Conceptions of "popular music" and music teacher training: a critical analysis from the field of popular cultures

Abstract

The reflections and hypotheses that are developed in this writing try to order and make explicit a set of concerns that arose from the teaching practice within the framework of Sociology of Education for the Latin American Popular Music Teachers that is taught in the School of Human Sciences from the National University of San Luis. In particular, an attempt is made to focus the gaze on some conceptions about popular music that circulate in teachers, the assessment criteria they hold and the implications of this for the teaching practices of future music teachers. A critical analysis is carried out around these topics, taking some theoretical tools from the study of popular cultures, trying to point out two central issues: on the one hand, the importance of conceiving popular cultures or music from an approach that transcends the conceptualizations of the romantic nationalism; on the other hand, the relevance of problematizing the aesthetic, moral and political criteria for evaluating students and teachers regarding what is or is not “popular music”. This naturalized criteria, if not relativized and historicized, can become prejudiced and devaluing regarding the consumption and musical productions of popular sectors. This constitutes a key political-pedagogical problem, as most of the young people with whom future music teachers will work will belong to these sectors.