Music and Identity

Discourse theory and discourse psychology form the theoretical and methodological foundations of the study, within the framework of which a social-constructionist view of reality is also encompassed; this means that reality can be described as a construction based on historical, social and cultural factors.
Fundamental to discourse analytic theory is that knowledge is created, organised and also changes in the interaction between people in social and cultural contexts. The approach adopted to learning, to the subject, to language and to action has bearing on the theoretical foundations of discourse analysis, and the interaction between language and action is therefore central to the dissertation.

Hence, the study focuses on how discourses surrounding musical learning in teacher education are materialised in multimodal interaction between the actors in this process. The study also focuses on identity construction and identity negotiations in the music classes that are a part of the teacher education programme.
In this study, identity is not regarded as a fixed position that a person as a subject possesses but is instead explored on the basis of what different forms of subject positions student teachers are offered and enabled to acquire through different discourses.

The aim of the study is therefore to identify, describe, problematise and discuss discourses surrounding knowledge building in the music classes that take place within teacher education.

Empirical data will be produced during the autumn of 2011 by filming music classes that take place within the framework of arts teacher education at a number of Swedish higher education institutions. The empirical data will mainly consist of data from these video documentations but will also consist of field notes from the recordings mentioned above.