A Comparative Sociology of School Knowledge.

Despite a recently renewed theoretical interesting both North America and in Britain in the sociology of school knowledge, we still have little, if any, comparative empirical material from these two continents. This paper reports the findings of a sociological study, designed to replicate the previous English empirical work by Vulliamy, into music teaching in Ontario high schools. Unlike in England, no overt culture clash was found in Ontario schools between 'school' music and 'students" music, both because of the wider scope of 'what counts as school music' in Canada and because music is not a compulsory school subject there However, by focusing upon the deep structure of the pedagogical process, as opposed to surface features of classroom interaction, it is argued that particular ideologies of the dominant musical culture are transmitted in very similar ways in both contexts. What is shared is a conception of music as equitable with musical notation. The ideological significance of this is pinpointed in an analysis of the structurally homological relationship between different musical languages and the social/cultural contexts of their creation. The processes of school music teaching no only contribute to the legitimation of a dominant musical ideology, but also to much more pervasive ideological assumptions underpinning capitalist societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]