There remains a tension in the Finnish music school institution for children and young people: is the goal to educate amateurs or future professionals? In my research, I have been able to discern several, partly systemic problems that affect the music school students. In this presentation I will show how these problems, merit-based exclusion, and hindrances to recognition at music school, are related to the norms of the institution and to the tension I described above.

My main source for the presentation are 26 statements given on the proposal for a new national core curriculum for the basic education of the arts by professionals in the music field in 2017. I will also include data from interviews with music school teachers and principals I have made in the fall of 2020 and winter of 2021.

Based on the new core curriculum (in force since 2018), it might first seem that the issues such as a lack of creativity, exclusion, or concentration on the most advanced students are now taken into consideration for the first time. However, even the earlier core curricula have made it possible to reconfigure teaching at music schools with quite a lot of liberty. This presentation explicates reasons for why the change has been so slow and what is being changed.

On the other hand, the tension and public discussion surrounding it, show the change has also been considered necessary for a long time. In my interviews with music school teachers and principals most are challenging old norms – what do professionals see as worthy of conserving and what needs to go?

I will disclose new visions that music school professionals have for the institution and new practices that they already use and/or would like to see more widely used to encourage everyone's inclusion in music school activities and finding the joy of music.

My presentation has three research questions:

1. Why has the change been so slow although possibilities to institute new practices and let go of old, problematic ones have been available for at least 15 years now?

 2. How are the partly systemic issues that some students have faced in music school (such as merit-based exclusion and troubles in gaining recognition) linked to the basic tension in the institution?

 3. What kind of new practices have now been established in music schools?

26 statements evaluating the proposal for a new national core curriculum for the basic education of the arts by professionals in the music field in 2017. Interviews of music school teachers and principals in institutions that offer basic education in the arts made in the autumn of 2020 and winter of 2021. My earlier research on meritocracy and the philosophical theory of recognition form the theoretical background. Earlier research on music schools and music school culture (see references).

I offer reasons for why the changes in practices have been so slow by referring to earlier research and interviews I have made with music school teachers and principals in the autumn of 2020 and winter 2021. Due to the pressures to train future professionals, the music schools may sometimes offer more resources to those students who are advancing in their studies better than their peers. Sometimes this also has effects on the way recognition is granted in the music school: not everyone is respected as an equal and given equal chances to succeed; the students may not be included in the negotiations concerning their hobby and lives but they are expected to dedicate their time to music. It may thus harm both those who are not recognized in the music school but also those who are esteemed for their skills and perceived talent. I also give examples of good practices that the professionals have now installed in their institutions.

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