Teaching Boys Music in the First Year of Secondary School: Discerning and Improving Attitudes of Young Male Students to Singing and Learning in Classroom Music

Abstract

Teenage boys in the first year of secondary school were interviewed about their Kodaly influenced, voice based classroom music course with a view to improving the subject offering in terms of educational efficacy and popularity at the site of the research. Discourse analysis of the interview transcripts revealed that the singing aspect of the course was not as unpopular with the students as some research predicted. Indeed, the boys enjoyed singing and playing instruments. They enjoyed the cognitive challenge of rigorous music education. The discourse analysis revealed that identity creation and friendship building in the first year of secondary schooling was more important to the students than the researcher had expected. Students enjoyed learning music by making music and advocated for more opportunities for paired and small group music making to have more opportunities to make friends, to learn about each other and to negotiate and construct their identities. The course was developed in line with the findings of the initial interviews in an action research framework. The study found that asking students about their learning and interrogating thoroughly what they say can assist in matching pedagogy to student needs. It found that practitioners should adopt a site and child specific, rather than a one size fits all approach when applying pedagogical practices.