ABSTRACT
Broadly conceived, the New Zealand secondary school music curriculum seeks at once to engender wider participation and student choice and provide the pathways necessary for tertiary music education programmes. The resulting flexible curriculum frameworks are variously constructed and interpreted by schools across New Zealand, and there is an inclination to prioritise wider participation and student choice over mindfulness of providing the generative knowledge required for further study. Add to this the effects of government-imposed targets on the education sector, and the result is a qualification and assessment structure that can inadvertently create inequalities. It is in this context that the human manifestations of these potential inequalities are foregrounded in a case study about one student’s academic journey: a journey that recounts experiences of her secondary school preparation and the often-alienating transition to tertiary music study.
