Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-dh8gc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T02:24:13.384Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The branded product and the funded project: the impact of economic rationality on the practices and pedagogy of music education in the early childhood sector

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 January 2021

Susan Young
Susan Young*
Affiliation:
University of Roehampton, Roehampton Lane, LondonSW15 5PJ
*
Corresponding author. Email: susanyoung351@gmail.com
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In this article, I explore how neoliberal economic discourses and techniques have profoundly influenced the way that music education in early childhood has developed in recent years in the UK. I focus on two dominant models of practice that have been shaped by market thinking; the private music session (the ‘branded product’) and short term, stand-alone projects funded by charitable organisations (the ‘funded project’). The prevalence of these two models has resulted in highly fragmented and unequal provision accompanied by narrow conceptions of music in early childhood that give rise to impoverished practice. While I base my discussion on the early childhood sector in the UK, this discussion can nevertheless warn music educators beyond this one sector and one location of the negative consequences of abandoning music education to market forces.

Keywords

Early childhood music educationmarketisationcommodificationmusic pedagogy
Type
Article
Information
British Journal of Music Education , Volume 38 , Issue 2 , July 2021 , pp. 107 - 118
Check for updates
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

ARCULUS, C. (2019). Giving artists a seat at the table. Arts Professional, 25th October. Google Scholar
BAKER, G. (2016). Editorial Introduction: El Sistema in critical perspective. Action, Criticism & Theory for Music Education, 15(1), 10–32.Google Scholar
BALL, S. J. & JUNEMANN, C. (2012). Networks, New Governance and Education. Bristol: Policy Press.Google Scholar
BECKER, G. (2013). Human Capital: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis, with Special Reference to Education. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
BROWN, W. (2015). Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s Stealth Revolution. New York: Zone Books.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
BRUER, J. T. (2011). Revisiting ‘The Myth of the First Three Years’: Special briefing paper written to accompany the event Monitoring Parents: Science, evidence, experts and the new parenting culture, Centre for Parenting Culture Studies, Kent University. blogs.kent.ac.uk/parentingculturestudies [accessed 14.11.2019]Google Scholar
BUZZELLI, C. A. (2015). How human capital theory sells early education short: Revaluing early education through the capabilities approach. In Lightfoot-Rueda, T. & Peach, R.L. (eds.), Global Perspectives on Human Capital in Early Childhood Education. Critical Cultural Studies of Childhood (pp. 215–229). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
CAMPBELL-BARR, V. & NYGÅRD, M. (2014). Losing sight of the child? Human capital theory and its role for early childhood education and care policies in Finland and England since the mid-1990s. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 15, 346–359.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
CROUCH, C. (2016). The Knowledge Corrupters: Hidden Consequence of the Financial Takeover of Public Life. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
GILLIES, V., EDWARDS, R., & HORSLEY, N. (2017). Challenging the Politics of Early Intervention: Who’s Saving Children and Why. Bristol: Policy Press.Google Scholar
HARVEY, D. (2005). A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
HARVEY, D. (2006). Neo-liberalism as creative destruction. Human Geography, 88, 2, 145–158.Google Scholar
HAYS, S. (1996). The Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
HOCHSCHILD, R. A. (1983). The managed heart: Commercialization of human feeling. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
LOGAN, O. (2015). Hand in Glove: El Sistema and Neoliberal Research. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/287202150.GoogleScholar Google Scholar
MOORE, A. (2016). Neoliberalism and the musical entrepreneur. Journal of the Society for American Music, 10(1), 33–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MOSS, P. (2014). Transformative Change and Real Utopias in Early Childhood Education: A Story of Democracy, Experimentation and Potentiality. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
PALMER, T. G. (2012). Book review: What money can’t buy: The moral limits of markets. Reason, Online Magazine of the CATO Institute (accessed 10th March, 2019).Google Scholar
PENN, H. (2012). Childcare markets: Do they work? In Lloyd, E. & Penn, H. (eds.), Childcare Markets: Can They Deliver and Equitable Service? (pp. 19–42). London: Policy Press.Google Scholar
SANDEL, M. (2012). What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.Google Scholar
WARD, S. (2012). Neoliberalism and the Global Restructuring of Knowledge and Education. Abingdon: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
YOUNG, S. (2018) Critical New Perspectives in Early Childhood Music. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
YOUNG, S. (forthcoming). Towards A Music Education for Maturing, Never Arriving. In Wright, R., Johansen, G., Kanellopoulos, P. & Schmidt, P. (eds.), Routledge Handbook of the Sociology of Music Education. Abingdon: Routledge.Google Scholar
YOUTH MUSIC. (undated). Youth music impact report 2017-18. https://www.youthmusic.org.uk/impact Accessed, 10.11.19.Google Scholar