This research examines the usefulness of the Curriculum and Standards Framework as the basis for school music education in Victoria. The thesis consists of a folio of four short research tasks and a Dissertation that examine the question in different ways.
The first of the short research tasks uses document and discourse analysis to examine and critique the philosophies of music education and aesthetic education that inform the Curriculum and Standards Framework. The same techniques are used in the second research task to trace the adoption and dissemination of the philosophy of music education as aesthetic education in a range of curriculum documents from around Australia. These two tasks show how centralised curriculum development often produces abstract and impractical goals and strategies.
Research tasks three and four use interview and participant observation with teachers based in one Melbourne secondary school to illuminate the highly contextual nature of teaching practice. The theoretical formulations of learning presented in Victorian curriculum materials and policy documents is contrasted with the practical approaches that teachers take in developing educational programmes. These tasks show how school education is always developed in relation to students and resources and not according to abstract standards.
The Dissertation reports on a major research project with thirty-two experienced music teachers working in the northern metropolitan region of Melbourne. Interviews with both primary and secondary teachers sought to determine the extent to which the Curriculum and Standards Framework had impacted upon their classroom teaching practice. The research was guided by Grounded Theory (Glaser and Strauss 1967) principles and it showed that the Framework and the associated process of centralising curriculum production failed to deliver any measurable gains or changes in music education in schools.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/216983 |
| Date | January 2004 |
| Creators | Blyth, Andrew, mikewood@deakin.edu.au |
| Publisher | Deakin University. School of Social and Cultural Studies in Education |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | http://www.deakin.edu.au/disclaimer.html), Copyright Andrew Blyth |
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