ABSTRACT
Studies show school music is enjoyed by many pupils (Lamont, Hargreaves, Marshall and Tarrant, 2003), and there is widespread belief among commentators and policymakers that music should be ‘for all’ (for example Welch, 2001). However, there remain a host of negative beliefs and behaviours towards music in formal schooling, among both learners and teachers, which pose serious challenges for music education and which innovations in policy and practice have had limited success in overcoming. Understanding the basis of attitudes and practices among learners, teachers and music education researchers towards music in formal education is crucial for enabling widening participation and the future success of a music curriculum. Underpinning this situation lies a secondorder problem within music education research itself. Taken as a whole, existing studies show the challenges facing music education to be multifaceted, but, while existing research provides a host of ideas for resolving particular issues, as yet the field remains fragmented. We have many pieces of the puzzle but no means of bringing them together. Research requires a framework capable of integrating the findings of studies of the different issues facing music education. In this chapter we address this issue using an approach from the sociology of educational knowledge: Legitimation Code Theory (LCT). As we shall illustrate, this approach is not only useful for understanding problems in music education but also enables studies of disparate issues to be brought together within an overarching framework.
