Aspirations

Manchester has a reputation for resistance and reform. Often regarded as the world’s first industrial city, it became ‘the capital of discontent’ in Victorian England, giving birth to social movements such as the Chartists, the trade unions and the suffragettes (Hirsch, Reference HIRSCH, EHLAND and FISCHER2018). Progressive socialist principles underpinned its education system (Ward, Reference WARD, HOOPER and O’NEILL2019), and its independent music models drove the post-punk, Madchester and Britpop scenes (Haslam, Reference HASLAM1999). The city has long been multicultural, with significant Irish, Jewish, African and South Asian populations even during the 18^th century. Over the last few decades, Manchester has become increasingly international (Bullen, Reference BULLEN2015), with the Multilingual Manchester group claiming that, in proportion to size, it may be the most culturally diverse city in Europe (2013).

During the 1970s, Manchester’s Local Education Authority introduced world music teaching in schools and invested in new music centres, including a ‘world music centre’ for Caribbean, Asian and Eastern European musics (Adams, Reference ADAMS2013:72). Today, One Education, set up by Manchester City Council (MCC) in 2011, oversees music education in schools across the city, emphasising a ‘wide’ programme and access to community music opportunities (MCC, 2015). Its music hubs include an Irish Music Centre, a Russian Music Centre and a Steel Pan Music Centre, and it also organises ceilidh bands, samba bands, marimba and mbira groups, and world song choirs at other centres. One Education also promotes multicultural music education in partnership with local charities such as Band on the Wall, Brighter Sound, Community Arts North West, Indian Music Hub, Music Action International and Z-Arts.

Analysis of school curricula shows that, at Key Stage 3, world music teaching is widespread in Manchester. Topics defined as ‘world music’ are taught at KS3 across almost all 27 schools. Most teach Indian classical music, reggae, samba and West African drumming; around half also include wider African and Latin American musics as well as gamelan and music from China; and roughly 10% address an even broader range of music cultures from around the world. Most teachers interviewed suggested that the NPME is sufficiently vague that they have the power to determine the position of world music in KS3 curricula. Two teachers design their entire programmes around world music education: one defines their course as ‘Music around the world’, aiming to challenge ‘the dominance of White male composers of European descent’ and aspiring to give students ‘a broader understanding of music’; and another offers ‘a whirlwind tour’ of musics from various places and cultures, with students approaching each class by imagining themselves as ethnomusicologists who have arrived in a new place to study its music and culture.

These KS3 curricula seem to reflect significant changes that have been made to world music education in Manchester in recent years. One teacher claimed that, over the last 15 years, world music had transformed from ‘a token thing’ in some schools into ‘a huge part’ of the KS3 curriculum across virtually all schools. Others highlighted that world music topics have long existed but had previously been taught via ethnocentric learning methods, such as sheet music analysis. They suggested that learning about cultural context is now standard, and that teachers are increasingly employing pedagogical methods drawn from the music culture under study, such as oral techniques and improvisation frameworks. Many schools hire specialist practitioners to immerse students more deeply in a particular tradition, such as samba or gamelan, whether through classroom workshops or extracurricular ensembles. Teachers indicated that these schemes have been highly successful, not only for improving students’ understanding of a musical style but also for enhancing student engagement with world music in general. This affirms the need for diverse learning methods when studying diverse musical practices (Green, Reference GREEN2006) and the value of incorporating ‘culture bearers’ for deepening multicultural music education (Campbell, Reference CAMPBELL2018:143).

A variety of factors have driven this change, including a growing consensus that cultural education and performance participation are crucial for enriching music learning experiences and a desire to respond to increasingly multicultural school environments with multicultural music education programmes. Ofsted reports show that, in more than 20 of the schools under study, the majority of students come from ethnic minority (ME) backgrounds and over 60 first languages are spoken. Many teachers thus view world music as a means to connect with students and make music education more inclusive and relatable for their culturally diverse cohort. Some teachers identified curriculum choices directly with school demographics: one teaches reggae and calypso as a high proportion of students have Afro-Caribbean heritage and another focuses on afrobeat as more than 60% of their learners are first-generation migrants from places in Africa. Both suggested that this approach better supports musical and personal development, and many teachers agreed that this is particularly evident in composition, where students who might show little engagement with writing classical pieces may well achieve impressive results with other forms, such as composing gospel songs based on lifelong participation in church groups.

