"Inclusion" of information on mainstreaming in undergraduate music education curricula

The purpose of this study was to examine teacher training programs in music education to provide an overview of course offerings in Special Education available to Music Education majors. One Research Category 1, one state-funded regional, and one private institution were randomly chosen from each state when available. All schools offering a degree in music therapy were included for a total of 171 schools with usable data. Catalogues were examined to determine (a) existence of a course in special education for music education majors, (b) department through which course was offered (nonmusic content or music content specific), (c) required or elective status of course, (d) course title and credit hours, and (e) reference to mainstreaming in music methods course descriptions. The first three areas were compared by (a) category of school, (b) universities offering music therapy and those not, (c) MENC Region. Results revealed that 74% of schools had a course in special education available with 86% of these requiring at least one course with a total of 140 courses available. 110 were nonmusic content specific while 30 were music content specific. Eighty-nine percent of the nonmusic content courses were required, while only 43% of the content specific courses were required. Information was further broken down as indicated above.