'If you’re a teacher, you’re a failed musician’: exploring hegemony in a UK conservatoire

Conservatoires offer intensive musical training with an emphasis on preparation for careers in performance. In contrast, instrumental teaching is often perceived as a second-class profession or a ‘fall-back career’ (Bennett, 2012). A pilot study undertaken at a UK conservatoire enabled a group of three final-year undergraduate music students to reflect on their personal learning trajectories via a questionnaire and a focus-group discussion. Taking into account their musical backgrounds and social influences, both prior to, and throughout, their conservatoire training, participants revealed hegemonic attitudes around teaching as a potential career path that were culturally informed, but which appeared to evolve over time. The emerging themes – aspiration/prejudice, exploration/uncertainty and transformation/passion – are considered together with Bourdieu’s interrelated theoretical concepts (habitus, capital and field), forming a developmental model.