The right to musical knowledge: Curricular policies and music education in local Brazilian public schools
Background: Despite laws mandating music in Brazilian basic education, children’s access to specialised musical knowledge is frequently compromised by curriculum policies and workforce structures. This study contextualises how local policies reinterpret the National Common Curriculum Base (BNCC), mediating the epistemological value of music and impacting children’s rights to musical knowledge in government schools.
Aim: This study investigates the conceptions, contradictions, and tensions permeating music education in the São Paulo City Curriculum, analysing its relationship with the national normative prescription (BNCC). It unveils how recontextualising national guidelines locally alters musical knowledge for early primary education, determining whether these documents ensure access to specialised knowledge or restrict music to behavioural norms.
Method/approach: Using Critical Curriculum Theory, a qualitative document analysis was conducted on the BNCC (2018) and the São Paulo City Curriculum (2019). Data were analysed via content analysis, applying Basil Bernstein’s pedagogic discourse theory and Michael Young’s “powerful knowledge” concept. As a documentary study of public policies, no human participants were involved, so no ethical clearance was required.
Results/findings: The local curriculum advances by proposing 28 specific musical objectives, resisting national utilitarian reduction. However, its discursive structure systematically subordinates specialised musical concepts (instructional discourse) to behavioural and socialisation norms (regulative discourse). Furthermore, a significant workforce barrier exists: the local system relies on generalist arts teachers, not music specialists, to deliver these complex goals.
Conclusion: Structural and discursive dilutions reduce school music to classroom management or festive entertainment. Relegating structured musical language to generic activities taught by non-specialists fundamentally denies government school children their educational rights. True inclusion and social justice require that all children have access to specialised concepts empowering them to critically transform their cultural realities.
Implications for children and families: You deserve specialised music teachers; understanding the curriculum empowers you to demand this right.
Implications for practitioners: You must advocate for specialised teaching to ensure students have access to transformative musical knowledge.
Keywords: music education, curricular policies, children’s rights, musical knowledge
This presentation relates to the following United Nations Sustainable Development Goals: