To Örebro University

English title: Parents’ expectations of municipal school of music and of arts.

Thesis in Music Education by Jonathan Lilliedahl. Part of the work for the master´s degree. Studies from School of Music, University of Örebro, 2007. Available from School of Music, Örebro University, SE-701 82 Örebro, Sweden. Original in Swedish.

Keywords: parents’ expectations, municipal school of music and of arts, music education, childrens’ development, creative activity, parental influence, municipal activity.

The essay concerns parents’ expectations within municipal school of music and of arts. The main aim is to elucidate and understand parents’ expectations of the school and purposes about their childrens activity, and then, discuss the results towards the concept and the didactic of the school.

The method has been Grounded Theory. The results are grounded on qualitative interviews with twelve parents from different municipalities and the empirical material has been encoded into categories of various kinds.

The results, which have been encoded for a several times and on different levels, indicate that parents have different purposes to each other, but also that each parent has different purposes in various contexts. A joint comprehensive aim and expectation is that the school and their teachers should enable an all-embracing development. Underlying, there are musical targets and objectives towards music as means. The parents take both individual- and group perspectives.

The results can also illustrate that parents in many cases adapt their expectations to the existing structure of the school and that many of the parents are satisfied as long as everything works. Many of the parents consider that a municipal school should be responsible for a broad education of arts, characterized by democracy and availability.

As a conclusion it may be said, while the parents’ exceptions focus on the childs’ interest and development, the municipal school of music and of arts has even more interests to satisfy and comply with.