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Published Version (Advanced Access)CC BY-NC-ND V4.0, Open Access
Published VersionCC BY-NC-ND V4.0, Open
Journal article
Music education as symbolic action: critiquing Western music education rhetoric
Social Semiotics, Vol.Advanced access
24-Oct-2025
Abstract
This paper examines Western music education through Kenneth Burke's dramatism, revealing how traditional pedagogical practices function as symbolic actions perpetuating cultural hierarchies and conservative ideologies. We argue that institutionalised music education employs rhetorical mechanisms conflating scientistic and dramatistic approaches to music, particularly through repertoire selection and error correction. These mechanisms position certain works as inherently “correct” while othering alternatives, maintaining cultural supremacy that privileges Western Common Practice traditions and potentially limiting students’ creative development and contemporary career opportunities. We demonstrate how institutions tacitly deploy these mechanisms, creating self-perpetuating musical conservatism that disconnects students from industrial practices and innovation. In response, we propose the Shared Music Vocabulary (SMV) as an alternative framework acknowledging music education as rhetorical symbolic action entangled with social, political, and cultural identities. This approach prioritises intellectual property generation and embraces multiple disciplines simultaneously, offering more inclusive and industrially relevant music education.
Details
- Title
- Music education as symbolic action: critiquing Western music education rhetoric
- Authors
- Andy Ward (Corresponding Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Business and Creative IndustriesBriony Luttrell (Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Business and Creative IndustriesLachlan Goold (Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Business and Creative Industries
- Publication details
- Social Semiotics, Vol.Advanced access
- Publisher
- Routledge
- DOI
- 10.1080/10350330.2025.2577737
- ISSN
- 1470-1219; 1035-0330
- Copyright note
- © 2025 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.
- Data Availability
- As this is a theoretical paper, all data discussed herein is in the public domain.
- Organisation Unit
- School of Business and Creative Industries
- Language
- English
- Record Identifier
- 991174045802621
- Output Type
- Journal article
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