ABSTRACT. Scholarly research in music education has, to date, yielded relatively few resources that critically engage hip-hop culture and its creative practices in order to broaden and diversify our pedagogies. This paper amplifies the voices of hip-hop artists from Toronto, Canada, who provide intimate narratives that illuminate creative negotiations amidst overlapping cultural imperatives. The stories of a DJ, a b-boy, and a rapper, reverberating through my research, call us to understand difference as an embodied, productive contribution that grows community. Through their insights and my own analyses as a b-girl in this local community, I invite a deeper understanding of how hip-hop culture creates knowledge, meaning, and learning frameworks that style identities through intentional, artistic Signification (Gates).

As our current socio-political crises become more urgent, and as collective yearning for diversity and equity grows more earnest, we must respectfully and reciprocally engage the embodied, too often racialized, sounds and movements of communities of hip-hop around the world. To that end, this presentation concludes with a “call-to-action cypher” as we vocalize what we’ll do next to make real systemic change in music education spaces.

ABSTRACT. The multi-styles approach to music learning has gained considerable traction within the string community. Originally called “alternative” or “eclectic” styles, multi-styles includes musical practices from close to 30 identified styles. The values of this approach within a classroom are multiple; incorporating various genres decenters the western classical canon, allowing for more inclusive curriculum, robust exposure to various forms of music, and a way to increase life-long love of music.

Adding the multi-styles approach into curriculum, however, may not be easy: New pedagogies may be different from those needed for Western classical music, the primary style most practicing teachers have studied and performed. While professional resources have been developed to assist teachers navigating new forms of music making, the decision to start incorporating multi-styles into curriculum can present a challenge as an unsupported leap in an unknown direction. This study examined how string teachers implement a multi-styles approach into their P-12 string class curricula. Questions guiding this study are: How do school orchestra teachers describe their visions for a multi-styles approach to curriculum? What planning and action is taken in order to enact their visions, including program and infrastructure changes, additional resources, professional development?

Data were collected through a qualitative interview design and analyzed through a queer theory lens. Themes include blurred visions of multi-styles, stepwise shifts in curriculum and pedagogy through a both/and and student-centered approach, and the utilization of human resources over materials. We found that multi-styles is not a smattering or style-tour: there is breadth found within the curriculum, but also depth in particular styles that are relevant to the teacher and the students. However, the name itself of this approach caused dissonance, leading towards a vague future. Implications provide implementation suggestions for teachers new to multi-styles and new avenues of research in this line of inquiry.

ABSTRACT. This paper aims to clarify how current and emerging technologies co-constitute and transform musical practices, skills, and ways of making music. When used as musical instruments, digital technologies are generally understood as symbolic, metaphorical systems that establish functional relationships, with sensors and feedback systems attached. Based on its medial conditions, the digital musical instrument becomes a decision, an observer-dependent setting.

In particular, this study centers on the rapid and diverse development of mobile applications and their impact on reshaping our musical agency. The focus is on performances that were performed with apps and freely published on YouTube. The question is asked: To what extent can interface designs be identified that reproduce conventional concepts of musical instruments on the one hand, but also those that pursue novel approaches on the other? How does digital mediation reshape the embodied relationship of people to musical instruments? Which (new) instrument concepts can be reconstructed in technologized performances? To investigate these questions, apps provide an excellent framework to trace the transformation of music-making forms.

Over 200 video performances were studied, of which 18 videos were analyzed in detail. In the first step, different interface designs were systematized. Since the sense-making, meaning, and experience of music are grounded in and constrained by our bodily agency, different creation approaches were analyzed in the second step. In the third step, by comparing the interfaces and related approaches, features were identified that point to (shifted) musical discursive practices or attributions of meaning in the realization of the performances.

For music pedagogical consideration, the study aims to provide a systematic basis for an open and reflective view of digital technology as a co-constitutive part of making and understanding music, and to promote a pedagogical practice based on "possibility, imagination, and relationality" rather than conformity to conventional ways of thinking.

