Prescriptions and the practical epistemology of music teachers:the case of “orchestra à l’école” (orchestra in schools)

Resumen

 This study focuses on research into the work of music teachers and visiting music teachers in a primary school in France between 2018-2021. Their teaching activities are part of the "Orchestre à l'école" (Orchestra in schools) scheme. This scheme enables children from working-class and sometimes disadvantaged backgrounds to access and develop skills in instrumental and orchestral playing at different times of the week. The observations were made at the request of the music teachers, who wanted to take stock of their work after several years. The pedagogical quality of these music and music teaching professionals, the institutional framework and the friendly atmosphere of the project enabled this participatory research to take place under the best possible conditions. The study focuses on the effects of the prescriptions given by the instrumental teachers on their practical epistemology. The hypothesis is that the polymorphous nature of the prescription, of the instruction, has as much effect on the pupils as on the teacher's practical epistemology. To verify this hypothesis, the analysis of the data collected during this participatory research concerns the transcripts of simple self-confrontation interviews conducted with the teachers. After a review of the literature on the concepts of prescription and practical epistemology, the article describes the main methodological aspects and undertakes an analysis of interview snippets, before proposing a discussion. While the top-down prescription reveals the teacher's practical epistemology, the pupils' bottom-up prescriptions seem to reveal what makes it evolve.