Christine Carroll | EXCELSIA COLLEGE (original) (raw)

Published papers by Christine Carroll

Despite decades of curricular reform and moves to incorporate more authentic and inclusive practi... more Despite decades of curricular reform and moves to incorporate more authentic and inclusive practical pedagogies in classrooms, the hegemony of Western art music (hereafter WAM) remains unchallenged at higher levels of study in many school education systems world-wide. As a result, teachers frequently bear the weight of choice: between meeting overriding curricular objectives designed to foster and preserve WAM, or alternatively, providing more palatable educational experiences increasingly aligned to the ‘popular’. This situation has created a gap between the types of instruction offered in different classroom contexts over time, manifesting according to perceived informal – formal, or popular - classical binaries, potentially compounding issues of class and social-reproduction. Yet at the same time, the mechanisms perpetuating such division remain masked in curriculum documents, and as a result can cause confusion in classrooms, where in reality, a spectrum of skills, musical interests and academic abilities rarely fit these dichotomous categories. This chapter exposes the mechanisms perpetuating this situation through a multi-level case study situated within Australian school music education, and through the theoretical lens of Legitimation Code Theory, from the sociology of education.

British Journal of Music Education, 2022

The literature concerning pre-service training in music education for generalist primary or eleme... more The literature concerning pre-service training in music education for generalist primary or elementary school teachers reveals a long-standing problem for teacher educators: low or poor self-efficacy concerning the teaching of classroom music. Concurrently, a critical examination of training programmes has less often featured, with only limited discussion of digital approaches to classroom music-making constituting the focus of empirical research. Through a focused case study in one Australian university, 136 pre-service teachers participated in a face-to-face module of interactive music education which culminated in a peerdirected collaborative digital music-making project. Pre-and post-surveys were implemented with shifts in pre-service teachers' self-efficacy measured according to Bandura's self-efficacy scales. Legitimation Code Theory from the sociology of education then served as an overarching theoretical lens through which to appraise the findings. Despite an enduring self-concept as 'non-musicians', the results highlight positive shifts in self-efficacy through the utilisation of peer-directed digital music-making tasks, with implications for teacher training programmes more broadly situated.

British Journal of Music Education, 2019

This article examines curriculum and practice in Australian secondary classroom music education, ... more This article examines curriculum and practice in Australian secondary classroom music education, in order to trace the inclusion of, and provision for, students with learning orientations based on popular music forms. A 60-year period of curriculum reform, matriculation statistics and literature is surveyed with a focus on the state of New South Wales (NSW), where the ‘non-literate’ student musician was first acknowl- edged in curriculum documents dating from the late 1970s at the senior secondary level (Music Syllabus Year 11 and 12: New 2 Unit A Course. Draft Document). Three overlapping eras frame discussion. The first discusses the original post–World War II school curriculum established for Western art music (WAM); the second discusses the period of curriculum reform beginning in the 1960s and 1970s, which leads to the inclusion of popular music at junior secondary levels; and the third is the present era from roughly 1980 onwards, where separate pathways of instruction are maintained for WAM and students with interests in popular and contemporary musics. Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) from the sociology of education is employed, with analysis unveiling a series of historic code shifts and clashes with implications for present practice. An unveiling of these codes explains the cause of ongoing tensions surrounding the inclusion of popular music and musicians in Australian music classrooms and provides foundation for much-needed curriculum development in the NSW context, and potentially elsewhere, where similar dynamics underpin practice in secondary classrooms.

Research Studies in Music Education, 2019

This article explores the perceived disconnect between informal and formal musical knowledge, thr... more This article explores the perceived disconnect between informal and formal musical knowledge, through a focused case study which aligned students’ informal knowledge with aspects of the formal curriculum. The upper high school or senior secondary student participants had a background in the creation and performance of popular and contemporary music, and already possessed well-developed informal and aural-based learning skills. Using a latter phase of Green’s (2008) informal learning research as a starting point, the students completed two written tasks: a scoring or transcription exercise, and an analysis report using the music “elements” or “concepts” framework of the syllabus. Legitimation Code Theory (LCT), was utilised in the theoretical appraisal of themes emerging from the study. Employing one LCT dimension known as Semantics, which explores the context-dependence and complexity of knowledge, a range of knowledge types were observed. These made visible points of connection and disconnection between the students’ informal knowledge and the formal knowledge required to complete the tasks. The study highlights the limitations of informal knowledge as a sole basis for formal knowledge construction, but equally unveils points of connection between the two, important in informing teacher facilitation, and, much needed in curriculum reform.

