EQUALIZE is an AHRC-funded research project addressing a gap in secondary music education: electronic and Black-British music genres resonate strongly with young people but remain largely absent from the classroom, at a time when GCSE and A-Level music uptake is in long-term decline.
Developed in partnership with the Black Music Research Unit at the University of Westminster and Young Sounds UK, the project tested how these genres can be taught in school and community settings, and what stands in the way of bringing them into schools.
Delivered across Bradford and Birmingham with regional partners Punch Records, Bradford Allstar Entertainments and Bradford Music & Arts Service, the research ran through holiday projects and a series of workshops in secondary schools, working with over eighty young people alongside teachers and music leaders.
As the programme’s lead facilitator, Sophia designed the pedagogical approach and led the action research alongside academic partners Professor Mykaell Riley and Hussein Boon. Its central finding reframes declining uptake as a problem of curriculum relevance and teacher capacity rather than pupil disengagement: the binding constraint is teacher confidence, time and resourcing, not pupil appetite.
This evidence base now underpins the design of a teacher training model which will be shared nationally from early 2027.
