Research-Based Music Teacher Professionalisation
Short description
Doctoral thesis by Christer Larsson.
According to the Swedish Education Act, teaching in schools must be based on scientific foundation. In his dissertation project, Christer Larsson examines how this requirement affects policy work across three different Swedish policy arenas, and how this affects the professionalisation of Swedish music teachers.
The study takes the form of a compilation thesis consisting of four articles and a comprehensive summary (kappa).
The first article, published in the Australian Journal of Music Education1, discusses the theoretical and methodological framework of the doctoral project.
The second article analyses how research-based teacher identities are constructed in policy texts produced by the Swedish National Agency for Education. This article is published in the Nordic Journal of Studies in Educational Policy2.
The third article3 examines how policy work related to research-based practice in Swedish schools is recontextualized in texts produced by the Swedish Teachers’ Union, the National Union of Teachers, and the Swedish Association of Music Teachers. The article is published in the North American journal Arts Education Policy Review.
The fourth article has been submitted to a Nordic peer-reviewed journal and is currently under review. This article analyses how local policy concerning research-based music teacher professionalism is negotiated in collegial conversations at three Swedish upper secondary schools.
In the comprehensive summary (kappa), I discuss how the articles, taken together, fulfil the overarching aim of the thesis: to investigate how policy work related to research-based practice in Swedish schools impacts the Swedish music teacher profession. More specifically, the thesis describes and analyses how a research-based music teacher profession is discursively enacted across three different policy arenas.
The research interest has emerged from Christer Larsson’s experience of working as a music teacher for more than 15 years, as well as through conversations with music teacher colleagues and students. The doctoral project is conducted within the subject area of Arts Education, and the completed thesis will be publicly defended in June 2026.
1 Larsson, C. (2023). Researching research-based professionalisation of music teachers—A Swedish framework to explore policy enactments in three contexts through a (critical) policy sociological lens. Australian Journal of Music Education, 55(2), 39–46.
2 Larsson, C., & Sjöberg, L. (2021). Academized or deprofessionalized?– policy discourses of teacher professionalism in relation to research-based education. Nordic Journal of Studies in Educational Policy, 7(1), 3–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/20020317.2021.1877448
3 Larsson, C. (2025). The Swedish “problem” of evidence-resistant policymakers—music teacher organizations enacting policy for research-based education into legitimation work. Arts Education Policy Review, 0(0), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1080/10632913.2025.2525261