ABSTRACT. Covid-19 has disrupted everyone’s daily life and has had serious social and economic consequences. In the field of music, musical practices have been particularly affected in a negative way because of the interactive nature of these activities, and the proximity necessary for rehearsals and concerts. As a result, several music groups suspended their activities or offered online options during the pandemic. The objectives of this study were: 1) to assess the extent to which Canadian musicians were able to pursue music practice during the pandemic and 2) to examine the impact of technology on participants’ access to music activities during the pandemic. 1,619 participants completed an online survey (Limesurvey) between January and June 2022. Questions included information on general background and demographics, instruments played, musical roles identified (e.g. music performer, conductor, composer), years spent playing music, level of musical practice (high school, university, professional, amateur), type of musical practice (solo, ensemble), frequency of practice, and other non-musical hobbies (e.g. sports, social clubs, volunteer work). Participants were recruited through networks of Canadian music associations (eg, Coalition for Music Education in Canada, Canadian Band Association), and through social media. Results were analyzed using descriptive statistics and comparisons were made between ages, gender, musical proficiency, and type of musical practice. As expected, “individual practice” and “practice virtually with others” increased during the pandemic, while “in-person practice with others” decreased. From pre-pandemic times to July 2022, there was a 15% increase in “practice virtually with others”. While the most reported pre-pandemic musical activity was “in-person with others”, at the end of the survey, it was “individual practice.” These results show that the effects of the pandemic on musical practice may be lingering, and that technology is still present in our musical interactions with others.

ABSTRACT. In this presentation we set out a meta-synthesis of research focused on the signature pedagogies of collaborative creative learning in advanced music training, education and professional development. Recent debates concerned with Western music performance training have grappled with the question of what kind pedagogical environments and approaches will best equip music students and early career musicians to navigate an increasingly complex professional environment. Increasingly, attention has turned to the role of collaborative creativity and how this may be nurtured. Our goal was to identify higher order constructs emerging from previous research concerned with creative collaboration in advanced music training, education and professional development. Our research was framed by the idea of signature pedagogies (Shulman, 2005), thought to reveal the heart of a discipline and its characteristic ways of approaching knowledge that connect education with professional practice. Two research questions were addressed: 1) how can creative collaboration in advanced music training, education and professional development be understood through the lens of signature pedagogies; and 2) what are the core values that underpin signature pedagogies of collaborative creativity in advanced music training, education and professional development. A meta-synthesis of relevant qualitative research published since 2000 (identified through a systematic review) was carried out. Ten studies were retained. At the implicit level of signature pedagogies of collaborative creativity, three third-order constructs included a commitment to learning as participation in a community of collaborative practice, valuing collaboration in a creative artistic identity, and the capacity to embrace ambiguity. A further three third-order constructs – relational, experiential and creative exploration - comprised the deep level of pedagogical principles. At the surface level, signature pedagogical practices were structured as social and situated, while reflection in, on and for action was at the core of collaborative, creative pedagogical practices.

ABSTRACT. The aim of this qualitative study was to identify and explore the signature pedagogies that support or constrain expert collaborative creativity in western classical chamber music settings. Signature pedagogies (Shulman, 2005) are discipline-specific ways of learning and teaching that may bridge professional training and professional practice. In chamber music training — a context where creative teams share complementary knowledge and skill sets — potential exists for collaborative creativity to be supported through distributed creativity and social processes that support complementarity rather than replication. We addressed two research questions: 1) what are characteristic signature pedagogical values, beliefs and pedagogical practices that support or constrain expert creative collaboration in chamber music settings; 2) what are the environmental affordances and constraints associated with those signature pedagogies? We carried out a case-study investigation of an advanced-level, intensive chamber music programme, embedded within an international festival. In depth semi-structured interviews were carried out with festival directors and programme participants, exploring their pedagogical experience, values and beliefs relating to collaborative creativity within the chamber music festival environment. A thematic analysis was undertaken, focusing on the characteristics of expert collaborative creative practice, framed by Shulman’s idea of the surface, deep and implicit structures that define signature pedagogies. Signature pedagogies of collaborative creativity were 1) non-linear conceptualised on a continuum from cooperative (scaffolded guidance towards collaborative solutions) to autonomous (coaches and students seeking unpredictable solutions); 2) premised upon embracing diversity and an openness to unpredictability; and 3) characterised by an interplay between social and musical processes. Our findings offer insights into the ways in which distributed, collaborative creativity might be operationalised as a pedagogical concept in supporting expert classical music performance practice.

