Music Teacher Education

Background The functions and outcomes of higher music education are increasingly challenged by scholars especially with respect to the characteristics of ‘conservatoire culture’. Within this culture, Western classical music has served as the primary model for musical and pedagogical expertise, as it has been believed that the transmission of (musical) knowledge occurs most effectively through one-to-one instruction, a hierarchical master-apprentice model. As Gaunt and Westerlund (in print) claim, the institutions of such a culture can be compared to silos sites for cultivating strong traditions, but also with strong hegemonic forces resisting any change of weather posed by administration or research. According to recent studies, such silos are “deeply entrenched within traditional universities” (Davidson & Goldberg 2010, 113) separating departments, disciplines, and divisions of universities, preventing the creation of collaborative practices and collective forms of participatory learning. As measures to counteract the silo situation, Davidson and Goldberg suggest that learning institutions should rather be considered as “mobilizing networks” (ibid., 193). Instead of thinking about teacher education institutions “in terms of rules, regulations and norms governing interactivity, production and distribution within the institutional structure” (ibid.), one should emphasize opening up “to new interacting networks (…) [which] enable mobilization, focusing on flexibility, interactivity, and outcome” (ibid.). This project stems from recent research findings that advise that future developments in teacher education should entail a turn towards cultivating “a network of global scholars, researchers, and practitioners interested in working within cross-national collaborations on the study of teacher education” (Ball & Tyson 2011, 412; see also DarlingHammond & Lieberman 2012, with regard to the importance of thinking globally when developing teacher education practices and policies) to cultivate ‘networked expertise’ (Hakkarainen, in print), a joint or shared competence within communities and organized groups of experts and professionals, instead of focusing on individual expertise. (…) These research interests place the Sibelius Academy in a unique, and advantaged position to address the current, growing needs for change and adaptation, experienced by higher education institutions, and in particular, music education programs internationally. In addition, whilst specific methods-based approaches (e.g. Kodaly) have been seen as one of the hindrances of change in music teacher education worldwide (Regelski 2002), the Sibelius Academy has no strong tradition of such instruction, and instead, has developed strong popular music pedagogies with the aim to promote musical pluralism in teacher education (Westerlund 2006). However, notwithstanding recent studies in his unit on how specific courses (Rikandi 2012) or doctoral education can be further developed (Rikandi, Karlsen & Westerlund 2010), and rare instances (Allsup 2011) of popularized international publications on Finnish music teacher preparation, no large-scale studies have been undertaken in Finland, or internationally, in order to develop music teacher education programs as a whole. As a result of Finland’s international reputation for general educational success (see, Sahlberg 2011) and Finnish music education’s progressive and pluralistic approaches, the music education research unit of the Sibelius Academy has been contacted by representatives of the Nepal Music Centre (NMC) in Kathmandu. The Nepalese Ministry of Education has introduced music as an elective into general schooling for the first time, and consequently, the country finds itself in urgent need of approximately 6,000 music teachers and teacher educators. The Nepalese Ministry of Education and the NMC are in the process of establishing the first Nepalese music teacher preparation program, and have requested the Finnish music educators to offer their expertise and provide support for establishing these necessary programs. The situations arising within this mission are seen as an opportunity for

