Abstract
My doctoral research project sought to explore the ways in which school music teachers' values and beliefs impact on their students' experience of music education. Music in schools is often positioned as a subject for the few rather than for the many. The literature describes music teachers themselves as elitist, more interested in their subject than in their students' learning and providing musical experiences that are disconnected from students' out-of-school musical worlds. This case explores the way in which theory and methodology were intertwined to create a rigorous and robust research design. The data generation process and manuscript presentation drew heavily on the methodological devices of narrative inquiry, while the analysis made use of sociologist Pierre Bourdieu's theory of practice. This created ethical and epistemological tensions in balancing critique of the data with my desire to maintain a positive relationship with the teacher participants.