Music as pedagogic discourse: An ethnographic case study of one Year 9 class of pupils and their music teacher in a South Wales secondary school.

<p> </p> <p>This thesis seeks to examine the nature of pedagogic discourse in Music and its</p> <p>relationship to pupils' inclinations to persevere with it as a subject after Key Stage 3. An</p> <p>ethnographic case-study was conducted in one South Wales secondary school, referred</p> <p>to as Aberquaver High School, focusing on one class of Year 9 pupils, 9C, and their</p> <p>music teacher, Mrs- Metronome. It reflects my experience of entering the study as a</p> <p>music professional and teacher educator and leaving it with a commitment to the</p> <p>necessity to work from appropriate theory, in this case that of Bernstein and,</p> <p>subsidiarilly, Bourdieu, through adequate empirical means. In seeking to understand 9C</p> <p>pupils' intentions to carry on with Music at Key Stage 4, a conceptual apparatus was</p> <p>required with reach that carried from consideration of how knowledge and policy in the</p> <p>primary context originates and was shaped or recontextualised through a variety of</p> <p>offìcial and pedagogic agencies so that it became the text, in this case the programme of</p> <p>study that constitutes Key Stage 3 National Curriculum Music, from which schools and</p> <p>teachers, including Aberquaver and Mrs Metronome, read.</p> <p>Specifically, this study attempts to 'stretch' the boundary between recontextualisation</p> <p>and reproduction, suggesting that there is no sharp line between those who shape</p> <p>subjects and deliver them. Mrs Metronome allowed, as teachers are by schools in our</p> <p>system, to impose her own judgements on her small department's work, brought a</p> <p>professional dynamic to its pedagogy that could not simply be 'read' from officially</p> <p>required Music in Wales. A product of Western Art Music tradition and teacher</p> <p>education, she valued other musics. Constrained by school organisational imperatives,</p> <p>themselves upshots of National Curriculum and assessment requirements, particularly</p> <p>as to time, her long service, personal acumen and subject success had allowed her to</p> <p>accumulate relative resource riches in terms of instruments and ICT facilities- These</p> <p>were the basis for her characteristic rejigging of more conventional group based</p> <p>classroom music, coupled with the ability and desire to imbue each pupil with</p> <p>instrumental skills in a pedagogy strongly centred on music performance and its</p> <p>evaluation. Such an approach still appeared to have differential gender and social class</p> <p>effects in a prevailing peer and wider cultural climate of popular and other non classical</p> <p>musical forms. Despite the variety of musical genres included in her curriculum and her</p> <p>department's resource wealth, for some pupils, particularly boys, it was not sufficiently</p> <p>'real music', especially for those denied access to 'real' instruments. Though most young</p> <p>people avow the importance of music to their lives, in a prevailing climate of the</p> <p>'usefulness' and vocational sígnificance of school subjects, its choice as a Key Stage 4</p> <p>subject, here and elsewhere, tend to be further constrained by the limits of school option</p> <p>choice systems. Nonetheless, Music at Aberquaver still managed to engage</p> <p>disproportionate numbers across the ability range at GCSE in comparíson with other</p> <p>Welsh secondaries and achieve good standards. It is argued that these were a function</p> <p>of Mrs Metronome's recontextualised pedagogic discourse and practice.</p> <p>Policy is a complex series of events and understandings in need of theoretical</p> <p>elaboration rather than evaluation tinged, evidence base that is about rather than for</p> <p>policy change and implementation. The study contains messages for teaching</p> <p>colleagues, school administrators, teacher educators and other conventionally defined</p> <p>offìcial and pedagogic recontextualisers, as well as national policy makers, about what</p> <p>makes better Music that more pupils wish to persevere with for longer. Further research</p> <p>is, however, required to extend the scope of the present study and examine the</p> <p>transferability of the findings to other locations.</p>