Abstract

This work deals with the production of music culture and education in the context of Trentino and its music schools. The article analyses the characteristics of the system and its governance, and explores its coherence with the public objective of producing a meritorious good. It uses data from interviews and from two original surveys conducted between 2021 and 2023 – one targeted at school teachers, and the other one at their students – to illustrate, with descriptive statistics, the perceived outcomes and effectiveness of the system with respect to its educational objectives. Moreover, assuming that not only the financial and structural aspects of the system but also intangible elements, such as teachers’ motivation and its persistence, are relevant elements in sustaining the production of a meritorious good, we present a statistical description of teachers’motivational persistence, and then associate this variable with a number of determinants that include commitment, salary, the meaning a teacher attaches to his/her work, organisational involvement, and teachers’ compliance with the system rules.