Music education and the construction of musical knowledge in Spain and Brazil

Abstract

This paper is intended to discuss what counts as musical knowledge in the context of two countries: Spain and Brazil. In Spain, issues concerning cultural diversity in schooling have led us to investigate how both teachers and students conceive the value of different musics in educational contexts. In Brazil, the recent Law 11.769/2008 made music a compulsory subject in schools. Since then, there have been increasing discussions about which music(s) should be considered valid to be taught, and how it can be implemented in different levels of schooling. We are going to address these topics considering the idea that music education can help to shape, perpetuate, legitimate and modify ideologies concerning the value of music. Thus, we claim the importance of opening up musical curricula and incorporating different musics in schooling as a means to construct musical realities in these countries and deconstruct dominant ideologies concerning musical values and meanings. Such concepts will be analyzed according to Green’s (1988) theory aiming to celebrate musical practices in order to readapt the function of music education to the social contexts these countries demand.