ABSTRACT. The global pandemic has severely disrupted the performing arts sector, with research documenting economic, professional and health impacts on musicians. The psychological effects of lockdowns have been recognised but little is known regarding their personal and professional impact on creative collaborative artists. This qualitative case study employs a resilience lens to report the perspectives of freelance creative collaborative musicians from the city of Melbourne, the Australian city which experienced the greatest period of lockdown in the country. In-depth interviews were carried out with nine participants. These semi-structured interviews probed individual music career histories as a creative collaborative musician, personal and professional Covid-related impact, lockdown adaptations in creative practice and future outlook. A thematic analysis was completed, according to the guidelines from Braun and Clarke (2012). Three main themes were identified: professional impacts (loss of work, loss of artistic identity, professional coping strategies), personal impacts (mental health issues, personal coping strategies, relationships) and future professional outlook (developing new professional skills and directions, positive and negative future outlooks). The findings demonstrated acute loss juxtaposed with positive adaptations and personal growth. The capacity to bounce back from loss and to even expand their collaborative practices was perhaps only possible owing to a number of resilience resources, including a well-established collaborative network, strong interpersonal relationships, creative skills and coping strategies. However, positive adaptation, labelled as “resilience”, may have masked vulnerability to the far-reaching effects of the Covid-19 pandemic which at the time of writing remain largely unknown.

ABSTRACT. The 2022 UN climate change conference highlights opportunities that the arts and music education have in responding to the ongoing climate crisis through the creation of artworks as activism. Digital music technology tools for creating have been shown to support a range of outcomes and may contribute to climate change education more broadly which we have observed as music teacher educators in Aberdeen, Scotland and Melbourne, Australia. We undertook a collaborative online music and video creation project with our students: Caring for Our Planet: A World Apart or Same Difference? This experience was facilitated using Soundtrap for Education, a cloud-based digital audio workstation. 10,427 miles, music education students worked in groups of six with a mix of Aberdeen and Melbourne in each group. They gathered video of their local environment that was meaningful to them and then created music. To examine our experiences of facilitating this project, we undertook collaborative self-study research as music teacher educators. Data collection included reflective discussions and analysis of project artefacts including music and video creations and end-of-project reflections. In this workshop, we examine our experiences of facilitating this project and share examples of students’ work. We discuss musical and extra-musical outcomes, and challenges. We argue for greater attention to the affordances of digital collaborative music technology tools to facilitate real-world composing projects. Workshop participants will undertake a version of the project. They will choose an image that captures an aspect of their local environment and then use Soundtrap to create music using any device including a mobile phone or laptop. Finally, participants will reflect briefly and share ideas for similar projects with young people or within teacher education.

ABSTRACT. In this paper, I center the epistemic dimensions of musics and musicking to consider the ways in which the band/orchestra/choir paradigm of music education prevalent in the U.S. and Canada may be implicated in epistemic injustice. Drawing in particular on the work of Miranda Fricker (2007), Kristie Dotson (2011), and The Routledge Handbook of Epistemic Injustice (Kidd, Medina, and Pohlhaus Jr. 2017), I explore facets of epistemic injustice and apply these ideas to music education school contexts in Canada and the U.S. I further explore aspects of school music that may amount to “testimonial smothering” (Dotson 2011) and “cognitive imperialism” (Battiste 1998). Ultimately, building on existing literature on epistemic justice (Kidd, Medina, and Pohlhaus Jr. 2017; Fricker 2007), I theorize an epistemically just music education for school music in alignment with culturally responsive, anti-racist, and anti-colonial teaching.

