A Critical Discourse Analysis of World Music as the `Other' in Education

Abstract

This paper employs poststructuralist concepts of the `canon' and the `other', in combination with the Critical Discourse Analysis tools of ideology, discourse and binary opposition to demonstrate how world music is constructed in music education. Data was obtained from a semi-structured interview with a Queensland government secondary school music teacher. The analysis reveals an ideology of difference underpinning a number of binary oppositions constructed between world music and European music in relation to their surrounding cultures, musical functions, pedagogies and placements in the curriculum. Some of these categories are contested when overlapped with discourses of `familiarity' and `accessibility'. Consequently, world music is shown to be marginalised in the curriculum as the `other' in relation to the dominant `canon' of European music. These findings highlight the potential of Critical Discourse Analysis for new insights into music education research.