Some schools have developed specific schemes to formalise this responsive relationship. One KS3 programme, designed via a series of themes including ‘Me and my school’, ‘Me and myself’, ‘Me and my city’ and ‘Me and my world’, encourages learners to ‘share their own musical interests’ and discuss how this ‘forms part of their individual identity’, to ‘talk about festivals and how they are celebrated within their family’, and to explore the diverse ‘musics and cultures that exist in their surroundings’. Many schools organise events that celebrate their diversity through music: a ‘Multicultural Day’ at one school includes a ‘parade of traditional outfits and musical performance’ from students, and a ‘World Music Day’ at another features performances in diverse musical styles. Some extracurricular schemes are truly culturally responsive, changing year by year to reflect the backgrounds and interests of students at the school: one school introduced an ‘Africa night’ involving song and drumming performances to reflect the rising numbers of learners from places in Africa and give both students and parents the chance to celebrate their cultural diversity; and another school organised a workshop where students collaborated to compose a song featuring each of their different languages, enabling them to engage in intercultural exchange and feel that their cultural heritage is valued. There is a sense that this broadening of horizons is beneficial for all learners, with one teacher pointing out that they have Black students who love classical music and White students who enjoy djembe drumming, but world music learning seems particularly valuable for ME students. One teacher highlighted the power of musical inclusion for building confidence:

This insight affirms that the most effective multicultural music education programmes are not only about ‘coping’ with diversity but also about ‘making music education meaningful’ for students from ‘a wide range of social and cultural backgrounds’ (Karlsen & Westerlund, Reference KARLSEN and WESTERLUND2010:226). World music has become a dominant force within KS3 education in Manchester and teachers proselytise its benefits, particularly for promoting cultural understanding and social inclusion.

Limitations

While world music education occupies a significant position in curricula and extracurricular activities in Manchester schools at Key Stage 3, its scope becomes progressively limited at higher levels. Many teachers recognise the potential benefits of maintaining multicultural music education throughout their school programmes, but they currently struggle to do so because of barriers related to examinations, teaching materials and school resources.

Exam specifications at KS4/5, where music is an optional subject, prioritise European classical music and marginalise world music, creating a system that elevates the former and devalues the latter. At KS4, most schools surveyed use the Edexcel (2016b) or AQA (2016b) GCSE boards while some take OCR (2016), RSL (2016) or Eduqas (2016b), and around 40% offer the Edexcel (2018) BTEC in Music Practice alongside or instead of the GCSE. World music has a low profile across all specifications: it is confined to a single area of study on Edexcel and OCR; it is an optional topic on the AQA GCSE and Edexcel BTEC; and it does not specifically feature on RSL or Eduqas. At KS5, world music occupies an even lower position: it is one of six areas of study on Edexcel (2016a), it is an optional topic on AQA (2016a), and there is no specific topic on Eduqas (2016a). These specifications seem to reflect the inconsistencies of government policy, whereby the NPME, National Curriculum and Model Music Curriculum all claim to support world music education but consistently organise programmes into a hierarchy of Classical music>Popular music>World music. This is mirrored in every GCSE and GCE specification, most explicitly with AQA where both levels feature a compulsory topic on ‘Western classical tradition 1650–1910’ followed by an additional area of study selected from ‘Western classical tradition since 1910’, ‘Popular music’ or ‘Traditional music’, implying that only ‘Western classical tradition 1650–1910’ should be regarded as essential musical knowledge. Even the RSL GCSE and Edexcel BTEC do not dismantle this hierarchical system, reshuffling Western popular music to the top but leaving world music at the bottom. Several teachers affirmed that this modular approach ‘boxes’ music into arbitrary categories and ghettoises the music of other places and cultures. This means that, at KS4/5, when schools are measured almost entirely on exam performance, teachers are given little or no incentive to include significant world music teaching in their curriculum.

