Description
The multi-dimensional nature of music curriculum as perceived and practised in secondary music classrooms is diverse in nature and form. Increasing emphasis on documenting curriculum in regulatory frameworks and school structures, can be challenging for secondary school music, where the nature of music curricula remains difficult to capture in traditional forms. This can result in curricula that are challenging to quantify in wider subject discourse, leading to pedagogical misunderstandings and miscommunications between subject disciplines. Such complexities can create barriers which hinder young people from encountering musical experiences in the classroom, where the validity of musical modalities as approved forms of learning may be questioned by school leaders and policy makers. Secondary school music curricula in England have increasingly been required to meet the needs of young people’s musical development, whilst being realised in school-generated generic curriculum templates. To understand such a phenomenon, this research study explored the co-existence of teacher and policy curricula in the music classroom and considered what this might mean for curriculum purposes in musical spaces. The simultaneous operation of two curriculum purposes with competing aims, can mean that musical learning becomes elusive in the secondary music classroom. Such curriculum dualism is problematic, as curriculum is critical for understanding models of musical progression in schools. The research study consisted of a set of semi-structured interviews with 12 music teachers from across 6 English regions, exploring the nature and substance of music curriculum as realised and practised by music subject leaders. The interview data was subject to three cycles of thematic analysis coding, enabling themes of curriculum control, curriculum purpose, curriculum substance and curriculum as a responsive act to emerge. Interview findings were synthesised into a model of curriculum strata, revealing the nature of unacknowledged competing curricula aims, simultaneously operating in music classrooms, and exploring the implications this has for young people accessing musical learning. Findings reveal the changing nature of curriculum in schools and the implications that this has for music teachers in their development and conceptualisation of curriculum models for their classrooms. Failing to acknowledge such multi-dimensional natures of music curriculum in schools causes difficulties for young people and inhibits their opportunities to access equitable and inclusive musical experiences.| Period | 22 Apr 2025 → 25 Apr 2025 |
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| Held at | Royal College of Music, United Kingdom |
| Degree of Recognition | International |