ABSTRACT

This study presents an analysis of hidden elitism in music education through the free choice argument – that individuals are fundamentally free to choose to study music – as a meritocratic power structure. Qualitative Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) is applied to understand music education as a social system with a special structure in which its purpose regulates its functions and makes them meaningful in a given social setting through discourse. The study shows how free choice can appear both as a democratic principle and a legitimising discursive mechanism restricting the enactment of equality. Through a case, the study then demonstrates, first, how the relationship between the meritocratic discourse of free choice and hidden elitism can be identified by using SSM in the context of Finnish music education system, and second, how professionals can bridge social systems and transgress hidden elitist structures.

摘要

本研究通过自由选择论点分析音乐教育中隐藏的精英主义——个人从根本上可以自由选择学习音乐——作为一种精英权力结构。定性软系统方法论 (SSM) 用于将音乐教育理解为具有特殊结构的社会系统，其目的通过话语调节其功能并使其在给定的社会环境中有意义。该研究表明，自由选择如何既可以表现为民主原则，又可以表现为限制平等制定的合法化话语机制。通过一个案例，该研究首先证明了在芬兰音乐教育体系的背景下，如何通过使用 SSM 来识别自由选择的精英话语与隐藏的精英主义之间的关系，其次，