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Gibbs‐Singh, Cheynne (2018) World Music in the British Secondary School. PhD thesis. SOAS University of London. http://eprints.soas.ac.uk/30251 Copyright © and Moral Rights for this thesis are retained by the author and/or other copyright owners. A copy can be downloaded for personal non‐commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the copyright holder/s. The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. When referring to this thesis, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given e.g. AUTHOR (year of submission) "Full thesis title", name of the School or Department, PhD Thesis, pagination. World Music in the British Secondary School CHEYNNE GIBBS-SINGH Thesis submitted for the degree of PhD 2018 Department of Music SOAS, University of London 1 Acknowledgements I would like to thank both of my supervisors, Professor Keith Howard at SOAS and Professor Graham Welch at The Institute of Education UCL, for their guidance and patience throughout this PhD. I would also like to thank my family for their unending support. 3 Abstract World music has enjoyed increasing representation in the National Curriculum up to Key Stage 3. At the same time, music in higher education in the UK is becoming increasingly diverse, with degrees in popular music, world music and jazz becoming more commonplace. This, alongside the growing diversity of the population, supports arguments for introducing and maintaining a diverse music curriculum, particularly one that includes world music, throughout secondary education. The importance of world music in education has been advocated both in the UK (e.g. Wiggins (1996), Stock (1991)) and in other parts of the western world (Campbell (2007) and Fung (1995) in the USA, Drummond (2005) in New Zealand, Schippers (2012) in Holland). However, post-16 music syllabi have remained noticeably narrow in focus: the music A level continues to be dominated by the Western classical music tradition, whilst the BTEC is rooted largely in Western popular music, despite adopting a more flexible approach. Both have recently been revised, and this thesis examines the current status quo regarding diversity in the secondary music classroom, pinpointing some of the challenges and successes of delivering a multicultural music education. It focuses on seven contrasting schools in south-east England. By examining the relationships these schools have with world music, specifically within their post-16 provision, this research examines individual responses towards musical diversity as well as the themes that emerge from these across the subject. These themes include: the exclusivity of Western classical and Western popular music; whether breadth of study or depth of understanding is more valued in classrooms; how teacher attitudes towards world music influences the curriculum content as well as student attitudes; challenges in teaching and learning world music; uptake and engagement; diverse music in non-diverse areas; and the desire for more diversity in the curriculum. 4 Table of Contents Section 1: Introduction and outline of research 1. Introduction…9 1.1 Rationale…9 1.2 Aims…14 2. Literature Review…17 2.1 What is world music?...18 2.2 Arguments for diversity in music education...20 2.3 World music pedagogies…22 2.4 Multicultural education…27 2.5 Music in the National Curriculum…39 2.6 South Asian music in British schools…45 2.7 Conclusion…49 3. Methodology…51 3.1 Case study schools…52 3.1.1 Inner London Schools…54 3.1.2 Outer London Schools…60 3.1.3 Rural Schools…61 3.1.4 Comparisons…64 3.2 Visits, interviews and questionnaires…67 3.3 Conclusion…70 Section 2: Findings A note on the structure of the findings…72 4. The Dominance of Western classical Music in the Music A Level: Hodshill School and Horsecombe Academy…75 4.1 Hodshill School: classical tradition in an urban school…75 4.2 Music at Hodshill School…77 4.3 Horsecombe Academy: updating school traditions in South-East London…83 4.4 Music at Horsecombe Academy…85 5. BTEC – A More Diverse Approach? St Martin’s School, Midford Sixth Form College and Fox Hill College…95 5.1 St Martin’s School and the uillean pipes...96 5.2 Afrobeat and classical musicians’ accounts at Midford Sixth Form College…101 5.3 Fox Hill College: making diversity work on the BTEC course?...106 6. Negotiating Inclusive Music Education in an Urban School: Midford Sixth Form College…108 6.1 Music at Midford Sixth Form College…108 6.2 Engaging South Asian musicians at Midford Sixth Form College – or not…113 5 7. World Music in a Rural Setting: Fox Hill College and Manor Farm School…117 7.1 Fox Hill College…117 7.2 Music at Fox Hill College…118 7.3 Incorporating Chagossian music into the music department identity...122 7.4 Manor Farm School…127 7.5 Music at Manor