Since the introduction of a National Curriculum in England in 1988 generalist teachers in primary schools have been expected to be able to teach music to their classes. Teachers have frequently experienced major and sometimes disabling problems in this aspect of their teaching, which neither initial teacher education nor continuing professional development have been able to overcome. A model of the teacher in the music classroom was used to structure an exploration of teachers' perceptions of their working context in relation to music. The model proposes that the teacher's context is socially constructed and of a complex nature. Within the classroom the teacher operates in a variety of roles, each of which interacts with aspects of the contextual structure. Case studies of four teachers uncovered high emotional engagement with the professional environment and its musical dimensions and suggested that teachers perceive three particular areas of difficulty when teaching music. The content of the National Curriculum for Music is problematic; self-perceived non-musicians found both the language and the content to be daunting, and those with some musical knowledge encountered difficulties in relating the National Curriculum to their own musical experience. The teachers all regarded themselves as confident and successful generalist primary teachers, but experienced varying degrees of discomfort and distress caused by the disjunction between this image of success and perceived failures in the field of music. Thirdly, the teachers felt themselves to have limited relationships with groups or communities of practice which they believed could enable them in their music teaching. In the light of these findings the original model was refined to indicate the perceived problematic links between the teachers and their practice in curricular music. The thesis argues that if generalist teachers are to be enabled in music all three disjunctions must be acknowledged and overcome.

Adults self-labelling as 'non-singers' (`NS') appear to be an ubiquitous phenomenon. Whilst the literature yields rich evidence about children's impeded singing development, it is sparse concerning adult 'non-singers'. This Newfoundland-based study sought explanations about childhood-attributed adult 'non-singers', and how such self-perception had affected their lives from personal and socio-cultural perspectives. The study proceeded in two connected, consecutive phases. Phase I comprised case-studies of nine self-attributed 'NS', including group discourse and empirical measures of individual singing ability. Phase I evidence informed a survey instrument, (Phase II), administered to a wider cross-section of the public (neither pre-designated as singers or `non-singers'). This survey sought to identify experiences, self-concepts and perceptions about singing for possible wider applicability of Phase I findings. An autobiographical, socially-located and developmental view of singing emerged. Festinger's (1957) 'cognitive dissonance' theory elucidated non-singers' homeostatic attributional accommodations. Dweck's (1998) 'self-theories of intelligence' (entity/incremental) helped illuminate understanding of their non-singing experience. Weiner's (1986) 'attributional' theory provided causal and consequential insight into their management of their non-singing reality and Bronfenbrenner's (1979) 'ecological theory of human development' contextualized the sociocultural nature of the non-singing phenomenon. Case-study data revealed common childhood experiential profiles which influenced participants' identity formation as 'non-singers', with ensuing lifelong personal and sociallydetrimental effects. A shared profile also emerged in participant-evolved strategies to ameliorate these negative effects. Nevertheless, participants' empirically-assessed singing behaviour exceeded their own self-predicted ratings. Survey data confirmed case-study findings. Other key survey findings were: non-singing is a common, well-established phenomenon in Newfoundland; teachers/schools appeared as foremost attributional factors in non-singing designations; instructional intervention/facilitation for non-singing was lacking or absent; and a majority of participants favoured a 'developmental' view of 'non-singers', but projected a 'fixed' view in others. Findings recommend further research regarding teachers' preparation/support in developmental singing pedagogy, singing education practice, child/adult 'non-singers' and societal views on 'NS'.

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The purpose of this study was to understand the relationship between the physical space and the creative process of people engaging in artistic practices – namely the art production triad. Moreover, the study sought to elicit what meanings artists and art students attach to the space or environment in which they work. Furthermore, this research explored how the affordance of a space might contribute to the creative process of artists and art students. The study adopted a qualitative approach. It analysed seven in-depth interviews with artists, as well as informal conversations with, and observation of, a group of art students at secondary level, which spanned over four weeks. In addition, plan drawings obtained from the students were also analysed. This research has reaffirmed that the art production triad bears complexity and that many different processes are at play simultaneously. Nonetheless, a number of findings have shown that the affordance of space contributes to the creative process of people engaging in art practices. This was particularly observed during the 'doing’ phase of the artistic process. The ‘thinking’ phase seems to draw more on external spaces and locations. Furthermore, understanding the notion of encountering might yield important benefits for the creative process. The art production triad is assumed to comprise an interplay of different elements performing concurrently, such as: materials and tools; the artist’s own performance; tacit knowledge; and the physical aspect of studios. Building on existing literature, this research has located the need for policy makers, school leaders and educators to recognise and better grasp the potential of art rooms and art spaces. KEY WORDS: space, place, creativity, artistic practice, inspiration, material thinking, affordance, experience.

