Nigel A. Marshall

• University of Roehampton

In this paper, we report on two studies carried out to further explore the level of listening and discriminatory abilities present in very young children through the development of an age appropriate methodology. Working with children aged between 3 and 4 years of age, our first study explored the level of performance achieved on a matching task us...

At the turn of the century, there was a widespread perception on the part of pupils, teachers, and policy makers that a "problem with school music" existed, particularly at the secondary level. It was hypothesized that one contributory factor was the perceived authenticity of "school music" in relation to "music outside school," not least because t...

This article investigates the transition and transfer process from primary to secondary school in music from the teacher perspective. Thirteen secondary music teachers from 13 secondary schools throughout England were interviewed along with seven primary-school teachers representing five primary schools. This paper reports interview data from both...

The Western classical training of many secondary music specialist teachers may be inappropriate for the demands of the contemporary secondary school classroom, leading to a conflict between their self-concepts as 'musicians' and as 'teachers'. To undertake a short-term longitudinal comparison of the developing identities and the attitudes of a grou...

This article explores the process of transferring from primary to secondary school in music from the perspective of the pupil. Seventy-five pupils from five schools were interviewed in small focus groups during their last weeks in primary school and follow-up interviews on 68 of the original pupils, representing 13 schools, took place one year late...

Previous research has suggested that by the age of six, children display high levels of competence in identifying and reliably distinguishing between different musical styles. Until now, it has been difficult to investigate musical style sensitivity in the early years because the test procedures have relied heavily on the use of language, including...

Music is compulsory for all English secondary school pupils up until the age of 14. The current shortage of graduates wishing to pursue a career in secondary school music teaching is therefore a matter of serious concern. Taking the concept of "musical identity" as a basis, the Teacher Identities in Music Education (TIME) project investigated the a...

The notion of ‘musical identities’ may help us to understand the origins of the ‘problem of secondary school music’, which seems to be particularly acute in the English secondary school. Pupils' musical identities are strongly bound up with the importance of pop music outside school, and the distinction between ‘music in school’ and ‘music outside...

This article examines the perceived and documented problems of school music, particularly at secondary level, through a study of young people's music in and out of school. Four issues are explored: teachers' approaches to music in school; pupils' levels of engagement in musical activities in and out of school; pupils' attitudes to music in and out...

Starting from Hargreaves' (1986a) review of the relationship between developmental psychology and music education, we characterise the mid-1980s as a point at which the different main strands of music psychology began to unfold. We move to the present day and beyond, suggesting that a major change has been the incorporation of a social perspective:...

This paper describes some preliminary findings from the Teacher Identities in Music Education (TIME) project, which is investigating how the attitudes and identities of intending secondary school music teachers develop during the transition from music student or musician through postgraduate teacher education and into their first teaching post. It...