One direction: a future for secondary school music education?

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis paper reports on the first stage of an international study addressing the future of secondary school music education. Some music educators have asked if school is the right place for music education, and the music education literature continually calls music curricula and pedagogy to account for its apparent shortcomings, while contemporary education literature criticises education generally for its lack of responsiveness to our changing world. Within this discursive context this study adopts the Delphi method, creating a ‘virtual’ panel of internationally drawn experts, to collectively consider secondary school music’s apparent direction. We utilise concepts from Legitimation Code Theory to frame initial findings from interviewing nine leading music education experts about their current concerns and their vision for secondary school music. The variety of responses in relation to purpose, knowledge, pedagogy, and structures suggest fundamental tensions in conceptualising secondary school music education’s direction and future.