O impacto das Escolas Profissionais de Música na mobilidade social dos seus diplomados

: estudo de caso no norte de Portugal

Abstract

Educational trajectories and the professional activity taken by each individual are the outcome of complex processes arising from family socialization and school socialization, recognising that social background is a major distinction factor in students’ achievements and on their professional careers. The school institution has a tendency to reproduce family cultural codes thereby penalising children from underprivileged social classes. The educational research that has been produced since last century’s 70's, gave the school institution a major role in deconstructing such reality, reversing the ongoing facts of exclusion and social reproduction while producing social mobility. This study approaches the problematic social mobility through a case study which analyses the educational and professional trajectories of adult graduates from professional music schools, in the north region of Portugal, according to their families’ socio-cultural circumstances. The subject chosen sent us immediately to the process of creation of professional schools in 1989. These institutions arose mainly as a local initiative network of private scheme, with a high level of autonomy and a framework determined by international policies of European integration and of socio-economic development, which was extended to Portugal. The curriculum design, the definition of a curricular structure for the music professional programs and the curricular and pedagogical regime for timetabling, assigning 50 percent of the learning hours to the technical/ artistic component, determined music practice to be the core of school socialization. Using the questionnaire as research instrument and a sample that includes the adult graduates from the EPM [Professional Music Schools] in the North of Portugal, four important markers were studied: students’ family’s social conditions, school achievements, academic diploma, and professional occupation of the graduates. Through statistical evaluation using SPSS it was observed that the highest rank achieved by the EPM graduates in college education and the professional occupation they hold in adult age, do not depend on family social background, being independent from family educational capital.

Date of Award	2015
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Matias Alves (Supervisor)