A phenomenological study of music teachers' approaches to inclusive education practices among disaffected youth

Abstract

The drive for `inclusion' has become a prominent feature in UK educational policy agendas and school improvement programmes. The term refers to all children achieving and participating despite challenges stemming from poverty, class, race, religion, linguistic and cultural heritage or gender. While much has been written about inclusion, evidence on how teachers perceive inclusive education practices among young people who are disengaged from learning and educational opportunity (as manifested by non-attendance or under-achievement at school) has been less thoroughly explored. This multiple case study draws on research on secondary school music teachers in `poorly performing', so-called `under-achieving' schools, including three comprehensive secondary schools in the east and south-east regions of England. It reports on what it is that three music teachers can tell us about their beliefs and approaches to inclusive teaching and learning in their pedagogical settings. A phenomenological approach utilizing semi-structured interview was employed to explore music teachers' perceptions of what it is that they think they do in responding to and overcoming the challenge of re-engaging disaffected youth — their perceptions of their own inclusive pedagogic practices. In order to explore the teachers' perceptions further, some artefact prompts in interviews, such as curriculum planning documents, were employed to provide an opportunity to discuss key factors concerning the content of the music courses. The findings emphasize that, for these teachers, inclusive pedagogies involve more than the accumulation of teaching strategies employed by teachers for supporting troubled and troublesome learners. These teachers' pedagogies are informed largely by particular views of music, views of musical learning and learners, views of the kind of knowledge that is created and the educational outcomes that are desired in overcoming the particular challenges of attuning to and re-engaging disaffected learners. Inclusive pedagogic practices in this study were foregrounded and framed by attuning to and re-engaging disaffected learners by: (a) democratizing music learning as social practice; (b) foregrounding high-status creative projects; and (c) using digital technology as pedagogic levers for re-engaging learners. The emergent themes provide a preliminary basis for theorizing about the role of music education in the schooling of disaffected youth.