Some direction: towards a C21 secondary school curriculum

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this third and final paper from the Delphi study One Direction, we report on participants’ responses to four secondary school music curriculum scenarios. These scenarios present four possible directions for a C21 secondary school music curriculum. The scenarios were devised from a combination of ideas derived from the data from the earlier stages of the study (McPhail, G., and J. McNeill. 2019. “One Direction: A Future for Secondary School Music Education?” Music Education Research 21 (4): 359–370; McNeill, J., and G. McPhail. 2020. “One Direction: Strategic challenges for Twenty-first Century Secondary School Music.” Music Education Research 22 (4): 432–446) and the concept of specialisation from Maton’s Legitimation Code Theory. By asking an international panel of leading music education researchers and teachers to respond to the scenarios, we are able to argue that ‘one direction’ is unlikely to emerge for secondary school music education, but we discuss the responses, and the scenario dimensions regarded as most likely and desirable. What appears certain is that there will be a continuing weakening of the boundaries between types of knowledge and stylistic arenas suggesting a dialectic relationship between the legitimating principles most valued.