ABSTRACT. Working within our current pluralistic society, it is important for future music educators to develop a more “ethnorelative” way of being in the world, defined by Bennett (2013) as the ability to accept, adapt, or integrate cultural difference into or alongside one’s own worldview. Fundamentally, music students today require teachers who have the ability to expand practices and musical possibilities if and when in students’ best interest; such expansion may be unlikely for those with limited worldviews and (unrecognized) biases. In this presentation, I will provide an overview of a preliminary theoretical framework regarding norm-disruptive learning in music teacher education (Author, 2022) and further unpack implications for higher education practitioners who wish to meaningfully disrupt student norms—and limitations—in their teaching. “Norm-disruptive learning” here regards any facet of music teacher or college student development that problematizes and expands beyond previously known philosophies, pedagogies, and repertoires. This presentation concerns the importance of multilevel connections, camaraderie, depth, dissonance, and affirmation in learning that is expansive in nature. Related, I will emphasize important adult learning theories including Mezirow’s (2000) Transformative Learning Theory, Sanford’s (1967) Challenge and Support Theory, and Astin’s (1984) Theory of Involvement, which speak to important pillars that can help students—future practitioners, artists, and so on—open to the diverse possibilities that our communities need.

Astin, A. W. (1984). Student involvement: A development theory for higher education. Journal of College Student Personnel, 40, 288–305. Bennett, M. (2013). Basic concepts of intercultural communication: Paradigms, principles, & practices. Intercultural Press. Mezirow, J. M. (2000). Learning to think like an adult: Core concepts of transformation theory. In J. M. Mezirow & Associates (Eds.). Learning as transformation: Critical perspectives on a theory in progress. Jossey-Bass. Sanford, N. (1967). Where colleges fail: A study of the student as a person. Josey-Bass.

ABSTRACT. Previous research has documented self-replicating cycles in teacher education in which teachers teach using models in which they previously learned. The undergraduate degree presents an opportunity for pre-service teachers to interrupt these self-replicating cycles through deliberate experiences with and focused pedagogy in alternative practices. The intention of this interruption is to help pre-service teachers see alternatives to their own experiences and make informed decisions about the classrooms they will build themselves.

This case study investigates the experiences of undergraduate students at one mid-sized, private American university where the curriculum includes intentionally disruptive pedagogies. The disruptive elements of the curriculum emphasize music for all learners; the use of constructivist, concept-driven ensemble practices; and the application of individualized philosophies for music learning. This approach reacts to the regional trends for performance-driven curricula with multiple barriers for social and economic access that are situated in an educational landscape that emphasizes standardized markers of excellence.

Student-participants included first through fourth year students who were interviewed in October 2022 about their music experiences prior to undergraduate studies, their core beliefs as music educators, their visions for the classrooms they will build, and the impacts of their studies on their perspectives of the profession. Analysis of data focused on hypothesis codes derived from the program’s existing curriculum and descriptive emergent coding based in student-participants’ experiences and beliefs.

While analysis of this data is ongoing, preliminary analysis suggests that sustained experiences with new approaches or settings for music education are particularly poignant in interrupting self-replicating cycles, especially when paired with ongoing in-school practicums. Students have been particularly aware of discriminatory experiences of students from minority backgrounds and lower socio-economic status which have historically occurred in many ensemble classrooms and the steps that can be taken to develop more inclusive classroom spaces.

ABSTRACT. The Norwegian publicly financed municipal schools of music and arts offer extra-curricular activities in music and other art forms to children and adolescents. The aim is to provide music education for all children, regardless of social and economic background. Nevertheless, the schools exhibit inclusionary as well as exclusionary traits. Earlier research in Norway shows that attendance is highly stratified by social class, ethnicity, and gender, and that family economy and parents’ level of education are relevant factors in this respect. From research on development of expertise, we know that parents play an important role in guiding their child into music activities and accommodating for a home environment where the child’s music making is given space and value. Thus, the aim of this paper is to discuss how musical parenting is conceived among parents of music students as well as among music teachers and headteachers in schools of music and arts. Through a Bourdieusian-inspired framework and by borrowing Lareau’s notion of concerted cultivation, we explore different classed connections in musical parenting, and ask: RQ1: What does it mean to be a school of music and arts parent? RQ2: How do the parents perform this role? This paper is based on data from a qualitative interview study conducted among 14 parents of music students, 11 music teachers and 5 headteachers. The interviewees belonged to five strategically sampled schools of music and arts situated in different parts of Norway. Using a reflexive thematic analysis and while keeping the two research questions in mind, the initial coding and categorisation was a data-driven process. Tentative results show that different conceptions of musical parenting emerged and that these differed regarding to level of attentiveness and engagement in their child’ musical activity. Overall, these conceptions may also be seen as representing different forms of middle-classed parenting.

