Access to primary music education in Aotearoa New Zealand

Abstract

Music is a compulsory subject in the New Zealand Curriculum, intended for every child. Despite this, the literature illustrates inconsistent provision and enactment of music education in Aotearoa New Zealand, suggesting that some children are unable to access the full curriculum. While this situation has been attributed to a range of factors, there are significant gaps in the literature, making it difficult to determine how children’s access to music education is enabled and constrained by these factors.

To understand the provision and enactment of music education, case studies were conducted in three different primary and intermediate schools in New Zealand. Informed by critical realism, a range of data collection methods were used, including semi-structured interviews, surveys, focus groups, observations, documents, and field notes. Participants were principals, members of senior leadership teams, generalist, specialist, and itinerant teachers, in addition to private contractors, children and their parents. Data were thematically analysed, revealing the intricacies of how the policy technologies of neoliberalism operate in schools. To understand generative mechanisms that impact children’s access to music education, a deeper layer of analysis was undertaken using Pierre Bourdieu’s (2018) theoretical concepts of capital and habitus. These analytical tools provided the opportunity to carefully examine the intersectionality of neoliberalism and social class.

The findings of this study demonstrate how neoliberalism has reinforced a hierarchy of subjects in the curriculum, which positions music as an extracurricular activity that is either omitted, sidelined, or enacted for social objectives. Participation and success in music education are also informed by social class, with the subject being used as a tool by some parents to advantage their children and develop cultural capital. Nevertheless, this study also revealed that music education is not universally valued by the middle class, thus challenging widely held assumptions about the relationship between music and social class. These findings highlight the importance of context, in particular the role of school structure, teacher agency, and the pressures of managerialism and marketisation. This contributes to a broader understanding of policy enactment, and how the enactment of music education is influenced by the neoliberal policy regime. The study concludes that children are not given equal access to music education and that substantive change needs to occur. Implications are discussed at national and local levels, examining the role of policy alongside the roles of principals, teachers, and parents, all of whom have the agency to make change. Implications for international contexts are also considered, reinforcing the complexity of policy enactment and how children’s access to the full curriculum cannot be solved through policy alone.