INVESTIGATIVE STUDY ON STUDENT EVASION IN THE SOCIAL PROJECT VALE MÚSICA/ES
Keywords: Evasion, Social Project, Music teaching, Music Education, Collective teaching.
ABSTRACT
Music teaching in regular schools in Brazil does not have the same prestige as other disciplines in the curriculum., it also does not have achieved the same importance as in other countries (PAES and SANTOS, 2015). In this way, the absence of music teaching, especially instrumental music, in regular schools, and the predominance of this type of teaching in the few specialized schools has made it more difficult for a large number of young people who want to learn an instrument to have access to the study of music or a musical instrument. In the last two decades of the 20th century, we saw an exponential growth in the number of civil society organizations (NGOs) and socio-cultural projects offering artistic activities, especially in the field of music teaching. These NGOs and social projects actions end up taking on social and educational responsibility with the aim of combating socio-cultural exclusion. This is the case of the Vale Música Project, developed in the city of Serra, in Espírito Santo. Despite the success of this project attending a large number of children and adolescents, there is also a high level of evasion. So, when we asked - what is the reason why the students in this project quit musical training? We felt it was important to study and investigate the causes that lead to the abandonment of musical study. In order to answer to our question, we developed this study based on a qualitative approach, which technical procedures led to a case study (STAKE, 2006), with the aim of investigating the factors that lead children and adolescents from the Vale Música Project in Espírito Santo to fail, culminating in their abandonment of musical learning activities. The research data was collected through participant observation at orchestra rehearsals, instrument lessons and semi-structured interviews with the project coordinator, the conductor, teachers, evaded students, and their parents. The results showed that a lack of family support, among other factors, can contribute to students’ evasion on learning music in social projects. It is expected that the results of this study will make it possible to identify the causes of evasion and point to ways of reversing this situation, allowing music and the study of an instrument to become part of parents' and students' choices as a leisure activity, cultural, intellectual and social enrichment and, eventually, as future professionalization.