Mediations, Institutions and Post-Compulosry Music Education

This chapter draws on two main pieces of research – first, my doctoral thesis, which examined the processes of professionalization in Scottish folk/traditional music and the way in which this impacts ideology and conceptualization (McLaughlin, 2012).This work involved a study of mediation/mediators and examined the role of Further and Higher Education (FE & HE)1 institutions in shaping understand- ings of folk and traditional Scottish music. Second, this chapter draws on an ongo- ing piece of research, funded by the Royal Society of Edinburgh, examining the teaching and assessment of creative practice in Scottish post-compulsory (FE and HE) popular music education.While my focus is primarily on FE and HE institu- tions in Scotland, discussion also includes HE institutions from other parts of the UK.