Addessi A. R. (2004). Training of Music Teachers: Music Knowledge as “Social Representations”. In XXVI Conference for Music Education. Proceedings, ISME, July 2004, Tenerife, Spain. 1 Training of Music Teachers. Music Knowledge as "Social Representations" Anna Rita Addessi Department of Music and Performing Arts University of Bologna (I) addessi@muspe.unibo.it ABSTRACT The present paper deals with a research project currently being undertaken at the Faculty of Education, University of Bologna, about the training of the university students studying to become music teachers, in the primary and middle schools. The issue underlying the study was the elaboration of the university curriculum and professional profile of the music teacher in the compulsory school (Emiliani-Addessi 2002). Our students consist of musicians and non musicians: the musician students will be music teachers in the middle school; the non musician students will be general teachers in the kindergarten and elementary school, and will be involved in basic music education. We observed that the students’ “implicit” and “tacit” knowledge about music (Olsson 1997, 2002) affect their concept of both music education and professional role identity, and also their way of learning to teach music. In particular we found an interesting relationship between the implicit conception of "music", "musicality", "musical child” and the concept and the practice of “music education”. The research deals with this relationship. We believe that teaching and learning to teach may change according to the implicit meaning given to these categories and concepts. The general hypothesis is that the implicit conceptions work as social music values (Baroni 1993, Bourdieu 1983) affecting music education and teaching practice. Studies about the music knowledge of music teachers have been based on different theories and methods derived from other fields: the theory of personal construct (Olsson 1997a/b), the theory of social construction (Hallam & Shaw 2002), the epistemological approach and the analysis of language (Kruger 1998), the theories of professional role identity (Bouji 1998; Ferrari 1994; Hargreaves et al. 2003). A new model to study the relationships between music knowledge and training music teachers is the Theory of Social Representations (Moscovici 1981; Mugny-Carugati 1989). The general hypothesis of our project is that "music knowledge" can be investigated as a social and psychological construction as described by the theory of the Social Representations. According to this perspective, music knowledge could have its development in the crossroads between the different Social Representations of music held by the subjects who take part in its constitution: in our case, the students and the teachers of music education. The main aim of our research is to study the impact of the Social Representations of music on students studying to become music teachers. In this paper I shall present a synthesis of the theory of Social Representations and the research that we are carrying out in the domain of training music teachers. Introduction The present paper deals with a research project currently being undertaken at the Faculty of Education, University of Bologna, about the training of the university students studying to become music teachers, in the primary and middle schools. The issue underlying the study was the elaboration of the university curriculum and professional profile of the music teacher in the compulsory school (Emiliani-Addessi 2002).