Music as a Social Practice: A Critical View on Musical Education Activity at Primary Schools on the Framework of Non-Formal Activities

Abstract

Music represents an excellent means of social and expressive communication that reaches beyond words and language to convey and tangibly sense what cannot be said by words. Through the joint production of sound, whether by singing, playing, composing, watching or listening, children engage in a dialogue, building meanings before sharing and transforming them and thereby enriching their own cultural practices and horizons. Music is increasingly present in the various contexts that children engage with, in their playing, their songs, playground games and their favourite films and television series. And this free-time leisure activity enters into the scope of many classroom educational practices for different subject areas and, despite constituting a specific curricular subject in its own right, music constantly gets “pushed” into after-school activities. In this article, we provide a critical reflection on the teaching of music in the national education system and the ways children gain access to musical practices within the classroom environment