The scope of world music topics included within exam specifications is also notably superficial. Edexcel and AQA focus mainly on US artists who fuse pop with some ‘world’ influences, such as Paul Simon, and even include classical composers who simply integrate ‘folk’ influences, such as Chopin and Debussy. This encompasses a narrow range of musical and cultural diversity and positions world music as valuable only vis-à-vis its relationship with the ‘West’. The dominant study approach is stylistic, requiring students to identify musical features without much engagement with cultural contexts, thus embedding an ethnocentric method that tends to result in shallow understanding (Wiggins, Reference WIGGINS1996; Solís, Reference SOLÍS2004; Ramnarine, Reference RAMNARINE and STOBART2008; Hess, Reference HESS2018). Many specifications utilise sweeping generalisations, commenting on ‘African music’ or ‘South American music’ without specifying to which musics or cultures within these vast continents they are referring. Case studies are also highly gender-imbalanced: the AQA GCSE includes two set works and five additional works on male musicians or groups, no works on female musicians and one additional work on a mixed-gender group; and OCR specifies 11 male musicians and one mixed-gender group for study, without naming any female musicians. This imbalance seems to reflect the patriarchal model set by the European classical canon, alongside gender biases within other music cultures, limiting world music learning in gender terms and reinforcing sex discrimination within schools and society (Green, Reference GREEN1997; Scharff, Reference SCHARFF2015; Bull, Reference BULL, DROMEY and HAFERKORN2018).

There are some exceptions to these overall trends: OCR’s ‘Rhythms of the World’ topic is relatively broad and encourages students to explore how ‘styles are intrinsically linked to culture and tradition’ and to ‘use the knowledge’ of ‘friends or classmates’ where possible; Edexcel and AQA specifications include a wider range of additional works for study, including Buena Vista Social Club, Demet Akalin and Ladysmith Black Mambazo; Edexcel’s set and additional works are gender-balanced, following a student-led campaign for women’s representation on the syllabus (McCabe, Reference MCCABE2008); and the Edexcel BTEC enables students to select any style for their component work and assessment, meaning that, at least in theory, they could choose an example from beyond European classical or Western pop music.

Nevertheless, a consultation on the development of the current exam specifications involving more than 600 teachers found that, while the majority agreed that ‘students should be exposed to a diverse range of music’, most believed that the proposed subject content was ‘inadequate’ for supporting this aspiration (DfE, 2015). Teachers interviewed in the present research overwhelmingly agreed that this remains the case. Two explained:

These issues affect a relatively small student cohort, as nationally fewer than 5% study music beyond KS3 (Daubney et al., Reference DAUBNEY, SPRUCE and ANNETTS2019:15) and fewer than 1% take Music A-Level (Whittaker et al., Reference WHITTAKER, FAUTLEY, KINSELLA and ANDERSON2019:9). The shift from a musically broad, culturally rich and socially relevant multicultural music programme in lower years to a narrow, superficial and somewhat obsolete classical music programme in higher years may help to explain why the vast majority of students are discouraged from studying music after KS3. The tension between teachers’ aspirations to promote world music education at KS3 and the barriers that limit its scope at KS4/5 inevitably creates a dysfunctional learning trajectory that essentially encourages students to nurture musical and cultural knowledge in lower years that becomes largely redundant in higher years. Given that exam results can have profound impacts on students’ educational and career opportunities, it is unsurprising that so few students take this ‘risky’ option that lacks exam preparedness.

Maintaining a link between high exam grades and aptitude in classical music is particularly problematic given that it is likely to disproportionally disadvantage students from weaker socio-economic backgrounds due to the economic capital required for classical music training and the social capital associated with classical music contexts in general (Green, Reference GREEN, CLAYTON, HERBERT and MIDDLETON2003; Bull, Reference BULL2019). While many universities and conservatoires are changing their entry requirements to accept students with a wider range of musical backgrounds, the cultural hierarchies upheld by exam specifications undermine these efforts from below (Richardson, Reference RICHARDSON2007; de Boise, Reference DE BOISE2017; Tan, Reference TAN2021). Although music degree applicants have become more ethnically diverse in recent years, this shift appears to reflect the increased social mobility of some ME groups and the assimilation of ME students into classical music schemes (Griffiths, Reference GRIFFITHS2020), rather than a genuine challenge to the system. By elevating classical music at KS4/5, exam specifications limit the scope for teachers to implement world music meaningfully throughout their programmes, undermining equitable preparation and reward for students with diverse musical skills and discouraging most students from even studying music beyond KS3.

