Participatory performance in the secondary music classroom and the paradox of belonging

ABSTRACT

Participatory performance, as defined by Thomas Turino, holds the potential to contribute to enhanced social bonding, cooperation, and the realisation of community among participants – despite the conflict or ‘paradox’ between self-expression and collective affiliation which it often provokes. This study considers how managing this underlying ‘paradox of belonging’ can positively contribute to the development of participatory performance’s social benefits. It presents a case study of practitioner research situated in a UK secondary school, in which pupils (aged 11–13) faced the paradox of belonging during participatory performances of Terry Riley’s In C. Pupils perceived an emerging conflict between individual ability and interpersonal affinity, and in response proposed and practised different models of leadership to avoid, activate, and transcend the paradox. The study concludes by evaluating how these same responses could allow other participatory practices in secondary music classrooms to equip pupils to negotiate the paradox of belonging.

KEYWORDS:

• Participatory performance
• classroom
• paradox
• belonging
• community
• In C
• practitioner research

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank the many people who gave up their time to support this study, not least Peter McMurray, for supervising my original MPhil dissertation, and John Finney, Stephanie Pitts, and two anonymous reviewers for providing valuable feedback on drafts of this article. I am also indebted to the senior management and music department of the school at which my project took place – and to all the pupils in my Year Seven and Eight classes – for so kindly facilitating my research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributor

Elizabeth MacGregor (née Bate) is currently a doctoral student at the University of Sheffield, where, under the supervision of Stephanie Pitts, she is researching the perception of ‘musical vulnerability’ in secondary music education. Elizabeth graduated from Selwyn College, University of Cambridge in 2019, having received a Distinction in her MPhil in Music and a First with Distinction in her BA in Music. The research for her study Participatory Performance in the Secondary Music Classroom and the Paradox of Belonging was originally undertaken as part of her MPhil dissertation. She has previously published work in the British Journal of Music Education and contributed to the volume Critical and Creative Projects in Classroom Music Education: Fifty Years of Sound and Silence.

ORCID

Elizabeth H. MacGregor http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4026-8816

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a Cambridge Arts and Humanities Research Council (DTP) studentship [award reference AH/L503897/1].