Music teachers’ perspectives on their chances to disrupt cultural and social reproduction in the Swedish Community Schools of Music and Arts

Abstract

This study sheds light on music teachers’ perspectives on their chances to disrupt cultural and social reproduction in music education in the Swedish Community Schools of Music and Arts (kulturskolor, sing. kulturskola). Focus group conversations were carried out involving 18 teachers at five such schools. As a point of departure, the analysis of the conversations applied the theoretical perspective of Bourdieu with an emphasis on the concepts explicit versus implicit pedagogy and Bernstein’s corresponding concepts visible and invisible pedagogy. The analysis discusses explicit versus implicit assumptions interwoven in the teachers’ accounts of their efforts. The teachers describe it as difficult to challenge social structures. Based on marketing efforts vis-á-vis families from immigrant backgrounds, the teachers point to differing understandings of the significance of participation in the programmes. The teachers’ descriptions point to opportunities that stem from efforts to facilitate children taking part in music education in cooperation with compulsory schools, teaching practice habits and more general behaviours, and initiatives to reach parents and children from immigrant backgrounds with information. The descriptions show explicit as well as implicit components, often in terms of implicit assumptions embedded in an explicit framing. Reflection upon implicit assumptions is suggested as a means to develop more radical strategies to disrupt cultural and social reproduction in the Swedish kulturskolor.