Teaching materials and school resources further limit the scope of world music education at KS4/5. While there are copious materials and study guides available for classical and popular music, this is not the case for world music. This problem is interconnected with examinations, as exam boards and other organisations produce materials specifically aimed at exam preparation, and these materials thus reflect the wider unequal value system at KS4/5. The AQA GCSE resource offers just six pages of revision for their entire ‘Traditional Music’ topic while providing more than 20 pages on one Mozart set work. Materials across the boards offer little or no information on the cultural contexts of the musical styles studied and frequently contain gender bias and discrimination: Anoushka Shankar, who often features as a case study, is consistently described as ‘Ravi Shankar’s daughter’, with minimal attention to her own life and music, reducing her achievements to the male authority of her father. The BBC (2021) Bitesize website, designed to support school learning, illustrates the shift away from world music at KS4/5: it includes valuable materials on diverse areas of study for KS3 students; it contains a broad revision guide for the OCR GCSE and some world music materials for Edexcel and AQA boards; and it offers no resources for world music learning at GCE level.

This lack of teaching materials serves as a barrier for teachers who aspire to maintain at least some world music education at KS4/5. Some teachers indicated that, having been educated and trained in a system that favours European classical music, they feel insufficiently prepared to produce materials that would be appropriate for teaching world music at KS4/5 themselves. Some have to rely on online materials without significant prior knowledge, which is potentially problematic given that such materials are variable in quality (Mishra, Reference MISHRA2004; Beegle, Reference BEEGLE2012; Yi, Reference YI2019). However, some teachers who took ethnomusicology courses at university expressed more confidence in producing their own materials, using lecture notes, ethnomusicological texts and websites, and world music guides such as Bakan (Reference BAKAN2011), Doherty and Knight (Reference DOHERTY and KNIGHT2012), and Miller and Shahriari (Reference MILLER and SHAHRIARI2017) to design classes. While this suggests that the availability of world music materials is not necessarily a problem that affects all teachers, as affirmed by the efforts of many educators to develop their own multicultural music programmes (Lea, Reference LEA2014; Narita & Green, Reference NARITA, GREEN, BENEDICT, SCHMIDT, SPRUCE and WOODFORD2015), it is clear that not all of the teachers interviewed felt that they have the time or training to develop suitable materials for KS4/5 teaching:

School resources also form part of the problem, with support for world music activities at KS3 that diminishes or disappears for higher years. The relatively low cost of world music instruments such as samba sets or ukuleles, when compared with the brass band suggested in the Model Music Curriculum (2021:54), has supported the flourishing of world music ensembles in classrooms and through the NPME-mandated music hubs. However, the low status of world music within GCSE/GCE exams means that, regardless of the cost benefit, school resources do not tend to be directed towards world music at higher levels and music hubs do not have any specific responsibilities for supporting students at KS4/5.

This reduction in resources mutually reinforces the low retention rate for music. The low number of students taking music beyond KS3 means that even classical music provision is often curtailed at higher levels, which further disadvantages students from weaker socio-economic backgrounds who are less likely to have received private classical music tuition and thus gain the knowledge required to succeed at GCSE/GCE. Illustrating this relationship, schools in areas with higher levels of deprivation tend to have fewer students taking music beyond KS3 than schools with a more affluent catchment area. The cycle worsens as these schools often respond by employing fewer music teachers and cutting their extracurricular music activities. One teacher reflected:

In some schools, economic difficulties also intersect with social challenges. Some teachers in schools with certain ME cohorts have found it difficult to convince parents that music is a worthwhile subject, for example due to cultural or religious norms that devalue music, demonstrating that ethnic diversity can ironically bring challenges as well as opportunities for world music education (Green, Reference GREEN2008). One teacher, who works in a school with over 75% ME intake, stated:

In these challenging circumstances, school resources for music are often further reduced, limiting teachers’ abilities to make a case for the benefits of multicultural music education for all students, regardless of their social, cultural or religious background. A couple of struggling schools in Manchester have, at times, closed their music departments entirely to focus on meeting Ofsted targets for ‘core’ subjects such as English and Maths. Across the board, teachers suggested that world music, particularly at KS4/5, is often the first to suffer when the strained resources for music are squeezed. By making only classical music essential, exam specifications, teaching materials and school resources severely limit the scope of world music education beyond KS3.

