Projects
“This wouldn’t be the same without the Professional Music Schools”: Thirty years of professional music teaching in Portugal
Coordination
Jorge Alexandre Costa (PI)
Jorge Alexandre Costa (PI)
Graça Mota (CO-PI)
Team
Jorge Alexandre Costa | Graça Mota | Graça Boal-Palheiros | João Reis | José Oliveira Martins | Luísa Pais-Vieira | Paulo Perfeito | Rosa Barros
Consultants: Joaquim Azevedo | John Sloboda
Reference
UIDB/00472/2020
Period
01.09.2022-31.12.2023
Abstract
In 1989, the issue of the Decree-Law n 26 in January 21st, 1989, proposed the creation of the professional education as an unprecedented and original experience, not only for Portugal but also for the rest of Europe. This legislation was especially important for the specialized artistic music education which during the dictatorship, and according to the prevailing discourse, was of a social elitism in education, aiming at a school to which only a few had access.
After thirty years of professional music teaching in Portugal, the accomplishments and the results presented by the above-mentioned schools system quickly revealed that something new and different was happening, which could change the elitist and deficient panorama of music education in Portugal.
The present project aims at the systematic and comparative study between the professional music schools (PrMS), with particular incidence on the three first PrMS - the PrMS of Vale do Ave, the PrMS of Espinho and the PrMS of Viana do Castelo – and the Public Music Conservatoire (PuMC), from 1989 to 2019.
Methodologically, a number of research questions were devised and grouped under the umbrella of two major lines of inquiry: 1 - mapping the overall history of the PrMS, with special emphasis on the above listed three, and of the Porto Music Conservatoire during this same period, and 2 - mapping the related outcomes with the aim of finding evidences that tell us that the PrMS were able to bring about a significant change in the Portuguese musical, educational and social panorama when compared with the results of the traditional PuMC (emergence of individual musicians, orchestra musicians, chamber music ensembles, schools, pedagogical practices, teachers, local audiences and social and cultural changes).
This will be achieved according to a mix-methods methodology, made concrete in a multi-case study. Regarding former and present students of the PrMS and PuMC this project is anticipating the construction of thirty sociological portraits, a methodology devised by the sociologist Bernard Lahire.
Therefore, it is expected to unveil a complex as well as profoundly significant reality that may have been paramount for the development in Portugal of music education in general and instrumental music in particular.
After thirty years of professional music teaching in Portugal, the accomplishments and the results presented by the above-mentioned schools system quickly revealed that something new and different was happening, which could change the elitist and deficient panorama of music education in Portugal.
The present project aims at the systematic and comparative study between the professional music schools (PrMS), with particular incidence on the three first PrMS - the PrMS of Vale do Ave, the PrMS of Espinho and the PrMS of Viana do Castelo – and the Public Music Conservatoire (PuMC), from 1989 to 2019.
Methodologically, a number of research questions were devised and grouped under the umbrella of two major lines of inquiry: 1 - mapping the overall history of the PrMS, with special emphasis on the above listed three, and of the Porto Music Conservatoire during this same period, and 2 - mapping the related outcomes with the aim of finding evidences that tell us that the PrMS were able to bring about a significant change in the Portuguese musical, educational and social panorama when compared with the results of the traditional PuMC (emergence of individual musicians, orchestra musicians, chamber music ensembles, schools, pedagogical practices, teachers, local audiences and social and cultural changes).
This will be achieved according to a mix-methods methodology, made concrete in a multi-case study. Regarding former and present students of the PrMS and PuMC this project is anticipating the construction of thirty sociological portraits, a methodology devised by the sociologist Bernard Lahire.
Therefore, it is expected to unveil a complex as well as profoundly significant reality that may have been paramount for the development in Portugal of music education in general and instrumental music in particular.
Keywords
Music Teaching; Professional Education and Training; Orchestral Musicians; Social and Cultural Impact
