Co-creating culturally relevant music pedagogies at three South African secondary schools

Abstract

South Africa is a deeply unequal society. As a result, schooling in general and music education in particular face a myriad of challenges related to accessibility and equity. These problems are exacerbated by a Eurocentric high school music curriculum. There is a need for critical pedagogies such as culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP) that validate and sustain the cultures of the diverse learners in South African music classrooms. The purpose of this participatory action research (PAR) study is to create a conceptual framework to explain how three music teachers enact CRP at three secondary schools in South Africa. Over the course of four months, myself (the primary researcher) and three co-researchers engaged in a series of five workshops with the goal of understanding and implementing CRP. The three co-researchers collectively planned a minimum of two lesson units respectively in which they aimed to consciously apply CRP. The workshops were a platform for collaborative lesson planning and reflection. Co-researchers also created individual reflections in response to each lesson unit. I developed a conceptual framework from the literature to define CRP, which the coresearchers referred to as they applied CRP. In response to the findings, I adapted the conceptual framework to explain how the three co-researchers enacted CRP. The updated conceptual framework includes the following five concepts that interact with one another: critical dispositions and values, critical engagement with the curriculum, instruction and assessment, cultural understanding, and relationships. These concepts were influenced by various obstacles that affected the co-researchers' attempts to enact CRP. Further findings include insights into how PAR empowered the co researchers to implement CRP.