A Comparison Between Musical Upbringing Of Jewish And Arab Students In Israel

Exposure to music and music lessons

In the Western society children aged three and up are usually exposed to a musical environment, which includes their family's musical heritage and musical sounds of the community (Cambell, 2011). The educational environment exposes the growing child to a wider repertoire of musical styles. Musical experiences in kindergarten and school include singing, playing musical instruments and listening to a wide variety of musical pieces (Abril, 2016). Another more individualized musical experience includes private instrumental lessons that in many cases start during elementary school years (Cutietta, 2017). More subtle music education takes place when learning to play a musical instrument either in private lessons or as part of a small group of students studying with a teacher. Studying to play with private teachers is a process that may last until high school graduation and at times may continue in adult life.

Community musical activities provide wide possibilities for participation. The varied participation of children and teenagers with music activities may promote the development of a musical identity (Moore, Burland, & Davidson, 2003).

Encouragement and support in the process of music learning

Encouragement and support of parents during childhood influences the child's interest in an activity and the time the child will engage in that activity. In a study of gifted pianists Sosniak (1985) found that parents' interest and attentive listening to their child's practice sessions helped their child form steady practice habits and motivated them to keep practicing for a longer time. As the child grows up, parents' involvement declines and internal self-motivation develops (Sloboda, Davidson, Howe, & Moore, 1996). The intrinsic motivation to practice marks the beginning stages of musical autonomy (Sloboda et al., 1996). In a study on self-motivation of top musicians Ericsson (1993) found that as teenagers they had developed well organized practice sessions with efficient use of time. These practice habits had been acquired already during their childhood.

The increased amount of practice hours top musicians accumulated led to a higher playing proficiency. In comparison to other musicians by the age of 18 these top musicians defined by Ericsson (1993) as professionals and experts had accumulated an estimated amount of 8000 practice hours as compared to 3000 practice hours of less accomplished experts and 1000 practice hours of amateurs. The encouragement and support these musicians received as children greatly affected the level of proficiency they had reached by the age of 18 years old. Moore, Burland & Davidson (2003) revealed that musical activities of improvising music, participating in ensemble rehearsals, and playing in concerts enhanced children's interest in music and motivated them to continue with their musical development. Similar findings were found by Hargreaves & Marshal (2003) regarding teenagers who participated in bands with no adult guidance.

In this type of playing environment that has been defined as the "third environment", the band members not only played together but also learned new techniques from one another as well as maintained and supported each other's interest in music activities. These musical activities not only provide opportunities for musical performance but also social environments in which to meet with people of similar interests. Hence, the on-going engagement with music performance and development appears to be inseparably associated with both musical achievements and positive social experience.

Music education in Israel

The Israeli education system provides formal education from pre-kindergarten (3-4 years old) to 12^th grade (Knesset, 2015). Extra afternoon educational enrichment such as private music lessons is fully funded by the parents (Knesset, 2016). In the educational system of Israel, a child is referred to kindergarten or school according to his native speaking language – Hebrew or Arabic - and religious affiliation. The language of instruction in the Jewish kindergartens and schools is in Hebrew and in the Arab kindergartens and schools in Arabic. The kindergarten and school programs address the cultural and religious requirements of either the Jewish or Arabic population (Central bureau of statistics, 2016).

Most kindergartens have music classes although the exact percentage is unknown due to disperse institutions dealing with this age group (personal communication, supervisor of music education in Israel, 2016). It should be noted that in the Arab schools and kindergartens less music classes are offered in comparison with the Jewish schools though, more specified information was unavailable as for 2016 (personal communication, supervisor of music education in Israel, 2016).

The core curriculum in the Elementary school is mandatory and includes varied subjects among them reading, writing, math and English. A few annual hours are directed towards studies of the arts. These classes are elective and are chosen according to each school headmaster's preference. They include three elective hours in grades 1-3, and two hours in grades 4-6 (The Knesset, 2016).

The electives include five subjects: music, arts, theatre, dance, and communication (The Knesset, 2016). Therefore the availability of music classes depends on the choice of the school. According to the Ministry of education in most elementary schools that are registered and recognized by the state (85%) music classes are part of the curriculum for at least one school year. In 10% of the secondary schools there are music programs. High school music programs are offered today in 130 schools in Israel (The Knesset, 2016). The music programs are professional and are part of the final high school exams.

Religious affiliation

The four main religions in Israel: Judaism, Islam, Christianity, and Druze. The Druze religion was founded in Cairo, Egypt, in the 11^th century (Dana, 1998). The population in Israel in 2014 was 8.7 million people, distributed as follows: 75% (6.525 million) were Jews, 21% were Arabs. Of them: 85% (1.488 million) were Muslims, 8% (139,000) were Druze and 7.5% (134,300) were Christians (Central bureau of statistics, 2015).

The attitude towards music differs between religious and ethnic groups in Israel. Thus, in the Jewish society, music learning and performance is well accepted while in the Muslim society for reasons that originated with religious bans, music learning is partially accepted (Cahn & Rusu, 2016). Nowadays, studying music among the Arab population became more acceptable although the past bans over music learning still have an impact (Abdel-Rahman Hamza, 2014; Cahn & Rusu, 2016). These bans may be partially responsible for the shortage in Arab music teachers, as well as the lack of music learning possibilities for those persons of the Arab population that reside in rural areas.

