, activity, goals, principles, content, teaching strategies and instructional media. The results show that the Curriculum for Kindergartens does not give preschool teachers sufficient support for successful planning of music lessons and that music education is losing professional autonomy within arts education