Farm School…128 8. Comparing two post-16 world music lessons: Cambrook Catholic School and Manor Farm School…132 8.1 Cambrook Catholic School…132 8.2 Son Montuno at Cambrook Catholic School …136 8.3 Gamelan at Manor Farm School…140 8.4 World music lessons in the A level…143 Section 3: Discussions and Conclusions 9. Discussions…147 9.1 Exclusivity in post-16 music…147 9.2 Breadth vs. depth…153 9.3 Teacher’s influence in the classroom…158 9.4 The challenges of teaching and learning world music…165 9.5 Uptake and engagement…173 9.6 Diverse music, non-diverse areas, and democratic classrooms…175 9.7 A call for world music…181 10. Conclusions…190 10.1 What music is happening in (and out) of school?...191 10.2 Does music in schools fit the demographic profile? Should it?...192 10.3 Is world music and diverse musical education valued by teachers and students?...194 10.4 Is the A level/BTEC music exam syllabus broad enough for purpose?...195 10.5 Who is and isn’t studying music? Why?...196 10.6 What challenges does a diverse music curriculum present in the classroom?...196 10.7 Do the academic musical options in post-16 education fit the requirements of post-16 students?...197 10.8 Implications and limitations…199 References…201 Appendix A. Key information for comparison of A level syllabi stylistic content…212 Appendix B. World Music in the British Secondary School – Students’ Questionnaire…215 6 Table of Figures Figure 1: Hourglass representing musical diversity progressing through educational phases… 11 Figure 2: Schippers’ ‘Approaches to cultural diversity’ continuum… 37 Figure 3: Dimensions of deprivation for local areas of case study schools, 0-4… 65 Figure 4: Percentage of population with English as main language for local areas of case study schools… 65 Figure 5: Main ethnic groups, population densities and religions in case study schools… 66 Figure 6: Extract from student questionnaire with total results from Hodshill School written numerically in answer boxes… 81 Figure 7: Extract from student questionnaire with total results from Horsecombe Academy written numerically in answer boxes… 88 Figure 8: Extract from student questionnaire with all answers from Horsecombe Academy… 89 Figure 9: Extract from student questionnaire with total results from Horsecombe Academy written numerically in answer boxes… 89 Figure 10: Extract from student questionnaire with total results for questions 2 and 3 from St Martin’s School, written numerically in answer boxes… 99 Figure 11: Extract from student questionnaire with total results for question 6 from St Martin’s School, written numerically in answer boxes… 99 Figure 12: Extract from student questionnaire with total results for question 6 from Manor Farm School, written numerically in answer boxes… 130 Figure 13: Extract from student questionnaire with total results for question 9 from Manor Farm School, written numerically in answer boxes… 131 Figure 14: Extract from student questionnaire with total results for question 6 from Cambrook Catholic School, written numerically in answer boxes…. 136 Figure 15: Extract from student questionnaire with total results for excerpt of question 6 from all schools… 156 Figure 16: Diagram of framework to examine teacher influence on attitudes towards music in the classroom… 159 Figure 17: Extract from student questionnaire with total results for questions 1, 2 and 3 from all schools… 164 Figure 18: Extract from student questionnaire with total results for excerpt of question 9 from all schools… 182 7 Section 1 Introduction and outline of research 8 Chapter 1 Introduction 1.1 Rationale There has been significant and increasing discourse on the problematic term world music and its role in the classroom both in the UK and in other education systems throughout the world (for example, Small 1996 (originally printed in 1977) on music education in Great Britain; Campbell et al 2005 on a variety of perspectives internationally; Drummond (2005) gives an overview of the arguments for diversification of music education over the last 40 years from a New Zealand perspective). As well as questioning the dominance of Western classical music in the classroom and advocating the diversification of the music curriculum to create greater learning opportunities, there has been speculation that the inclusion of world musics (or at least, a wider variety of music) can increase the accessibility of the music curriculum, particularly in the increasingly multicultural nature of British society (Welch 2002). As a result of this and changing attitudes towards education and world music, the National Curriculum now allows students in the UK the opportunity to explore a wide range of musics across different cultures up until the end of Key Stage 3 (Spruce 2007: 22).

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