In art and design education creative practice, being an artist or designer, is seen as central to what and how students learn. The use of practitioners to teach is viewed as an indicator of a quality experience on one hand and a source of anxiety on the other. Doubts have been expressed about whether practitioners actually enable students to learn about practice. However, very little is known about how transitions between practice and teaching are made. This study sets out to explore the experience of this relationship from practitioner tutor’s perspectives. A phenomenographic enquiry approach is used to construe variation in experiencing practice/ teaching relations. This is extended by case studies representing the phenomenographic categories, where activity theory is used as a heuristic device to examine the different relations experienced by practitioner tutors. These relations can be experienced as symmetrical, asymmetrical or holistic, and practice knowledge is experienced in different ways in teaching: transferring, using, exchanging or eliding knowledge between practice and teaching. Thus there are different ways that practitioner tutors report making knowledge available to students, leading to different kinds of learning experience. The contextual factors, including individual histories of development and the experience of the two worlds of practice and teaching may also hinder development of tutors by institutions. Although art and design as a broad discipline is the focus of this study there may be differences within it, but also resonance for other practice based discipline subjects.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the evolution of art educational institutions in Quebec and Ontario between 1876 and the First World War. This study reveals that for the 'Canadian' art student during this period (1876-1914) drawing and art education was limited to a few art schools that had been modelled upon the British South Kensington system and its method of drawing instruction. Documented sources of private and public art schools indicate that an awareness of and written communication with the South Kensington art educational authorities existed prior to 1876; however, it was not until 1876 that a standardized system of drawing instruction was adopted by Quebec and Ontario provincial government post-secondary art schools, as well as, primary and secondary public day schools, and evening classes. The catalyst for the adoption of a system of drawing, which would meet the needs of an emerging industrial Canada, was primarily due to British-born Walter Smith (1836-1886). Both Quebec and Ontario sent educational delegations to the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition and were impressed, as were others, with the exhibits of art students from Massachusetts, who, since 1871, had followed the Walter Smith system of drawing instruction, that was inspired by its British prototype, the South Kensington system. Smith was a graduate of and former teacher in the South Kensington system, whose ideas on art and its close relationship to industry conformed to the utilitarian philosophy promoted by the South Kensington art educators. To evaluate the extent of the South Kensington influence in Ontario and Quebec at the provincial government art schools and at the Art Association of Montreal, Quebec, I have used six determinants: <i>curriculum</i>, drawing instruction, models and teaching <i>apparati</i>, staff, the operation and administration of the system, and the writings of four art educators who had longstanding affiliations and influence with art schools. In Ontario, George A. Reid (1860-1947) and William Cruikshank (1848-1922); in Quebec, Edmond Dyonnet (1859-1934) at the Council art school, Montreal and William Brymner (1855-1925) at the A.A.M. The writings of two other Quebec art educators, abbe Joseph Chabert (1832-1894) and Napoleon Bourassa (1827-1916) have been examined for their contribution.