ABSTRACT. Free, undirected play has been found to promote children’s social skills such as working in groups, sharing, self-advocacy, negotiation, and conflict resolution. Play with others may increase positive social behaviors including social inclusion, anti-exclusion, and awareness of cultural identity and difference. Children’s play that is not controlled by adults can foster creativity, leadership, and group awareness. However, children’s opportunities to engage in undirected play in music are often restricted by current societal trends that tend to overregulate potential unstructured time, and also by top-down, teacher-centered music education practices that disallow children opportunities for autonomy and agency.

Music education practices and philosophies commonly position the teacher in a superior role to students and discount the ways in which adults might continue to learn musically and develop socially as they interact with children. Despite considerable research on children’s development of prosocial behaviors through music learning, considerably less is known about the ways in which adult-child interactions help adults attune to children as well as to the music they create. Research is needed, therefore, to understand more fully the ways in which children and adults act as co-equal interactors in instances of musical play.

This study investigates processes of “empathic creativity” in the musical engagement of one early childhood music student, her teacher, and her parents as the four interacted in weekly musical play sessions over the course of nine months. Empathic creativity involved instances of imitation; entrainment; disinterested pleasure (collective joy without a fixed agenda); flexibility; ambiguity (autonomous musical interpretations); and shared intentionality, in which individuals freely expressed themselves while also honoring the expressions of others. Implications from this research include the importance of not underestimating the musical and social capabilities of children, and considerations for how adults might develop their own musical and social skills while interacting with them.

ABSTRACT. Sound Communities A practice paper.

At the heart of the Sound Communities early years music project (2018-2022) is collaboration, relationships, and the building of communities of practice in and across 80 early years nursery settings in East Sussex, London, Luton, Essex, and Bedfordshire. Each year, schools who chose to sign up to the programme, were offered two complementary pathways, a series of 6 professional development sessions, with an optional visiting musician scheme, either in 8-week bursts, (Sound Communities Plus) or in the case of London a year-long relationship (Sound Communities Plus Extra).

Across the lifetime of the project, it became increasingly clear that by placing more attention on the relationships and the shared learning experiences between early years practitioners, music leaders and children, a shift in thinking occurred, a move that steered practice towards an increasing awareness of children’s musicality and a broader understanding of music making and musical self-expression. As early years practitioners re-considered and reflected on music and the role it plays in the EYFS and their own lives, so a new music pathway in the EYFS curriculum emerged, that led to a deeper understanding of the potential of what music can be in the early years.

In this practice paper, we shall explore the issues around sustainability, organisational development, and how the project adapted over its duration to include a surprise project pathway and a new coaching musician role. This led to a stronger sense of in-setting relationships, and a more subtle, nuanced, and attuned model of practice that made for significant change in the working partnership, and a deeper awareness of the value of children’s musical contributions through a more creative process.

ABSTRACT. At a time when students in the United States are becoming more racially and ethnically diverse, politicians are penning laws that threaten the livelihoods of educators who wish to discuss systemic racism. The last two years have been particularly contentious, with 36 states having implemented or proposed laws or policies banning discourse on racism in K-12 schools. Forbidding conversations about the United States’ history of racial injustice could lead teachers to further reinforce Western norms of Eurocentrism and bodily stillness in music education, therefore perpetuating the oppression of students of color. Providing ethical music instruction in a fraught sociopolitical climate presents challenges, but educators can be prepared to work within strictures while still supporting students of color. In such settings, providing learning experiences designed solely for the benefit of students in a safe and just environment that promotes free expression can be considered a teacher’s ethical duty. Ethical Voice Teaching (EVT) (Author, 2021) informed by antiracism (Dei, 2000) and the work of Regelski (2012) may provide vocal educators with the tools to actively support their students of color through turbulent times surrounding race and ethnicity. In this paper presentation, I employ data from the case study of a university vocal pedagogy course which was obtained from interviews and material culture and analyzed through the lens of antiracism to examine the students’ perceptions of the usefulness of EVT in a U.S. state with laws that prohibit discussing racism. Preliminary findings suggest that vocal educator preparation encouraging repertoire selection that sustains student culture, presentation of sociohistorical context, and utilization of culturally appropriate transmission methods and styles of vocal production together with cognizance of White culture’s influence upon vocal education can impact students’ interest in teaching with a focus on student and community needs.

