Preservice music teachers as agents for change. A case study of preservice music teachers experiences from their teaching practice in general teacher education (GTE).

Project summary

This project has an overall aim to describe how preservice music teachers experience their teaching practice at the five-year GTE, and which competences they develop that can possibly be relevant for the future. The concept of agency is central with a critical point of view focusing on how GTE music programs facilitates democratic spaces for action in which preservice music teachers experience that their voices are heard, with an ability to act and affect their own education and possibly instigate change in their future work as music teachers.  

The researcher will firstly explore how preservice music teachers` articulate their agencies in their teacher practice, and secondly how their experiences of agency are conditioned (or limited) by institutional structures and frames in GTE. Thirdly, possible implications for the 5-year GTE and the music subject as a profession in the future will be discussed, highlighting preservice music teacher experiences and perspective.

The project research design will draw upon a case study approach, combined with qualitative interviews and observations. The preservice music teachers are representing a contemporary phenomenon, the case, and their teaching practice represents the student’s real-world context where their experiences will be investigated, through a detailed, in-depth data collection

The theoretical perspectives combine insights from various fields, for example critical (music) pedagogy, educational philosophy and cultural studies. Critical pedagogy can function as a lens to see education as an unfinished project where students are given opportunities to take part of alternative teaching methods, instead of being caught up in educational status quo.

 

Method

Case study, observation, qualitative interviews