A framework of music literacy based on the experiences of KS2 children, and their teachers, when music making in various outdoor, rural locations

<p>This thesis investigates the experiences of Key Stage 2 children, aged 7-11 years old, when making</p> <p>music in outdoor rural locations. A framework of music literacy is constructed using analysis of the</p> <p>data obtained from interviews with the children and their teachers, together with and observations</p> <p>from the researcher. The social-constructivist view of literacy (Lankshear and Lawler, 1987,</p> <p>Lankshear and Knobel, 2011, Lambirth, 2011, Gee, 2014), that sees literacy as a social practice, is</p> <p>the theoretical underpinning of this model. Within this perspective, literacy is “expressive fluency</p> <p>through symbolic form” (Barton, 2014, p.289) and therefore there is no one singular definition of</p> <p>literacy. Furthermore, literacy is viewed as being transformational (Freire, 1996), creative and</p> <p>something that is enacted. Moreover, the object for the purposes of our exploration into music</p> <p>literacies is not a pure noun, ‘music’, but rather conforms to Small’s (1996) concept of</p> <p>‘musicking’, which is a gerund. Music here is viewed as a verb, ‘to music’, as music, like literacy, is</p> <p>something that people do.</p> <p>Interpretivism was the paradigm within which this research study operated. The analysis aimed to</p> <p>interpret the experiences of those that participated in the investigation. The study adopted a</p> <p>grounded approach (Charmaz, 2017) whereby the theorising was led by the data collection and</p> <p>analysis. The investigation began by exploring children’s experiences of making music at a</p> <p>prehistoric site, because previous research seemed to show that these sites had provided the children</p> <p>with rich music-making opportunities. Subsequent research and data analysis indicated that it was</p> <p>the outdoor rural nature of the location, rather than its prehistoric connection, that was having a</p> <p>significant impact on the children’s experiences (Adams and Beauchamp, 2018). Therefore, further</p> <p>data collection focussed on children’s experiences in outdoor rural locations rather than at</p> <p>prehistoric sites.</p> <p>Analysis of the data revealed that the children experienced a heightened connectivity to nature</p> <p>while making music in the outdoor rural environment. Their music-making in these environments</p> <p>had also created a sense of freedom; a heightened sensual experience; and had enabled an</p> <p>augmented ‘life of feeling’, an affective and imaginative experience. These three categories</p> <p>(freedom, senses, life of feeling) are not discrete as the data show that they overlapped. Most</p> <p>significantly, the data consistently show that these categories had allowed the children to experience</p> <p>an unusual state of mind, an experience of ‘flow’ (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990) that included a liminal</p> <p>(Turner, 1969) state or change in consciousness. This change in consciousness in turn had led to a</p> <p>feeling of transcendence, or what could be called a peak experience (Maslow, 1970), ecstasy (Laski,</p> <p>1961) or communitas (Turner, 1974). During these transcendent or optimal experiences, the</p> <p>children reported feeling an increased sense of wellbeing feeling more complete, calm and</p> <p>focussed. These experiences are also related to conceptions of spirituality, (Best and Kahn, 1996;</p> <p>Hay and Nye, 2006; Schein, 2018) and Buber’s (1970) philosophy of dialogue.</p> <p>It is hoped that the framework of music literacy provides useful insight into children’s experiences</p> <p>of music-making. In addition, the findings provide evidence for the benefits of making music</p> <p>outdoors in rural environments. Combining music-making with being surrounded by nature seems</p> <p>to have resulted in the children feeling an enhanced sense of interrelatedness with nature and having</p> <p>optimal experiences. The analysis suggests that these optimal experiences are akin to what might be</p> <p>described as spiritual moments (Schein, 2018). These findings could be of significance for</p> <p>increased understanding of children’s spiritual development and the impact music-making can have</p> <p>on children’s holistic development and wellbeing.</p>