Regarding specialized High school music programs, these programs in Israeli high schools are common in the Jewish schools, while none are currently offered in the Arab high schools (personal communication, regional supervisor of music education in Israel, 2017).

In Israel, formal instruction in instrumental performance is done in music conservatories and musical centers and in private lessons. These are open to the whole population, however for those who reside in rural areas and lack transportation they are less available.

Development of the Attitudes toward Music Experience and Education (AMEE) questionnaire

Based on a previous literature review (Cahn & Rusu, 2016), a questionnaire was developed with the aim of identifying individual and cultural differences related to music between Jewish and Arab Israeli students who study in a music education teaching certificate programs in Israel. The questionnaire includes adaptations of questions from previous questionnaires by Bergee et al. (2001), Epstein et al. (2015), Henry (2013), Katsir, Sagi, & Gilat (2004), McClellan (2011), and Rickels et al. (2013), as well as original questions.

The AMEE questionnaire includes the following categories: demographic information; musical background related to (1) playing and singing experience, (2) parental and social encouragement and support, (3) listening & playing habits, and (4) motivations for music activity during childhood; musical knowledge; current music playing activities; performance experience; individual listening habits; attitudes towards teaching music, i.e. (1) motivation to become a music teacher, (2) characteristics of a good music teacher, (3) professional ability of music teachers.

The AMEE questionnaire was content validated by four Jewish and Arab lecturers and the language was validated by native Hebrew speaking graduates and native Arabic speaking graduates. Based on their comments, the AMEE was rewritten and administered to 20 professional musicians both Jewish and Arabs as part of the pilot study. Based on their answers minor changes were made. Reliability of the AMEE instrument was assessed based on the computation of the internal consistency (Alpha Cronbach). It is important to mention that the development of AMEE is part of a larger study investigating the differences and similarities between Jewish and Arab music education students in Israel.

Participants

Participants were 50 music education students in Israel, which study either for a music education bachelors' degree or in a music education teaching certificate program. In all these programs the language used for instruction is Hebrew.

Participants included 26 Jewish students (52%), 18 of which were female (69.2%) and 8 male (30.8 %), and 24 Arab students (48%), which consisted of 15 Muslim students (30%), 5 Christian students (10%) and 4 Druze students (8%). Among the Arab students, 17 students were females (70%) and 7 students were males (30%). In terms of age distribution, 25 students (50%) were between the ages of 18-24, 16 students (32%) were between the ages of 25-30, 6 students (12%) were between the ages of 31-40, and 3 students (6%) were aged 41 and upwards.

The AMEE questionnaire

The AMEE questionnaire includes questions that require either yes-no answers, or answers on a six-point Likert scale, where a value of 6 represent high agreement with the statement and a value of 1 represents high disagreement. Four open ended questions were also included in the AMEE. These questions requested from the participants to describe the attitude of their society towards music learning and whether this attitude affected their choice to learn music. The questions also requested from the participants to express what would be considered an achievement for them once they would be working in the field. Ethical Committees consents were received before administering the questionnaire. The participants were informed about the confidentiality of the collected data.

Data collection

Questionnaires were submitted either by email or handed out in printed version during January to February 2017.

Encouragement to play or sing

Data indicate that the participants' main source of encouragement to play music came mostly from their parents, fathers or mothers, and from their music teachers. In both ethnic groups, parental encouragement for learning music was indicated as the highest influence, although the degree of encouragement differed between groups. Parental encouragement and support was marked as positive if at least one of the parents encouraged and supported musical studies of the participant as a child or as an adult. A significant difference was found between the groups both in the overall parental encouragement as well as in the encouragement of fathers and mothers. Jewish students were significantly more encouraged by their parents (88.5%, 23 participants) to study music as compared to the Arab students (45.8%, 11 participants), χ² ( df = 1, N = 50)=10.422, p ˂ .001. Jewish students were also significantly more encouraged by their fathers (69.2%, 18 participants) to study music as compared to the Arab students (41.7%, 10 participants), χ² ( df = 1, N = 50) = 3.848, p ˂ .05. A significant difference was also found regarding encouragement received from mothers. The Jewish students were significantly more encouraged by their mothers (76.9%, 20 participants) to study music as compared with the Arab students (29.2%, 7 participants), χ² ( df = 1, N = 50)= 11.456, p ˂ .001.

Significant differences were also observed in the encouragement received from the music teachers. The Jewish students reported that they were significantly more encouraged by their music teachers (42.3%, 11 participants) to study music as compared with the Arab students (16.7%, 4), χ² ( df = 1, N = 50) = 3.907, p ˂ .05. Other encouragers and supporters such as relatives, friends, and school teachers were not found to significantly differ between the Jewish and Arab students and all reported having received low to moderate levels of encouragement from them.

The starting age of playing an instrument and singing during childhood

Regarding playing a musical instrument, there was a significant difference between the students regarding the age in which they started learning to play a musical instrument or in which they started singing. Jewish students started instrumental learning earlier than the Arab students χ² ( df = 1, N = 41) = 10.602, p ˂ .001. Jewish students began to learn playing a musical instrument between ages 3-9 years, while most Arab students started after the age of 10, eight of whom started after the age of 15. Jewish students also started to sing with guidance earlier than Arab students χ² ( df = 1, N = 40) = 4.569, p ˂ .05. The results indicated that Jewish students started their musical training earlier than Arab students.