Music teacher education between tradition and renewal. A discourse-analytical perspective on a cultural practice.
Short description
Dissertation by Lena Ostendorf.
My research interest concerns music teacher education at music academies in Sweden. I am interested in identifying attitudes and accepted "truths" that seem to be "part of the woodwork" at some institutions. How might aspects such as status, class and power be related to these attitudes and how can they be identified?
The study aims to investigate what historical and social factors constitute the discursive practice that makes up the learning environment within the teacher training programme at institutions of higher music education so that these can be problematized and discussed at a structural level.
I pose the following questions to attempt to achieve the study's aim: How have discourses in music teacher education been designed and legitimised in texts, such as curricula, syllabuses, recruitment documents and public printed material? How can the discourses be related to current social phenomena from an historical perspective?
How could we discern if, and in that case how, these discourses affect the educational/musical discourses in schools and society? Can there be consequences for both recruitment for music teacher education and music education in schools?
My study is based on a social constructivist perspective. Empirical evidence is generated through text documents, such as curricula, syllabuses, recruitment documents and public printed material, but may also be combined with observations and interviews. The empirical material will then be analysed through discourse analysis in the spirit of Foucault.