Conference Presentations by Christine Carroll

Over the past 60 years classroom music education has undergone significant change, particularly a... more Over the past 60 years classroom music education has undergone significant change, particularly at the senior secondary level. In addition to broadened style focus, a parallel shift has occurred away from the traditional knowledge often associated with the study of Western art music, towards cultivating the knower, both in the focus of syllabus documents and pedagogic orientation. In order to comprehend the impact of this shift, a research project was developed to explore a spectrum of both informal and formal learning and pedagogy. My own classroom served as the research site, where students representing each of the two New South Wales senior secondary music streams were integrated. With an investigation of Baroque music as the content framework, the unit was designed to progress students through three distinct phases that would involve them in different kinds of learning and knowledge exchange. Emerging from recent discourse within the sociology of education, Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) was used in the interpretation of qualitative data. The results reveal that while different kinds of knowers are notionally provided for in recent syllabus additions, access to higher levels of knowledge is currently reserved for students displaying an elite code, that is, for specialised kinds of knowers with specialised

Thesis Chapters by Christine Carroll

Over the past decade, research has sought to qualify the nature of informal music learning, and develop classroom pedagogies that are believed to be more relevant to the study of popular music. Utilising these as a starting point, this thesis examines the complex relationship between such students’ informal learning and the dynamics of the formal classroom, through the lens of a multi-dimensional case study. The context of the study is the upper or senior secondary school level in New South Wales (NSW) Australia, where two separate pathways for students are maintained: one preserving the traditional knowledge and skills associated with Western Art Music (WAM), and the other (noted above) providing broad access to music learning which is inclusive of the student popular musician. To fully contextualise the case, research was undertaken on three levels: historical, through an investigation of curriculum documents, reforms and matriculation trends over a sixty year period leading to the present set of circumstances; empirical, through a 10 week classroom research project integrating the courses in order to explore a range of informal and formal tasks; and theoretical, via an overarching explanatory tool known as Legitimation Code Theory or LCT (Maton, 2014), which helps to tie together findings from the first two levels.

The research revealed that the curricular pathways and classroom pedagogies employed result in the maintenance of a ‘code’ distinction: cultivating the traditional knowledge and skills for WAM according to an élite code, but not providing adequate knowledge-building opportunities for student knowers who participate in popular and other vernacular music learning practices. Considering the range of cross-genre music-making evident in the study, and the delineation of a spectrum of knowledge and skills spanning the code distinctions, findings highlight the need for a re-evaluation of NSW curriculum and pedagogy appropriate for senior secondary students. Given that the issues raised in the research exist in many Western educational systems, such a re-evaluation has relevance beyond these shores. A recognition and theorisation of the relationship between different forms of musical knowledge across the informal-formal range is believed to be key to providing both socially relevant, and epistemically challenging classroom music education that includes all students in the future.

Papers by Christine Carroll

EDULEARN Proceedings

This paper describes a project which employed web-based music composition platforms to engage pri... more This paper describes a project which employed web-based music composition platforms to engage primary pre-service teachers in enactive mastery experiences of creating their own music. Access to a quality Music education in New South Wales primary schools has been widely recognised as inequitable. A key factor contributing to inadequate provision is the widely low self-efficacy of many non-specialist teachers. Limited Music Education hours in initial teacher education programs makes it challenging for teacher educators to shift these beliefs. This project explored the proposition that web-based musicmaking applications would enhance pre-service teachers' self-efficacy beliefs in regard to their capacity to both create and to teach music. Findings from the first stage of the research indicated that engaging preservice primary teachers in collaborative, web-based music-making built more positive self-efficacy beliefs regarding their capabilities in both music making and music teaching. Their ability to envisage themselves applying these activities suggests that the use of such tasks could contribute to the delivery of quality music learning experiences in their future classrooms.

British Journal of Music Education

The literature concerning pre-service training in music education for generalist primary or eleme... more The literature concerning pre-service training in music education for generalist primary or elementary school teachers reveals a long-standing problem for teacher educators: low or poor self-efficacy concerning the teaching of classroom music. Concurrently, a critical examination of training programmes has less often featured, with only limited discussion of digital approaches to classroom music-making constituting the focus of empirical research. Through a focused case study in one Australian university, 136 pre-service teachers participated in a face-to-face module of interactive music education which culminated in a peer-directed collaborative digital music-making project. Pre- and post-surveys were implemented with shifts in pre-service teachers’ self-efficacy measured according to Bandura’s self-efficacy scales. Legitimation Code Theory from the sociology of education then served as an overarching theoretical lens through which to appraise the findings. Despite an enduring self...

This article addresses current themes on informal and formal music learning, through a unique app... more This article addresses current themes on informal and formal music learning, through a unique approach to classroom pedagogy that aligned and afforded synergies between students representing contrasting musical backgrounds, as is implied by these terms. Seeking to create an inclusive and dynamic classroom environment that would create the opportunity for this kind of interaction, I implemented a research project with a class of 30 Year 11 students in my own school, a Sydney senior secondary college of specialist music orientation. Acting as teacher/researcher, the case study documents the musical interactions of a group of six students (a subset of the larger class), who created an innovative performance arrangement of J.S. Bach's Organ Toccata in D minor (BW 565). As the task encouraged a student-centred approach to both the sequencing of learning and the negotiation of performance outcomes, the ethnography documents the students' use of both the original score and recordin...

