Playing the Field: An Australian Case Study of Student Popular Musicians’ Informal Learning in Senior Secondary Classroom Music Education

Abstract

This thesis explores the field of classroom music education in order to foreground the learning experiences of student popular musicians. The Australian, New South Wales (NSW) context is well able to contribute to the global discussion that is underway in popular music education, as senior secondary curriculum here acknowledges the inclusion of students with “informal learning” backgrounds. Over the past decade, research globally has sought to qualify the nature of informal learning, and develop classroom pedagogies relevant to the study of popular music. Utilising these as a starting point, this thesis examines the relationship between these students’ informal learning and the dynamics of the formal classroom. Research was undertaken on three levels: historical, through an investigation of curriculum documents, reforms and matriculation trends; empirical, through a classroom research project exploring a range of informal and formal tasks; and theoretical, via an overarching explanatory tool known as Legitimation Code Theory (LCT). The research revealed that NSW curricular pathways and classroom pedagogies employed result in the maintenance of a ‘code’ distinction: cultivating traditional knowledge and skills for WAM, but not providing adequate knowledge-building opportunities for student popular musicians. Considering the range of cross-genre music-making evident in the study, and the delineation of a spectrum of knowledge and skills spanning code distinctions, findings highlight the need for a re-evaluation of NSW curriculum and pedagogy, with implications beyond the specificities of the case. A recognition and theorisation of the relationship between different forms of musical knowledge across the informal-formal range is believed to be key to providing both socially relevant, and epistemically challenging classroom music education inclusive of all students in the future.