Psychosocial factors influencing participation in school music : the case of a typical former model C boys' high school in Durban, South Africa.
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Date
2009
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Abstract
This short dissertation presents a case study of eleven students from a typical former 'Model
C' single sex high school in Durban South Africa. At the time of the study, 2006, these were
the only students who were actively availing themselves of the school's limited opportunities
for studying and making music. The school, which shall remain anonymous, is shown to
typify a psychosocial environment that is at best indifferent to active musical participation
and, at worse, hostile to it. The study investigates how the attitudes towards, and the
perceptions of, music involvement at the school emerge as stereotypical ways of thinking
that are counter to the interests of its learners.
This case study, supported by two questionnaires completed by peers and parents, and
informed by the researcher's experience teaching Music at the school, generated conclusions
from which explanations for the general reluctance of adolescent males to engage in specific
kinds of school-based musical activities have been attempted. Informing the analysis and
interpretation of the data is Erik Erikson's Theory of Psychosocial Development as it
pertains to the psychosocial characteristics of adolescent males and provides an explanation
as to the extent to which social environments can influence the individual.
A close reading of the subjects' responses helps in the articulation of the generally unspoken
assumptions of 'muscular Christianity', the Victorian ethos that continues to dominate in
schools such as the one that formed the focus of this study, and which is still pervasive in
many if not most South African schools.
Description
Thesis (M.Mus.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2009.
Keywords
School music--Instruction and study--KwaZulu-Natal--Durban., Gender identity in education., Gender identity in music., Theses--Music.