Crossing borders. Perspectives on learning in a school musical project

Abstract

This article focuses on in what ways learning arose and developed in a school musical project, what it was like, and how one can understand this activity in an educational context? The school musical project was put on in collaboration with the ninth form of a lower secondary school and the municipality’s leisure-time centre. The study was based on observations, interviews and focused group discussions. The participants’ social and artistic interactions, together with the common artefacts, joint commitment, and influences from both school and leisure activity had a major impact on the creation of a cross border-learning environment. Status and hierarchies among the pupils were renegotiated due to the impact of that new learning environment. The lower secondary school curriculum describes measurable knowledge in separate subjects, providing clear contents and strong classification as legitimate knowledge. The project had an optional nature, as it involved no marks, but was rather based on subject integration with a zone of unpredictability. Hence a dilemma occurred. The voluntary, interdisciplinary nature of the project, partly in contrast to a curriculum dominated by compulsory individual school subjects, could support an educational alternative that can challenge traditional model of teaching.