6. Discussion
6.2 Reflections on methodology
rights and artistic development of children with disabilities and refugee children as a matter for specialists or as an extra burden. It is within the scope of SAMS, publicly funded institutions at the intersection between education and culture, that all children’s cultural rights need to be secured.
Gergen’s (2015) first question, “what do you want to accomplish?” can be answered as follows. Naturally, I wanted to accomplish the aims of the research project. I have critically investigated SAMS discourses connected to policy processes for the democratisation of music education for all children and adolescents, and the present analyses have contributed to knowledge on the development and enactment of policy processes for the democratisation of music education. With respect to the overall research questions, I have exposed discourses of inclusion and exclusion, how the enactment of policies is constituted within and through SAMS leaders’ discursive practices and how the inclusion of all children is constituted within and through SAMS leaders’ discursive practices and policy documents with relevance for SAMS.
Gergen’s (2015) second question is “what is the social utility of this accomplishment?” This research study can contribute to SAMS inclusion policies and practices and lead to the inclusion of diverse groups of pupils, including individuals with disabilities and refugees. When exposing discourses of inclusion and exclusion, established ways of thinking and speaking about groups of pupils can be challenged and new ways of thinking made possible. By doing so, this study can contribute to the development of sustainable societies, where the democratic right to culture and the right to arts education are secured.
four articles have shown that the exercise of power, as expressed by Ball (2013), rules the discursive practices, as is illustrated by the leaders’ talk about themselves and the art and music schools they represent in Article I. Another example of the exercise of power is the negotiations between the leaders when it comes to terminology regarding disabilities in Article II and regarding refugees in Article III. Power produces the leaders as subjects that engage in processes for the inclusion of all children and adolescents but also as subjects that position themselves within the boundaries of normality. The exercise of power in the conversations and in the policy texts also produces the subjects of pupils and potential pupils within the groups of children with disabilities (Article II) and refugee children (Article III). By contrast, the exercise of power also objectifies the same groups of children and adolescents, constructing them as individuals “in need”
and with no apparent agency.
From a policy theoretical perspective, policy is put into practice in discursive practices. Article IV in particular shows that dimension of the conversations, with leaders arguing for collaboration in their policy practice. Taking a Foucauldian perspective on the results of that article and on Article I, the exercise of power produces and is produced by the leaders’ different subject positions.
As historically and contextually shaped through interactions and actions (Foucault, 1969/1972), the discursive practices of the leaders have been shaped even outside the focus group conversations. Examples of this are the texts written by representatives of the leaders (Lorensson, 2020; Sandh, 2012) and their Facebook group (Kulturskolerådet grupp, 2021), where policy is discursively put into practice.
The combination of discursive psychology and Foucauldian discourse analysis (Ericsson & Lindgren, 2011) or discourse analysis and analysis of discourses (Bacchi, 2005) is applied in Articles I and II. This combination has enabled an analysis of the rhetorical strategies applied by leaders when they position themselves within and through discourses and an analysis of the institutional discourses that are at play constituting subject positionings. For instance, leaders position themselves within an art and music school discourse and against a compulsory school discourse when making use of rhetorical strategies connected to defining their job descriptions as leaders.
Dominant discourses that have been explored by previous research, such as the normality discourse (Foucault, 1961/2010), are also at play and constitute subject positionings and knowledge regarding disabilities.
The results from the focus group conversations with SAMS leaders have confirmed their unique position between political decisions and pedagogical practices (as discussed in section 4.3), which offers important insights into policy practice. The analyses show that leaders have been actively involved in the national policy process, enacting policy early in that process (Di Lorenzo Tillborg, 2017a). Drawing on Ball’s (1993) cyclical approach to policy, SAMS leaders can be considered policy actors in the context of
practice, influencing the policy practice in their own and other contexts, such as the context of political decisions and text production. Since previous research has pointed out teachers’ low engagement with policy and with innovating practices (Holmberg, 2010; Jordhus-Lier, 2018; Tivenius, 2008), SAMS leaders’ engagement in policy processes might be useful in involving teachers in such processes.
The micro analysis with discursive psychology in Articles I and II has made it possible to analyse the rhetorical strategies used by the leaders when they position themselves.
The Foucauldian discourse analysis in Articles I, II and III has made it possible to expose unwritten structures and silenced discourses. The inclusion discourse, as well as the specialisation discourse can be considered dominant discourses since the origin of SAMS, as they can be identified in the rationale for the system (Björk et al., 2018;
Brändström & Wiklund, 1995; Holmberg, 2010; Svenska kommunförbundet, 1984).
The normalisation discourse can be regarded as a discourse that has been silenced through history. The unspoken and unwritten ideas of normality have enabled and maintained the discursive formations around specialisation and particular forms of subjectivity, thus contributing to the inclusion of some children and the exclusion of others. Statements that legitimise the exclusion of certain pupils or groups of pupils are exposed in the conversations with leaders but have not been as explicitly exposed in official and historical documents. However, discursive formations around specialisation have historically constituted the boundaries of inclusion and exclusion.
The results in Article I, where leaders enact policy during the process, were a significant impetus to apply policy theories more consistently in the following articles.
This allowed new layers to be applied in the analyses presented in Articles II, III and IV. The other reason for applying policy theories, which is noted in chapter 3, is that policy theories provide the means to suggest actions and policy recommendations. The policies and policy practices are thus analysed from discursive and policy theoretical perspectives.
Within a discourse theoretical framework, a reflective approach is encouraged (Heritage, 2004; Wetherell et al., 2001, 2004), which aligns with Gergen’s (2015) reflective pragmatism. The reflective approach can be applied to the researcher’s own positioning in relation to the discourses and to the participants. In the present section, I have reflected on how methodological decisions have contributed to the construction of the present study.
In conclusion, the research design and the methodology applied in this thesis have contributed to accomplishing what has been stated by the research aims, connecting to Gergen’s (2015) question about what the researcher wants to accomplish. Gergen’s question about “or whom” has been answered through the consequences for pupils of the different discourses at play. Gergen’s (2015) question about the research methods
the research methods is the notion that the study itself is considered to be socially constructed, in line with Jackson and Mazzei (2012), rather than a mirror of reality.
The notion of the study as a social construction implies that the conclusions, problematisations and recommendations need to be problematised further considering the contextual complexities and power relations in which the potential reader is embedded. Drawing on my own subjectivity, such a problematisation process starts in the following section.