This paper documents a single case study that emerged from an action research project, which atte... more This paper documents a single case study that emerged from an action research project, which attempted to utilise informal learning and associated pedagogy within a formal learning framework. The project, which was inspired by the desire to reconcile the needs of a large and highly diverse senior secondary class, involved the design and implementation of a unit of learning on Baroque music. The current case study that sits within this larger research frame focuses on the musical interactions of a small group of student rock musicians whose task was to create an original performance arrangement of J. S. Bach's 'Little' Fugue in G minor (BWV 578), which allowed stylistic appropriation. The research is of qualitative design and reveals interesting links between the student's musical background, choices in learning mode and process, and the style and sound that resulted from their performance. Through an increased awareness of these processes and also self-reflection upo...

This thesis explores the field of classroom music education with the aim of foregrounding the lea... more This thesis explores the field of classroom music education with the aim of foregrounding the learning experiences of students with established performance practices in popular music. The Australian context is well able to contribute to the global discussion that is underway in popular music education. Here curricular acknowledgement of the ‘non-literate’ musician at the senior secondary level dates back to the late 1970s (Board of Senior School Studies, 1977). Yet to date, these students’ experience of classroom study has not appeared to warrant research investigation, due in part at least to flexible curriculum structures facilitating practical learning, and generic frameworks for organising musical knowledge known as music ‘elements’ or ‘concepts’ that are believed to meet the needs of those with “informal learning” backgrounds (Board of Studies, 2009c, p. 6). Over the past decade, research has sought to qualify the nature of informal music learning, and develop classroom pedagogies that are believed to be more relevant to the study of popular music. Utilising these as a starting point, this thesis examines the complex relationship between such students’ informal learning and the dynamics of the formal classroom, through the lens of a multi-dimensional case study. The context of the study is the upper or senior secondary school level in New South Wales (NSW) Australia, where two separate pathways for students are maintained: one preserving the traditional knowledge and skills associated with Western Art Music (WAM), and the other (noted above) providing broad access to music learning which is inclusive of the student popular musician. To fully contextualise the case, research was undertaken on three levels: historical, through an investigation of curriculum documents, reforms and matriculation trends over a sixty year period leading to the present set of circumstances; empirical, through a 10 week classroom research project integrating the courses in order to explore a range of informal and formal tasks; and theoretical, via an overarching explanatory tool known as Legitimation Code Theory or LCT (Maton, 2014), which helps to tie together findings from the first two levels. The research revealed that the curricular pathways and classroom pedagogies employed result in the maintenance of a ‘code’ distinction: cultivating the traditional knowledge and skills for WAM according to an élite code, but not providing adequate knowledge-building opportunities for student knowers who participate in popular and other vernacular music learning practices. Considering the range of cross-genre music-making evident in the study, and the delineation of a spectrum of knowledge and skills spanning the code distinctions, findings highlight the need for a re-evaluation of NSW curriculum and pedagogy appropriate for senior secondary students. Given that the issues raised in the research exist in many Western educational systems, such a re-evaluation has relevance beyond these shores. A recognition and theorisation of the relationship between different forms of musical knowledge across the informal-formal range is believed to be key to providing both socially relevant, and epistemically challenging classroom music education that includes all students in the future.

Drafts by Christine Carroll

Research Studies in Music Education, 2024

This paper reports findings from a qualitative study undertaken to explore the career trajectorie... more This paper reports findings from a qualitative study undertaken to explore the career trajectories of Australian portfolio musicians including their interactions and engagement with formal, non-formal and informal modes of music education. With ethical consent, semi-structured interviews were undertaken with 18 musicians, with a desire to represent musical, cultural, social and gender diversity guiding our selection. The participants exhibited what Bartleet et al. (2020) describe as a composite or ‘portfolio’ career, consisting of work across multiple domains. The investigation revealed that such career formation happens in an episodic rather than linear fashion, as opportunity and adversity lead to portfolio diversification. Ongoing theorisation of the data (Bernstein 2000; Strauss & Corbin, 1997; Vygotsky, 1986) exposed ways in which musicians’ portfolio diversification is enabled by knowledge and skill connections, and, by a keen awareness of intra- and inter-personal values, beliefs and personal qualities. By observing ways musicians construct and then draw upon their epistemic and social foundations laid down both in and outside of formal education, higher music education providers may be able to better plan and enact meaningful curriculum reform for the future.

British Journal of Music Education, 2022

British Journal of Music Education, 2019

Research Studies in Music Education, 2019

EDULEARN Proceedings

British Journal of Music Education

The literature concerning pre-service training in music education for generalist primary or eleme... more The literature concerning pre-service training in music education for generalist primary or elementary school teachers reveals a long-standing problem for teacher educators: low or poor self-efficacy concerning the teaching of classroom music. Concurrently, a critical examination of training programmes has less often featured, with only limited discussion of digital approaches to classroom music-making constituting the focus of empirical research. Through a focused case study in one Australian university, 136 pre-service teachers participated in a face-to-face module of interactive music education which culminated in a peer-directed collaborative digital music-making project. Pre- and post-surveys were implemented with shifts in pre-service teachers’ self-efficacy measured according to Bandura’s self-efficacy scales. Legitimation Code Theory from the sociology of education then served as an overarching theoretical lens through which to appraise the findings. Despite an enduring self...

Research Studies in Music Education, 2024