This research contributes to the current debate about the need to redefine the goals and content of art education. The aim was to establish whether or not visual culture should be introduced into the school curriculum at primary level in Greece and if so how. It began with a review of international literature conducted to determine the current state of knowledge about visual culture education and an analysis of recent reforms to the Greek art curriculum. This led to the development of a theoretical framework for the empirical research in Greece and a working definition of visual culture education. The research had two parts. In the first part, the researcher conducted group interviews with Greek children, aged between 6 and 12, for the purposes of establishing their preferences for visual culture genres and their understanding of everyday images as a learning resource. The findings were that these children were aware that they lived in and interacted with visual images in the real world; they preferred looking at television imagery, but did not fully comprehend how they influenced their identity construction. In the second part, the researcher introduced visual culture education content and methods into art lessons in Greece. She conducted an educational intervention in two primary school classrooms over a period of five weeks using an experimental curriculum entitled ‘Deconstructing Television Imagery’. The evaluation found that the curriculum focus on telenovelas and Barbie animated films motivated learners to participate in art lessons and extended their understanding of these visual culture genres and how they impact on viewers’ lives. A conclusion reached at the end of the research was that the primary school curriculum in Greece should include visual culture. Visual culture education should take into account the particularities of Greek students’ visual experiences and of Greek art education and culture. Consequently it should include fine arts, mass media and material culture, performing arts and the arts of spectacle. It would benefit from being interdisciplinary and embracing principles of critical pedagogy.

The present study asks how musicians who have learned outside the classical tradition teach others to play. A group of eight instrumental teachers were studied, all of whom grew up playing ‘popular', vernacular styles of music. While most of them had at least some experience of being taught classical music, they spent their formative years committed to largely self-directed learning, acquiring the skills they needed in order to play the styles that appealed to them at the time: namely rock, blues, jazz or folk. The teachers were interviewed about their learning histories and their teaching practice, and were filmed teaching a total of eleven students. There was a wide range of instrumental teaching strategies in evidence, from the orthodox teaching of classical music to lessons based entirely on listening and copying. However, in exploring the relationship between how this group learned to play and how they teach others to play, it was evident that they were not ‘teaching as they were taught', nor were they necessarily re-creating their own ‘informal' learning practices. Rather they were creating their own idiosyncratic teaching strategies, drawing on those elements of their own learning histories which they valued, and supplementing these with aspects of musical learning which they felt they had missed out on; in short, they were attempting to teach as they would have wanted to be taught themselves. Their teaching practice, and their sense of identity, was strongly influenced both by the economic realities of trying to survive as musicians, and by the nature of their students, who were generally viewed as relatively unmotivated. The study addresses an under-researched area of music teaching, and the findings are relevant to course designers, syllabus consultants and instrumental teachers generally, as well as music education researchers, in particular those interested in popular music and informal learning.

This research is concerned with how policy becomes practice. It examines the ways by which a policy is reshaped through its encounter with people, architecture and facilities, documents and specific realisations in art projects. In particular, it is concerned with how a left-wing arts education policy, one that aimed to emancipate disadvantaged people, worked in practice – including how it sometimes ended up running counter to its stated aims. The policies that are followed here were first devised by the Leftist government in Mexico City between 1997 and 2000, and then expanded through various revisions and new policies in the following years. As part of the initial policy, an arts organisation, Faro de Oriente – Lighthouse of the Orient – was constructed in a deprived area in the East of Mexico City to give ‘access’ to ‘arts’ and opportunities for ‘creativity’ for the local population. This thesis provides an in-depth study of how this specific arts policy was experienced on the ground between 2011-12 by the various participants in FARO –permanent staff, temporary teaching staff and also students who participated in arts workshops. Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork, including participant observation, interviews, archival research, and photographic documentation, the thesis charts the ways in which particular aspects of the policy were mobilised and to what ends, and how these were reshaped through practice. This thesis highlights the significance not only of intentional actions by people but also of implements of work, such as the architecture of the FARO main building and its physical condition, the role of teaching staff and artistic projects. Inspired by actor-network and assemblage theory which emphasise the interactions of human with non-human actors and processes that shape entities, the thesis maintains that a policy concerning arts education and creativity refers to the processes, practices and meanings of creativity that participants produce at FARO through everyday practice. A policy is an unfinished social process shaped by technical concepts, materialities, implements and reshaped through the practices of participants. Empirically, this research provides understanding of the everyday dynamics inside FARO, highlighting contradictions and ambiguities for the experience of students. This thesis contributes to debates suttounding policy and creativity through the processes of the everyday life in an arts organisation.

No description available.