Music Education as Investment in Cultural Capital

Abstract

The purpose of this article was to investigate how Swedish 12-13- year-olds use music in their daily lives and engage in optional music education as offered by municipal music schools. The main issue concerns how the sociocultural and musical background of parents relates to their childrens' musical activities? Interviews were used as the data collection method. The participants were divided into three main groups: those studying at the municipal music school (n=90), those who had previously studied but had dropped out (n=147), and those who had never studied music (n=132). The questions concerned: parents' musical interest, music activities of siblings, pupils' career aspirations, pupils' likes and dislikes of music, pupils choice of instruments, and other recreational activities outside of music. Results show that the way children use music and music education depends on both sociocultural and musical background. Pierre Bourdieu's cultural capital theory was applied to the study in order to interpret and explain the results.

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