both parties to engage in collaborative developmental work and research, taking the institutional needs on both sides as a point of departure for identifying joint areas of interest and of future development. This project is not an outreach program, but is designed as a collaborative developmental research project in a higher music education context. The contexts for institutional developments in the two countries are vastly different regarding societal, cultural, political, economic, religious and, thus, educational conditions, making the project an extension and relevant continuation of research on cultural diversity in music education in the 1990’s and more recently by the principal investigators (Karlsen 2011, 2012; Karlsen & Westerlund 2010), particularly in Karlsen’s project Exploring democracy Conceptions of immigrant students development of musical agency in Finland, Sweden and Norway. The project also extends the most recent studies by the research team, for example: teacher’s navigations between ancient traditions and cosmopolitanism in Cambodian music and dance education (Kallio & Westerlund, submitted); expressions of patriotism in educational policy and practice in both Finland and Cambodia (Partti & Kallio, submitted); processes of repertoire selection through a school censorship frame in Finnish secondary music education (Kallio, submitted); the implications of new online music communities on music teaching (e.g., Partti & Westerlund 2012); and development of pedagogy in music teacher education through action research (e.g., Rikandi 2012). As a whole, the project combines the theory and practice of multicultural music education and teaching and learning in music teacher preparation as part of higher music education. Objectives The main objective of this study is to explore how two context-specific (e.g., Valli 1992; Rios 1996) music teacher education programs can be constructed and co-developed by sharing, reflecting and negotiating in dialogue with a culturally, politically and institutionally very different partner and within the frames of mobilizing networks. The concept of program vision (Grossman et al. 2009) in teacher education will be used to highlight the importance of negotiating the core practices that serve both a broader purpose and “learning around more specific conceptual and practical tools” (p. 286). At least three types of visions are understood to guide curricular choices, students and direct reflection on practice and inclusion of musical repertoires: a vision of service, or as a contribution to society, a vision of social justice as teaching is a direct means of addressing social inequities, and a vision of teaching as a professional knowledge-based and developing practice. The concept of vision will be extended to address the school censorship frame, approaching program visions also from the perspective of exclusionary policy or practice. Furthermore, it is recognized that while program visions may shape program design, purpose and structure on a practical level, the sense of identity and purpose (Hammerness 2010), institutional visions and mission statements may not address the actual pedagogical processes involved in teaching and learning (e.g., Grossman et al. 2009, 286). Through its methodological design this project aims to overcome this by involving specific, relevant participants in both national contexts, thus maximizing dialogue between macro level policy actors with meso and micro level (Bresler 1998), ie. dialogue between curriculum design and policy actors, and practitioners such as teachers. Overall, this project aims not only to further develop music education practices and advance co-created knowledge, but to engage in critical theory building and meta-level analysis of the cultural conditions of music teacher education on a global level. Based on the aforementioned theoretical lenses, the objective is further investigated through three specific research questions:

1) How can music teacher education be designed and redesigned by developing, clarifying and reflecting the program visions within a local-global frame? 2) How can music teacher education programs be developed with respect to diversity through a partnership of similar institutions situated in differing contexts? 3) How can a knowledge of what is excluded from music teacher education contribute to clarifying visions and extending approaches to diversity, democracy and ethics of education? The project is founded upon understandings that collaboration is one, if not the best, way to break the limited reflexivity established by educational silos, and that in a bilateral contextspecific setting, knowledge creation can be mobilized by an intense international collaboration and use of networked expertise. It is assumed that program visions for music teacher education relate to the surrounding culture (practically and ideologically), but that they can also critically direct future multicultural practices. This raises important questions, such as those concerning authenticity, political and national concerns, or social and value hierarchies as represented in musical practices.

Key literature or bibliography            

Allsup, R. 2011.Music Teacher Preparation and Curriculum in Finland. School Music News 75, 3, 50-51. Allsup, R. & Westerlund, H. 2012. Methods and situational ethics in music education. Action, Criticism, and Theory for Music Education 11, 1, 124-148. Anderson, G. L. & Herr, K. 1999. The new paradigm wars: Is there room for rigorous practitioner knowledge in schools and universities? Educational Researcher, 28, 5, 1221. Argyris, C., Putnam, R. & Smith, D. M. 1985. Action science: Concepts, methods, and skills for research and intervention. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Ball, A. & Tyson, C. A. 2011. Preparing teachers for diversity in the twenty-first century. In A. F. Ball & C. A. Tyson (eds.) Studying diversity in teacher education. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 399-416. Bartunek, J. & Louis, M. R. 1996. Insider/outsider team research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Bax, S. 1997. Roles for a teacher educator in context-sensitive teacher education.. ELT Journal 51, 3, 232-241. Bresler, L. 1998. The Genre of School Music and its Shaping by Meso, Micro, and Macro Contexts. Research Studies in Music Education 11, 1, 2-18. Brewer, J. & Hunter, A. 2006. Foundations of Multimethod Research. London: Sage. Burawoy, M. 1998. Extended case study. Sociological Theory 16, 1, 4-33. Cochran-Smith, M. & Lytle, S. 2009. Inquiry as Stance. New York: Teachers College Press. Darling-Hammond, L. & Lieberman, A. 2012. Teacher education around the world: What can we learn from international practice? In L. Darling-Hammond & A. Lieberman (eds.) Teacher education around the world. Changing policies and practices. London: Routledge, 151-169.

