Teachers' perceptions of declining participation in school music

Abstract

Low enrolment and high attrition rates are pressing issues facing school music in Australia. Based on a sociocognitive perspective, the current study explored music teachers’ perceptions of the extent of, reasons for, and factors influencing continuing enrolment in music. The findings showed that both classroom and instrumental music teachers perceived a general decline in student enrolment in music in high school. However, instrumental teachers perceived that relatively higher percentages of students tended to continue with instrumental music. Music teachers ranked the importance of various cognitive and social factors relevant to students’ continuing and discontinuing participation in music learning in school. Regression analyses showed that parental support and a quality music programme were significant factors predicting teachers’ perceptions of student persistence levels in instrumental and classroom music respectively. The paper ends with a discussion on the development of reformative music pedagogy.