Psychosocial factors influencing participation in school music : the case of a typical former model C boys' high school in Durban, South Africa.

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.