This paper, an excerpt from a doctoral thesis, examines the historical and epistemological foundations of Brazilian national curricular policies for Music education throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Focusing on key normative documents that precede or intersect with the Brazilian National Common Core Curriculum (BNCC), the study analyses how musical knowledge has been framed, regulated, and legitimised within national curriculum policies. Drawing on literature in curriculum theory and music education, the analysis reveals shifts in the epistemological positioning of music within the school curriculum, moving from nationalist and disciplinary frameworks to polyvalent models of arts education and, more recently, to competency-based curricular structures. Particular attention is given to the BNCC, whose organisation reflects broader global trends of curriculum standardisation associated with neoliberal educational governance. In this configuration, musical knowledge tends to be simplified and subsumed within generic arts components, reducing its disciplinary specificity and pedagogical scope. By presenting this trajectory, the article also seeks to contribute to international dialogue and comparative perspectives on curriculum regulation in music education. The Brazilian case illustrates how global policy agendas may reshape local curricular frameworks, often generating tensions between democratic access to knowledge and the epistemological consolidation of music education within basic schooling.
Santos et al. (Fri,) studied this question.