Music education in South Africa schools : exploring teacher's experiences in the teaching of traditional African music.
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Date
2016
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Abstract
Music plays a significant role in most African people’s lives and culture. In South Africa music reflects the country’s diversity in terms of population, culture, religion and identities. For this reason I argue that music education is crucial, placing teachers at the centre as primary role-players in the assimilation and implementing of knowledge to learners. This interpretive qualitative study adopted the curriculum spider- web (Van den Akker, 2003) as a conceptual framework to explore teachers’ experiences in the teaching of traditional African music in South African schools. Five educators were purposely selected in the schools from three circuits that are under Pinetown district because it was convenient, as the researcher is also an educator teaching in one the schools under Pinetown district. Therefore this study explores the experiences of teachers’ in the teaching of traditional African music in the Senior Phase of GET and seeks to find out if the teachers are following the Department of Education’s (DoE) policy statement about the inclusion of all cultures with their traditional African music in the classroom. Data gathered was generated using one on one semi-structured interviews questions that were formulated using the ten components of the curriculum spider- web. Tesch’s (1990) thematic analysis was used to discuss the data that was generated. The findings of this study indicated that traditional African music is not included in the schools curricula and western music dominates the curriculum. Therefore, this study intends to promote equal implementation of music in all schools, and for all learners to be aware of traditional African music and its traditions in all South African schools.
Description
Master of Education in Curriculum Studies. University of KwaZulu- Natal, Durban 2016.
Keywords
Music - Instruction and Study., Music in Education., Music - Social Aspects., Theses - Education.