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A ‘fourth moment’ for music education? A response to Chris Philpott's sociological critique of music curriculum change

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 July 2015

Graham McPhail
Graham McPhail*
Affiliation:
School of Curriculum and Pedagogy, The University of Auckland, Faculty of Education, Private Bag 92601, Symonds St, Auckland 1150, New Zealandg.mcphail@auckland.ac.nz
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Abstract

The catalyst for this paper is the ongoing debate concerning formal and informal approaches to pedagogy within the music education literature. I utilise a chapter by Philpott (2010) as a means to continue discussion about the apparent dialectic between formal and informal approaches to music learning and the case Philpott raises for radical change in ‘three moments’ of music education history. In engaging with the concerns in Philpott's chapter I also seek to bring to a wider audience the ideas developed by a group of sociologists of education who draw on the work of Basil Bernstein (2000) and critical realism (Moore, 2013) to argue for a realist theory of knowledge. I utilise these social realist ideas as a means to engage with the theme of access to what Michael F.D. Young has recently termed ‘powerful knowledge’ (Young, 2012). As Bernstein (2000) suggests we must have an understanding of the recontextualising principles that come into play whenever the classification of knowledge undergoes change, as ideologies shift and change. I argue for a balance between powerful forms of pedagogy and powerful forms of knowledge based on an awareness of the essentially differentiated nature of knowledge.

Type
Research Article
Information
British Journal of Music Education , Volume 33 , Issue 1 , March 2016 , pp. 43 - 59
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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