Formal and non-formal education. A meeting point in music education

Abstract

Different educational settings, formal and non-formal education, can and should interact for the benefit of a comprehensive training of the individual, so that there are many more spaces to educate them in than just classrooms (Mok, 2011). This article highlights the need for coordination among music teachers in primary schools (formal education) and teachers in music schools (non-formal education), using two research studies carried out in different territorial areas and separated by a decade in time. The results of these two studies are connected in that they evaluate whether teachers are interested in working together, described in investigation 1, and appears in the scope of investigation 2, and whether it has been implemented in its field of study. Both studies show the complementarity of these two educational settings, and emphasize the importance of coordination, for the sake of an excellent use of the available resources, in order to move towards quality in music education. This study concludes with the idea that, despite the advances experienced in the last decade (2001-2012), it has not obviously been transferred into an educational reality.