Abstract

The view about music as a science is analyzed in a sociological perspective. This view is maintained by the need to overcome a main stereotype that appears to be dominant during modernity. It is the cliché about art as luxury. The article argues that alienated social relations in cultural life generate both this cliché and the view about music as a science. They both have serious negative implications for the musical education and for the cultural life in general (particularly in Greece).

In this context, the article analyzes the paradoxes of the musical education in Greece. It emphasizes on the fact that the cultural and the educational policy are based on the stereotype about the arts as luxury. This fact is verified by the data collected from a field research in institutes of music education and by a quantitative analysis of the public music schools curriculum.

Finally, the article argues that contemporary cultural development requires a type of educational and cultural policy that is incompatible with the cliché about art as luxury.