ABSTRACT
This chapter is predicated upon two fundamental beliefs. The first is that the manner in which musical achievement is defined and assessed inevitably articulates a set of philosophical and political principles about the nature and purpose of learning, the subject being assessed and the relationship between school and society. In other words, that assessment
[is] always saying something about the assessors and the assessed, and about the world that the assessor is seeking to bring about. It has behind it a view of learning, of the place of the child in the larger world and of what counts as worthwhile learning.
(D. Allen, Preface to Barrs, 1990)