Musical futures as critical pedagogy: participatory case study research with generalist primary school teachers in the Republic of Ireland

Abstract

Within the primary generalist context, issues inter alia of confidence, knowledge, beliefs and values, efficacy, and considerable variance in the musical backgrounds and experiences of teachers compound to problematise music education provision. Consequently, the provision of music education at the primary level is often sparse and inconsistent, relying largely on the background and existing experience of teachers and mediated through their beliefs and values about music and musicality.

This thesis investigates the backgrounds, values, beliefs, and ideological positions of primary school teachers with regard to music education. It critically examines the impact of culture, society, and individual factors that affect how teachers implement the music curriculum in Ireland.

Using this knowledge, the project engages teachers with Musical Futures – an international approach rooted in how popular musicians learn and spanning over two decades of research into informal learning. The pioneering work of Lucy Green (2002; 2008) in developing the Musical Futures approach has seen it grow exponentially since its inception in the UK in 2003 and has now been adapted by over 13,000 teachers internationally in Canada, Australia, Singapore, China, Cyprus and more recently, Ireland. Musical Futures is an approach or philosophy of music education that places the needs, interests, and abilities of students at the heart of the learning experience and orients intentionality towards playing and making music, with the teacher acting as a facilitator of the process of students’ musical discovery. While Musical Futures has been shown to have had a positive impact on promoting music education at the secondary level, to date, no comprehensive study within the Irish context has examined the impact of the initiative at the primary level in this manner.

Through participatory case study research, the thesis investigates the cultural, structural, and agential conditions that affect generalist primary teachers’ experiences of music learning and teaching and the provision of music within the school community using the Musical Futures approach to learning and teaching. Participatory case study research presents a pragmatic and potentially empowering approach for generalist primary teachers and primary school communities to explore, assess and improve their own practices in non-formal music learning. The study worked with six primary schools and seven generalist teachers who engaged with Musical Futures approaches from a period of ten to thirty weeks with their students aged 8-12 years. Data collection tools included teacher interviews, lesson observations, focus group discussions with students, teacher and researcher reflective notes, and video recordings of lessons.

The research intersects between the fields of sociology, education and music education, whereby the social reproduction of musical ability and musical values is critically examined. Findings demonstrate how informal learning and non-formal teaching pedagogies impacted practice at the level of the student, the classroom, the teacher, and their ideological position with regard to music and musicality. Using the theoretical lenses of Althusser and Bourdieu to frame the findings, the thesis traces shifts in the ideological position of the teacher with regard to music and musicality within their practice, highlighting the interplay between identic, efficacious and agentic factors in shaping the musical habitus of the generalist teacher, and proffering unique perspectives on informal learning pedagogies and generalist primary music education respectively.