Concluding thoughts

World music education in secondary schools in Manchester is at a crossroads. It has gained a strong position in curricula and extracurricular activities at KS3 and, in many schools, culturally responsive approaches empower students to celebrate their personal identities and collective diversity. However, exam specifications, teaching materials and school resources limit the scope of world music learning at KS4/5, positioning European classical music at the centre and world music on the periphery. This tale of two curricula evidences an education system that works against the aspirations of its teachers, who recognise the benefits of multicultural music education and favour maintaining it throughout their programmes. Moving the goalposts between different levels creates a dysfunctional learning trajectory that discourages most students from continuing their music studies, as students whose diverse musical talents were celebrated at KS3 suddenly find themselves with the ‘wrong’ musical knowledge and skills at KS4/5. This hierarchical system particularly disadvantages students from weaker socio-economic backgrounds, because they are less likely to have prior classical music training and schools in more deprived areas usually provide lower support for music.

The opportunities forged and challenges faced by teachers outlined here have significant implications for advancing multicultural music education beyond Manchester. The analysis suggests that changes to national policy alone is insufficient, as current guidelines arguably provide opportunity for world music learning, but wider barriers limit its scope. This affirms the importance of engaging with teachers’ perspectives, as a survey of national policy or exam specifications alone would risk overlooking the strong aspirations of teachers for world music education and their meaningful actions to implement this within schools. This highlights the need for collaborative research on world music teaching and learning experiences, as exemplified by the growth of ‘action research’ led by teachers themselves (Cain, Reference CAIN2008; Burwell & Shipton, Reference BURWELL and SHIPTON2013),

Clearly, an overhaul of post-KS3 music education is needed. A truly multicultural music education does not only involve adding ‘world music’ topics to examinations, but also it requires a change in worldview, a deconstruction of the belief that one kind of music from one part of the world is inherently superior to others (Drummond, Reference DRUMMOND2010; Schippers, Reference SCHIPPERS2010; Bradley, Reference BRADLEY2012). European classical music should be recast as one of many musical cultures with different forms of musical excellence that should be valued equally in the curriculum and assessed as such in examinations. The modular approach at GCSE/GCE could be replaced by examining key components of music using diverse case studies across the programme, a method which has been shown to be more effective for promoting information retention and social inclusion (McAllister, Reference MCALLISTER2013).

However, an important warning expressed by several teachers concerns the weight of responsibility for this change. Despite the growing consensus in favour of multicultural music education, it is unfair to expect teachers to effect this change alone; educational practitioners need to work together to achieve this end, from designing programme frameworks (Campbell et al., Reference CAMPBELL, DRUMMOND, DUNBAR-HALL, HOWARD, SCHIPPERS and WIGGINS2005; O’Neill & Bespflug, Reference O’NEILL and BESPFLUG2011; Narita & Green, Reference NARITA, GREEN, BENEDICT, SCHMIDT, SPRUCE and WOODFORD2015) to producing teaching materials (Leung, Reference LEUNG2004; Nissen, Reference NISSEN2018; Burton & Reynolds, Reference BURTON and REYNOLDS2018). The analysis above illustrates that teachers often have great aspirations but face greater barriers, so it is vital to find ways to deconstruct this system without putting further pressures on the shoulders of teachers, who are increasingly being asked to do more work for less reward. Music hubs remain an untapped source for KS4/5, with the potential to link up networks of world music practitioners who could support classroom teaching and extracurricular activities, so their responsibilities should be explicitly extended to this end. There is a clear appetite for multicultural music education in urban secondary schools in Manchester, but the barriers to world music at higher levels ultimately require systematic change beyond individual initiatives.