scholarly journals A Mozart Concert or Three Simple Chords? Limits for Approval in Admission Tests for Swedish Specialist Music Teacher Education

2021 ◽  
pp. 19-40
Author(s):  
Ragnhild Sandberg-Jurström ◽  
Monica Lindgren ◽  
Olle Zandén
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Music Teacher ◽  
Striking Difference ◽  
Music Teacher Education ◽  
Minimum Requirement ◽  
Knowledge Representations ◽  
Admission Tests ◽  
Stimulated Recall ◽  
Main Instrument

Against the background of problems with unarticulated concepts of quality and assessment criteria when assessing music, this article concerns how the limit for approval is constructed and legitimised by jurors when assessing entrance auditions to Swedish specialist music teacher education. The data comprise video documented auditions, focus group conversations, and stimulated-recall based interviews, involving jury members at four music education departments. Social semiotic theory is used to study how jurors assess applicants’ knowledge representations in main instrument tests, what is considered decisive for an approval, and how this set limit is legitimised. Four approaches have been constructed: the demanding education and profession, the supposed capacity of the applicant, the flexible admission situation, and the care of the applicant. What is considered to be the minimum requirement for approval in these constructions differs markedly, which shows a striking difference between the views of jurors within and between institutions on how the applicants’ musical performances on a main instrument should be assessed. These findings are discussed in relation to two possible scenarios of revised admission tests.

scholarly journals Care as technology for exclusion

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 58-73
Author(s):  
Monica Lindgren ◽  
Ragnhild Sandberg-Jurström ◽  
Olle Zandén
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Music Teachers ◽  
Music Teacher ◽  
Discursive Practice ◽  
Music Teacher Education ◽  
Admission Tests ◽  
Stimulated Recall ◽  
The Future ◽  
Good For

In this article, we explore and problematise admission tests to specialist music teacher education in Sweden from a governing perspective, where higher music education is considered a discursive practice. It illustrates how power operates in legitimating the tests. The study uses stimulated recall in jury members’ talk about assessing applicants for music teacher education programmes, and uses Foucault’s concept of governmentality to reveal entrance tests as something regarded as generally good for all. This operating discourse is built on governmental rationality and processes that make it possible to reach conclusions about the applicants’ personalities and prospects for learning and developing in the future. Through care as technology of power, failing applicants are excluded from becoming music teachers and at the same time they are rescued from struggling in the future. The results are discussed in relation to issues of democratic music education, ethics and requirements for widened access to higher music education.

scholarly journals Musical skills, or attitude and dress style? Meaning-making when assessing admission tests for Swedish specialist music teacher education

2021 ◽  
pp. 1321103X2098177
Author(s):  
Ragnhild Sandberg-Jurström ◽  
Monica Lindgren ◽  
Olle Zandén
Keyword(s):  
Music Education ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Assessment Process ◽  
Music Teacher ◽  
Knowledge Representations ◽  
Musical Skills ◽  
Assessment Culture ◽  
Admission Tests ◽  
Stimulated Recall ◽  
Entrance Test

Although entrance test criteria seem decisive for accessing higher music education programmes, and problems and challenges with the assessment process are reported, the area is largely unexplored. This article concerns how entrance auditions, specifically primary instrument auditions for Swedish specialist music teacher programmes, are examined and discussed. The data comprise video-documented auditions, focus group conversations, and stimulated-recall-based interviews involving assessor groups at four music education departments. Social-semiotic theory is used to study how assessors judge applicants’ knowledge representations in audition performances. A music-centred assessment culture is constructed, emphasising assessments of technical, communicative, and genre-anchored interpretation skills essential for meeting the demands of the education and profession. Also, a person-centred assessment culture is revealed, emphasising the assessment of personal traits suitable for education and profession. The discussion addresses the reliability, credibility, and validity of assessing abilities in terms of being and behaving in a particular way.

Pushing the Boundaries from the Inside

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Colleen Conway ◽  
Shannan Hibbard
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Preservice Teachers ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Best Practice ◽  
Teacher Educators ◽  
Music Teacher ◽  
Adaptive Expertise ◽  
Music Teacher Education ◽  
Classroom Relationships ◽  
School Based

This chapter situates the study of music teacher education within the larger body of music education and teacher education research. It problematizes the terms teacher training, teacher education, and best practice and introduces the concept of teaching as an “impossible profession.” Goals of teacher education, including reflective practice and adaptive expertise, are discussed. The chapter outlines the challenges that music teacher educators face as they try to prepare preservice teachers for the realities of P-12 school-based music education while instilling in these new colleagues a disposition toward change. It concludes with narratives that examine teachers’ descriptions of classroom relationships throughout the lens of presence in teaching as a way to remind teacher educators of the importance of their work to push the boundaries of music teacher education in order to serve the profession at large.

