EXPLAINING VOCAL SELECTION PRACTICES IN SCHOOL CHOIRS USING BOURDIEU´S THEORIES

Abstract

This article is the result of completed doctoral research and aims to understand the practices of ten school choir teachers in Minas Gerais, in teaching children who have not yet developed vocal tuning. This is bibliographical and field research, which produces data from interviews, after the approval of the project by the Brazilian Committee responsible for research with humans. The data that emerges from the interviews are analyzed through coding and categorization processes, whose references are Bogdan and Biklen (1994) and Farias, Impolcetto and Benites (2020). The historical data comes from articles published in the Revista do Ensino, created in 1925, by the Directorate of Instruction of the Government of Minas Gerais. The theory used to understand the object of study is Pierre Bourdieu's notion that social practices are the result of habitus and capital, under the influence of the forces that act in a field. The research concludes that the teachers interviewed adopt explicit and tacit vocal selection practices in their school choirs. In part, these practices result from the lack of training in the area and the working conditions provided by educational institutions, such as: i.reduced class time; ii. excess number of students per class; iii. inadequacy of physical spaces and iv. overvaluation of the artistic product to the detriment of the educational-musical process.