Democracy in instrumental teaching : a threat to Western classical music in late modernity?

• In this paper recent findings about how the lesson content is changing at Swedish community music and art schools is discussed. The change is not a consequence of active strategies for change but as a course of different tendencies in late modernity. The teachers are experiencing a decreasing influence of their own teaching practise. This is explained as an effect of a more democratic approach where their students both take and want a greater impact. The students are bringing their own music to the lessons, music styles that often connect to popular culture. An increased student influence is also constructed as something self-evidently good and is well in line with the idea of a more egalitarian relationship between teachers and students. Under those circumstances teachers find it more difficult to offer resistance and enforce their own ideas. The implication for the lesson content also seems to be rarely problematized and discussed among the teachers. Teachers are often well educated in the area of western classical music and find themselves playing hard rock and the latest hits with their influential students on traditional instruments used in western art music. But what possibilities are offered outside the field of popular music in late modernity? Are those tendencies just an inevitable development in our time or is it time to restore modern ideas in order to save valuable knowledge? Data consists of group conversations with teachers from six schools. All together 27 teachers in music (instrumental teaching), drama, media (photo and film), dance and art were participating. The theoretical and methodological approach is founded in social constructionism and post-structuralistic theory using the combination of discursive psychology and discourse theory. This two-sided approach is considered to be productive as it opens up for both a top-down and a bottom-up perspective.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Utbildningsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Educational Sciences (hsv//eng)

HUMANIORA  -- Konst -- Musik (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Arts -- Music (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

SOCIAL SCIENCES

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP

Pedagogics and Educational Sciences

Pedagogik och Utbildningsvetenskap

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

kon (ämneskategori)