Bringing a ‘What’s the problem represented to be?’ approach to music education: a national plan for music education 2022

dc.contributor.authorBacchi, C.
dc.date.issued2023
dc.description.abstractThis article introduces an analytic strategy or thinking tool called the ‘What’s the Problem Represented to be?’ (WPR) approach and suggests its usefulness for reflecting on important debates in music education. First developed as a mode of policy analysis, WPR has since been adopted in many fields and topic areas. The WPR approach consists of seven forms of questioning and analysis that target modes of governing and governing knowledges, their presuppositions, their genealogies and their effects. It is best described as a problematisation approach that studies how issues are problematised or conceptualized. The article explores what this description means and the implications that flow from applying this thinking tool. The recent (June 2022) National Plan for Music Education, titled The Power of Music to Change Lives, provides a focus for illustrating how to deploy WPR. The task involves seeking out ‘proposals’ in the Plan and indicating how these proposed solutions represent (or produce or constitute) the ‘problem’ of ‘music education’. The goal is to make available a novel approach to a range of issues that have engaged the field for decades.
dc.description.statementofresponsibilityCarol Bacchi
dc.identifier.citationMusic Education Research, 2023; 25(3):231-241
dc.identifier.doi10.1080/14613808.2023.2223220
dc.identifier.issn1461-3808
dc.identifier.issn1469-9893
dc.identifier.orcidBacchi, C. [0000-0001-8555-5408]
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/2440/138904
dc.language.isoen
dc.publisherInforma UK Limited
dc.rights© 2023 Taylor & Francis.
dc.source.urihttps://doi.org/10.1080/14613808.2023.2223220
dc.subjectProblematisation; policy discourse; governmentality; subjectification; practices
dc.titleBringing a ‘What’s the problem represented to be?’ approach to music education: a national plan for music education 2022
dc.typeJournal article
pubs.publication-statusPublished

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