Two decades ago, there was a very limited amount of empirical research on contact between secondary-age pupils with SLD and their mainstream peers (Beveridge, 1996; Fletcher- Campbell and Kington, 2001). This situation prevails, and so the sparse literature reviewed here includes accounts where not only music but also other performing arts such as dance and drama have been used. Repeated literature searches using such terms as ‘mainstream/special/ link’; ‘music/inclusion’; ‘music; integration’, etc., confirm the limited amount of documented research on music education in special schools in the UK, especially that describing secondary mainstream and special school pupils collaborating musically.
Concerning pupil interaction, the subject of the second research question, Moger and Coates (1992) briefly reported on a music link-scheme between children with complex needs and their mainstream peers. The authors, teachers in neighbouring mainstream and special schools, worked towards establishing an integration programme aiming at greater involvement of special school pupils in their local community, and increased sensitivity in mainstream pupils to the abilities of their special school peers and the difficulties faced by them. Their report, deeply felt and passionately written, lacks a clear methodology. Missing
information includes the ages of the pupils, the proximity of the schools, the nature of the learning difficulties of the special school pupils, and the content and pedagogy of the integrated music workshops with the mainstream pupils. It is also not clear if either teacher involved had any musical experience or training. Two interesting ideas concerning their study emerge. Firstly, the authors’ view of integration as a ‘two-way process’ (Moger and Coates, 1992: 8) is noteworthy, as integration is more usually regarded as the unidirectional movement of special school pupils into mainstream schools (p.26, above). In their report, both pupil groups visit their partner school, mainstream pupils for disability awareness courses and work experience, and special school pupils, for music workshops. However, not everything is reciprocal. The report generally indicates that mainstream pupils teach and help their special school peers, without the provision of opportunities for special school pupils to reciprocate in some way. While the lack of detail is somewhat frustrating, the authors’ sentiments are laudable and their view of the purpose of education as a whole is clear:
Exam results and wealth creation are worth little if we neglect to live well with one another (ibid: 10).
More recently, Whitehurst and Howells (2006) described how pupils (aged 9-14 years) and staff from a mainstream middle school and a residential special school for pupils aged 7-19 years with complex needs collaborated once a fortnight for two years on the production of a musical, with an emphasis on drama as a way of fostering inclusion. Individual interviews were conducted with mainstream school pupils in their own school to assess how their perceptions changed as a result of working alongside their peers with complex needs. The first of these took place approximately 14 months after the project started, the second, after
the projects concluded. The lack of any baseline assessment of the pupils’ perceptions limits the accuracy of the authors’ claim that the project prompted the mainstream pupils ‘to significantly change their perceptions of their peers with learning difficulties’ (Whitehurst and Howells, 2006: 40). What inclusion means in the context of this project is not stated, but the authors acknowledge that it involves more than mere location, for how special school pupils are enabled to learn and participate fully is of the utmost importance. Special school pupils’ views, rarely heard in the literature on education and disability (Lewis et al., 2007) and the specific contribution made by performing arts are unacknowledged. The voices of children with SEN can be effectively silenced by sampling or methodology, as in the two studies just described. Whitehurst immediately acknowledged these challenges, asserting the importance of familiarity with the unique communication patterns of pupils with SLD, and an appreciation of limitations in their attention span and understanding (Whitehurst, 2006).
Changes in three mainstream pupils’ perceptions of disability after working with a group of special school pupils with SLD and PMLD were explored by Curran (2009). Efforts were made to include the views of all pupils, aged between 16-17 years, and also to evaluate which elements of their collaboration might be applied in future projects. For twelve weeks, these pupils and their two music teachers worked together in once-weekly, two hour long music sessions within the special school. After composing lyrics to a well-known tune, arranging and practising it ‘as a band’, the pupils’ song was recorded at the mainstream school. This enabled the construction of some common ground, their varied musical tastes stimulating both verbal and signed exchanges and diminishing mutual perceptions of difference. Both groups of pupils attached equal importance to their social relationships and their musical activities. Mainstream pupils’ initial nervousness gave way to appreciation and
acceptance, while the confidence of both groups in each other’s company visibly increased, several pupils verbally acknowledging this. The special school pupils’ perceptions were difficult to ascertain, however. Realisation of this methodological limitation led me to explore new approaches in this doctoral study in order to elicit their views.
Dancing, according to Small (1998), is a form of musicking, and the most obvious form of musical embodiment. A small-scale Canadian study investigated primary-age able-bodied and disabled children’s perceptions of dance ability and disability (Zitomer and Reid, 2011), in which five children with physical disabilities and nine children without disabilities engaged in an integrated dance programme where all participants had equal status, common goals, and support. The authors found the programme to have had a positive impact on the disabled children’s perceptions of their ability to dance, and a subtle impact on the able- bodied children’s perceptions of disability (ibid.).