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Davidson, C. N. & Goldberg, D. T. 2010. The Future of Thinking. Learning Institutions in a Digital Age. London: MIT Press. Gaunt, H. & Westerlund, H. (eds.) Collaborative Learning in Higher Music Education. London: Ashgate, in print. Gershon, W. S. (ed.) 2009. The Collaborative Turn. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Grossman, P., Hammerness, K. & MacDonald, M. 2009. Redefining teaching, reimagining teacher education. Teachers and teaching: theory and practice 15, 2, 273– 289. Hakkarainen, K. Expertise, collective creativity, and shared knowledge practices. In H. Gaunt & H. Hammerness, K. 2010. To seek, to Strive, to Find, and Not to Yield: A Look at Current Conceptions of Vision in Education. In A. Hargreaves, A. Lieberman, M. Fullan & D. Hopkins (eds.) 2nd International Handbook of Educational Change 23, 4. London: Springer, 1033-1048. Heron, J. 1996. Co-operative inquiry. Research in the human condition. London: Sage. Karlsen, S. 2011. Using musical agency as a lens: Researching music education from the angle of experience. Research Studies in Music Education 33, 2, 107–121. Karlsen, S. 2012. Multiple repertoires of ways of being and acting in music: Immigrants students’ musical agency as an impetus for democracy. Music Education Research 14, 2, 131–148. Karlsen, S. & Westerlund, H. 2010. Immigrant students’ development of musical agency – exploring democracy in music education. BJME 27, 3, 225–239. Lather, P. 1986. Research as praxis. Harvard Educational Review 56, 3, 257-277. Miles, M.B., & Huberman, A.M. (1994). Qualitative data analysis. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Partti, H. 2012. Learning from cosmopolitan digital musicians: Identity, musicianship, and changing values in (in)formal music communities. Studia Musica 50. Helsinki: Sibelius Academy. Partti, H., & Karlsen, S. 2010. Reconceptualising musical learning: New media, identity and community in music education. Music Education Research 12, 4, 369– 382. Partti, H. & Westerlund, H. 2012. Democratic Musical Learning. In A. Brown (ed.) Sound Musicianship: Understanding the Crafts of Music. Cambridge Scholars Press, 280-291. Regelski, T. A. 2002. On “methodolatry” and music teaching as critical and reflective praxis. Philosophy of Music Education Review 10, 2, 102–23. Rikandi, I. 2012. Negotiating musical and pedagogical agency in a learning community. A case of redesigning a group piano vapaa säestys course in music teacher education. Studia Musica 49. Helsinki: Sibelius Academy. Rikandi, I., Karlsen, S., & Westerlund, H. 2010. Bridging practices in Nordic music education doctoral programmes. In C. Ferm Thorgersen & S. Karlsen (eds.), Music, education and innovation. Luleå: Luleå University of Technology, 165-187. Rios, F. A. (ed.). 1996. Teacher Thinking in Cultural Contexts. Albany: SUNY Press. Sahlberg, P. 2011. Finnish lessons. What can the world learn from educational change in Finland? New York & London: Teachers College, Columbia University.

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Valli, L. (ed.) 1992. Reflective Teacher Education. Cases and Critiques. Albany: SUNY Press. Westerlund, H. 2006. Garage Rock Band – A Future Model for Developing Musical Expertise? International Journal of Music Education, 24, 2, 119–125. Zeichner, K. M. 1983. Alternative paradigms of teacher education. Journal of Teacher Education 34, 3, 3-6.