Musikklass - som del av en livsberättelse

Abstract

My interest in examining what happens when you as a teenager are exposed to five or six times the amount of time as ordinary classes to music education derrives from my own experience as a music teacher at a school which has those kind of special music classes. During my career as a music teacher in grades 4 – 9 in Swedish compulsory school I have taught music classes as well as ordinary classes for 18 years. During this time I have often wondered what this exposure means in retrospect. Is it the conquering and mastering of music skills that students remember when they’ve grown up to young adults, or is it something else? The aim of this study is to find out what it means for teenagers to have music as a school subject every day of their years in Swedish high school. How will they remember their teens and their relationship to music when they are older? To find out I have used qualitative semi- structured interviews, and used a narrative standpoint when writing their life-stories. The result indicates that going to music class forms and shapes a musical identitiy that stays on even after the teenagers have left cumpulsory school. Their music class identity is spoken of with pride and surprisingly enough none of my informants spoke anything about acquired knowledge in the music subjects. But they all did speak of identity, sister- and brotherhood and the sense of belonging.