Turning points: a transitional story of grade seven music students’ participation in high school band programmes

Abstract

As a framework for our study, a broad set of themes related to the retention of students in music programmes are presented to enhance our understanding of how to retain band students. Data were collected from grade seven students comprising four focus groups. We used ethnodrama, an arts-based educational research approach, to represent results as a research script. We found that assumptions made in previous research have little in common with what grade seven and eight students feel. Life experiences may strongly impact their decisions, band students like music and find it ‘fun’, and peers define band students as smart, successful, and strong individuals. The impact of the band teacher is minimal. Finally, students who choose not to continue in band often made the choice to avoid music rather than a choice to take other options.

Keywords:

• ethnodrama
• narrative research
• arts-based educational research
• a/r/tography
• band student retention
• high school band