The connection between English art school pedagogies in the 1960s and 1970s with punk, post-punk, and new wave music

Numerous well-known popular musicians were educated within art schools (AS) through an era where the art form creatively expanded and set the basis for the multi-genre music industry which exists today. The main argument of this thesis is that a connection existed between 1960s and 70s art pedagogy, which occurred within some of the more radical AS in England, and the development of creative popular musicians who emerged within the subgenres of punk, post punk, and the new wave. A postmodern pedagogical theoretical framework has been innovatively developed to analyse the data, which identifies four main characteristics of the pedagogies developed at the art schools concentrated on within this research: the re-imagining of hierarchies, a focus on the creative process, an explosion of experimentation and the increasing importance of the interrelationships in artistic creation. These themes highlight key pedagogical philosophies and practices of English AS in the 1960s and 70s, connected to the creative development of those popular musicians influenced by the schools studied in this thesis. Eight interviews were undertaken with key participants of the English AS scene, who emerged as influential in the development of popular music. A postmodern approach to interviewing was employed, which achieved a co-creation of knowledge between participants and myself. Thematic Analysis was utilised to analyse the data and supported the development of the four themes related to creative practices: hierarchies, process, experimentation and relationships. Concluding the thesis is a set of recommendations for curriculum development within Higher Popular Music Education (HPME) based around the four central themes of this research