My third purpose addresses the child and young person as an individual independent of the social order and quite separate from any general notion of a person. Instead as an autonomous subjective self with the possibility of living creatively and critically. There was intimation of this in purpose [2]. Yet, neither purpose [1] or [2] recognises the uniqueness of each recipient of a music education. Controlling our own musical destiny is a neccessary resistance to the socialising process. Here is the possibility for personal agency and musical self-government.
Thus purpose [3]:
To enable all children and young people to become unique individuals, subjectively enriched, and able to know a sense of personal freedom through making music well.
And presented as a whole incorporating [1] and [2]:
The purpose of music education is:
To induct all children and young people into existing musical practices with the potential for the regeneration of these practices through critical engagement and with the knowledge of how to make music well, enabling all children and young people become unique individuals, subjectively enriched.
Notes:
[1] In proposing such a purpose I have followed the philosopher Gert Biesta’s approach to framing educational purposes.
[2] The reader is directed to chapter 16 of Music in the School: Significance and Purpose in The Bloomsbury Handbook of Popular Music Education: Perspectives and Practices edited by Zack Moir, Bryan Powell and Dylan Smith in which I set out the purposes of music education more fully.
[3] The three purposes are meant to be overlapping and mutually affirmative. The balance between the three can be made in responsne to circumstances. I can imaging purpose [3] might dominate at times, for example.
[4] I am at some pains to emphasise the ‘all children and young people’ phrase as my concern is a music education available to all and well represented by the idea of a statutory music education 4-14.
Music Education Now 