Technologies such as YouTube, mobile phones and MP3 players are increasingly integrated into secondary school music in the UK. At the same time, the gap between formal and informal music learning is being bridged by the incorporation of students' preferred music into class activities. We conducted an ethnographic study in two secondary…

The guitar has a high value in cultural capital and we are immersed in a culture in which the guitar is the predominant vehicle of music-making. Given the guitar's mass popularity, it follows that the guitar-learning community is vast and diverse. Subscribing to the social model of disability, I problematise the guitar as being disabled and…

The purpose of this critical ethnography was to investigate how music educators can approach the development of students' music listening abilities democratically in order to deepen students' musical understandings and, by teaching through music, create pathways for student-teacher transactions that are inclusive, educative, ethical and…

Social activism and education have been associated with hip-hop since it emerged in New York City 38 years ago. Therefore, it might not be surprising that universities have become interested in hip-hop. This article aims to highlight this "hip-hop academisation" and analyse the discursive mechanisms that manifest in these academisation…

In a recent article, "Sttepping in the right direction? Western classical music in an orchestral programme for disadvantaged African youth," "sttepping" was noted as no spelling error. The same applies here; reference is to STTEP Music School, an outreach project at the University of Pretoria. STTEP teaches the playing of orchestral instruments,…

This paper draws on the metaphor of "workplace landscape" to highlight the role of institutional values, evidenced within a Greek University Music Department and a Music Conservatoire, in the construction of musical performance teachers' professional identity. Underpinned by a social constructionist framework and within an ethnographic case study…

In this ethnographic study, the musical behaviours of 28 primary school children in Singapore were examined for their meaning and diversity as they engaged in the school day. A large part of these children's musical behaviours stemmed from their exposure to the mass media. Children's musical inventions emerged in the context of play, occasionally…