Although not involving integration with mainstream school pupils, the performing art of drama was explored by Kempe and Tissot (2012) as a way of teaching social skills for pupils with autism by drawing on the social skills of their non-autistic peers in the special school that they all attended. Twelve pupils with SEN took part, including two ‘focus’ pupils with autism. The projects investigated the use of several dramatic techniques in increasing social skills, specific goals being identified for the focus pupils. Some staff, faced with teaching drama, lacked confidence in their ability to do this: a parallel with the situation of many primary generalist teachers concerning music teaching. Findings of this study indicated that, given a concrete structure incorporating the gesture of an invitation to collaborate, drama can be a powerful learning tool for children with autism.
Despite the broadly positive outcomes of integrative link projects for pupils and staff, participant relationships remain unexplored, particularly in secondary school music education settings. In-depth qualitative exploration of contexts, people and practice before, during and after an integrative musical project may facilitate the development of initial conceptual frameworks within this little-researched field (Whitehurst and Howells, 2006).
IV. ‘VOICE’, PERSPECTIVES, RELATIONSHIPS
In the context of music education, pupil voice is an increasingly ‘hot’ topic, both as a research focus and as a central part of the research process (Laurence, 2013). Within a recent collection (Finney and Harrison, 2010) expanding upon the meaning and role of student voice in music education, Flutter (2010: 16) suggests that listening to the voices of pupils not only ‘challenges taken-for-granted assumptions about children and young people’, but also offers new directions for improving teaching and learning. Flutter’s use of the word ‘voices’ is perhaps more correct than voice, for if a ‘voiced’ position consists of ‘a speaking personality bringing forward a specific viewpoint and story’ (Akkerman and Meijer, 211: 311, see p.19, above) then the word ‘voice’ must represent only one person’s views, not those of a group.
In the research studies discussed in this thesis, pupils’ and teachers’ voices have been mediated, interpreted and represented not only through their authors’ perspectives, but also mine. If voice/s were to be viewed as un-interpreted opinion/s, and ‘perspective/s’ as involving a degree of interpretation, a commitment ‘to honouring the particularity and the
integrity of others’ voices (Barrett and Stauffer, 2009: 221) meant that individual voices were best represented in my own research through verbatim quotes. A central concern of my study was to include as many individual voices as possible, together with the views of participant groups. Only in the discussion chapter would I bring my perspective to bear on the data, interpreting these through my own (written) voice.
Although some of the studies reviewed below were carried out some time ago, the findings from many of them tend to be supported rather than contradicted by those that are more recent.
‘Voice’
This school-based doctoral study inherently involved power relationships between teachers and pupils and moreover, included a group whose voices are often limited or muted in general and music educational discourse. This diminution of the views of children with SLD or PMLD (which are undoubtedly problematic to elicit) is ongoing despite successive UK governments’ attempts to increase children’s participation in their education:
…students…are creators of their own educational experience; and their voice can help shape provision (Miliband, 2004: 10).
If teachers are to take pupils views seriously, power relations in school settings need to be addressed through teachers’ willingness to see their pupils differently, and even to change their teaching. This demands considerable confidence on the part of teachers (McIntyre et al., 2005). They too have their own voice, and in schools, the last word remains with them (Keats and Gold, 2007).
Key Stage 3 pupils view teacher fairness, respect for pupils’ individuality, clarity of instruction and explanation and a teacher who is ‘clearly in charge’ as contributing most to their enjoyment of lessons (Hopkins, 2010: 52). Subject ability is seen as less important than teachers’ generic interpersonal qualities, indicating the importance of positive teacher-pupil relationships. Three years earlier, Mannion wrote:
Without a focus on the relations between adults and children and the spaces they inhabit we are in danger of providing a narrow view of how children’s ‘voice’ and ‘participation’ are ‘produced’ (Mannion, 2007: 417).
Teachers who proactively seek pupils’ views as a basis for self-reflection or possible changes to their classroom practice tend to see their work as a partnership between themselves and their pupils:
You don’t go into teaching because you think you know it all; you go into teaching because you love learning…it’s a step in a process of working together to understand learning (Teacher participant; Thompson, 2009: 676).
Secondary school pupils see their relationships with teachers as a key factor in their sense of belonging in school and their engagement in lessons (Marsh, 2012). A teacher’s interest in pupils as people is demonstrated by seeking and listening to pupils’ opinions, or showing respect, enthusiasm, praise, and enjoyment of their company.17 Lastly, a willingness on the part of teachers not to take themselves too seriously, to be silly occasionally, in order to help pupils remember something, was welcomed by pupils (ibid.). Finney’s (2003) study of Year 8 pupils and their music education compellingly captured how one music teacher’s playfulness and theatricality, based upon deep concern for his pupils, positively influenced their learning and attitudes towards their music lessons.
17 Applied to researchers, many of the foregoing statements also concern the feasibility of research in schools,