The Oxford Handbook of Preservice Music Teacher Education in the United States

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Teacher Education ◽  
Music Education ◽  
State Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
Music Teacher ◽  
Music Teacher Education ◽  
Education Faculty ◽  
Song Writing ◽  
Faculty And Administrators

The Oxford Handbook of Preservice Music Teacher Education in the United States aims to work from within the profession of music teacher education to push the boundaries of P-12 music education. In this book, we will provide all of those working in music teacher education—music education faculty and administrators, music researchers, graduate students, department of education faculty and administrators, and state-level certification agencies—with research and promising practices for all areas of traditional preservice music teacher preparation. We define the areas of music teacher education as encompassing the more traditional structures, such as band, jazz band, marching band, orchestra, choir, musical theater, and elementary and secondary general music, as well as less common or newer areas: alternative string ensembles, guitar and song-writing, vernacular and popular music, early childhood music, and adult learners

Music Teacher Education Program Practices: Preparing Teachers to Work With Diverse Learners

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 51-64
Author(s):  
Mara E. Culp ◽  
Karen Salvador
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Preservice Teachers ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Teacher Educators ◽  
Teacher Education Program ◽  
Music Educators ◽  
Diverse Learners ◽  
Music Teacher ◽  
Music Teacher Education ◽  
Education Programs

Music educators must meet the needs of students with diverse characteristics, including but not limited to cultural backgrounds, musical abilities and interests, and physical, behavioral, social, and cognitive functioning. Music education programs may not systematically prepare preservice teachers or potential music teacher educators for this reality. The purpose of this study was to examine how music teacher education programs prepare undergraduate and graduate students to structure inclusive and responsive experiences for diverse learners. We replicated and expanded Salvador’s study by including graduate student preparation, incorporating additional facets of human diversity, and contacting all institutions accredited by National Association of Schools of Music to prepare music educators. According to our respondents, integrated instruction focused on diverse learners was more commonly part of undergraduate coursework than graduate coursework. We used quantitative and qualitative analysis to describe course offerings and content integration.

scholarly journals Initiating mobilizing networks: Mapping intercultural competences in two music teacher programmes in Israel and Finland

2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Miettinen ◽  
Claudia Gluschankof ◽  
Sidsel Karlsen ◽  
Heidi Westerlund
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Teacher Educators ◽  
Music Teacher ◽  
Music Teacher Education ◽  
Instrumental Case Study ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Educational Challenges ◽  
Holistic Understanding ◽  
Group Interviews

Societies worldwide are becoming more aware of the educational challenges that come with increased cultural diversity derived from ethnic, linguistic, religious, socioeconomic and educational differences and their intersections. In many countries, teacher education programmes are expected to prepare teachers for this reality and develop their intercultural competences. This instrumental case study is based on a project that aims to initiate mobilizing networks between two music teacher programmes to explore intercultural music teacher education. In this study, we map the intercultural competences that are required of music teacher educators and that are provided in the music education programmes at two higher music education institutions in Israel and Finland. The data consists of 11 focus group interviews with music teacher educators at the Levinsky College of Education in Tel Aviv and the Sibelius Academy of the University of the Arts Helsinki, conducted by a multinational research team. The data was analysed abductively, using content analysis as a method. While the interviewed teacher educators could articulate many aspects of their own intercultural competences or the lack of them, the findings indicate that in musical diversity and teaching students from different musical backgrounds the teacher educators found it difficult to explain what kinds of intercultural competences their respective programmes provided for the students. Based on the findings, there is a need for a more holistic understanding of intercultural competences in music teacher education as well as how our institutions produce power. There is also a need for the teacher educators in the programmes to collaborate and discuss among each other in order to create “knowledge communities” and to move towards addressing intercultural issues.

scholarly journals A Return to Amateurism in Music Education

2019 ◽  
Vol 106 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-37
Author(s):  
John Kratus
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
Teacher Education ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Music Teachers ◽  
American Music ◽  
Music Teacher ◽  
Music Teacher Education ◽  
Music Making ◽  
Large Ensembles

The future of American music education may be found in its past—a time when music teachers instilled lifelong amateur music-making in their students. There are differences between amateur and professional musicianship, and the focus of American music education shifted from amateurism to semiprofessionalism in the mid-twentieth century. An orientation toward semiprofessionalism makes little sense given the limited performance opportunities in large ensembles after high school and college. This article suggests a way back to nurturing amateurism and highlights two obstacles to this goal: the inflexibility of music teacher education and the profession’s reluctance to accept popular music. The article concludes with a narrative of what a world of amateur musicianship looks like.

Educational Policy Reforms and the Politics of Music Teacher Education

2015 ◽  
pp. 77-90
Author(s):  
Gabriel Rusinek ◽  
José Luis Aróstegui
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Teacher Education ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Higher Education Institutions ◽  
Compulsory Education ◽  
Music Teacher ◽  
Teacher Education Programs ◽  
Policy Reforms ◽  
Music Teacher Education ◽  
The Impact

This chapter discusses the politics of music teacher education in relation to the major policies that transnational institutions are promoting virtually all over the world, in relation to national curricula reforms and in relation to the programs developed by higher education institutions. The first section copes with the impact of international organizations on the reforms of national curricula based on an economic rationale and on the shaping of a new role for music and arts education in schools. The second section discusses to what extent higher education institutions in charge of teacher education are assuming these curricular changes. The final section contends that music teacher education programs should consider three major issues to foster social justice: (1) the quality of programs from an educational perspective; (2) the demise of music education as part of compulsory education; and (3) the acknowledgment of politics in music education and music teacher education.

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