ABSTRACT. All adults were once children, yet not all adults are prepared to listen to and act upon children’s perspectives. Adultism refers to such disregard for children’s views and the related systemic prejudice in favor of adulthood that naturalizes adult norms, presumes adult superiority, and contributes to ageism. Adultism and corresponding adultist assumptions are a part of education systems including early childhood music education. Specifically, I argue that the context of beginner musical instrument lessons at private music studios have a high propensity for adultism. Private music studios offer music instruction for a fee and vary in terms of the location, cost of tuition, community served, number of teachers employed, and instruments taught. Though young children are present as beginner students across these varied spaces of music education, adult-centric norms and perspectives take precedence in related practice and research. Thus, the purpose of my research is to explore what it is like for young children to be in their first year of musical instrument lessons at private music studios in Toronto, Canada and to consider how young children’s experiences and perspectives may inform studio practices for all ages. I also suggest that attending to adultism and the classical humanism that upholds this form of normativity offers a way of theorizing patterns of inclusion and exclusion within the studio space. I use the interdisciplinary theory of childism as a critical response to adultism along with posthumanism as a critical response to humanism. My theoretical framework informs my use of the Mosaic approach methodology. In this paper presentation, I will discuss how this theoretical and methodological combination has guided my research process of creating multimodal scrapbooks with young children on their first year of music lessons along with some of the emerging findings from this research.

ABSTRACT. Multiple environmental crises pose increasing threats that are likely to impede human thriving and may, if left unchecked, lead to human extinction. For music education to remain relevant in a time of accelerating environmental crises, we as educators must reposition our aims in two important ways. First, it is critical we join with educators in other fields to deconstruct unsustainable worldviews and ideologies and replace them with sustainable ones, through changes to both curriculum and practice. Second, it is equally important to focus music learning on the project of fostering healing, recovery, coping, resilience, justice, and community cohesion, as both children and adults may have already entered an extended period of instability and challenge the result of such crises. In this theoretical paper, I draw upon ecojustice educators and ecofeminist scholars to describe the ways that many of the discourses of modernity (e.g., individualism, consumerism, anthropocentricism) contribute to the current environmental crises; and in turn, how much of the structured education in the Western world contributes to the perpetuation of such destructive thinking and action. I also draw upon ecopsychology—a field that draws upon ecology and psychology to reestablish the emotional bond between humans and nature—to address the emotional and spiritual dimensions of doing such critical work and of coping with environmental crises. Because radical ecopsychology is a critical ecopsychology that combines critical ecojustice and ecofeminist perspectives with ecopsychology, I turn to Fisher’s triangular model to explain how the bifurcations of psyche/nature, psyche/society, and society/nature are at the root of the environmental crises and how transitioning to a less fragmented worldview is key to moving toward a more healthy and sustainable future. Through this framework, I offer sketches of a less fragmented perspective and then apply those ideas to music education practice.

ABSTRACT. Proposal for 20-minute paper presentation, RIME 2023

Music education, environmental sustainability and climate change: a review of recent research, practice and innovation

This presentation will offer a critical review of recent research, practice and innovation characterising music educators’ responses to challenges of environmental sustainability and climate change. In recent years, the urgent and pressing nature of these global challenges has begun to influence thinking and action well beyond traditional locations in science and geography disciplines. We have witnessed themed music education conferences and seminars in several countries, along with the publication of growing amounts of research, theoretical and professional literature in the field. Curricular materials and professional development courses have been produced featuring stimuli for creative work, suggested performance repertoire and guidance for student assignments. There are also examples of high-profile, funded partnerships in community music outreach projects. Some sector organisations are now considering their environmental impacts and carbon footprints, following examples set within the broader music industry.

The presentation will tease out issues and debates running through these various developments, asking what can be learnt about music education’s contributions to the grand environmental challenges of our time. How and where can our community make the biggest differences? What responsibilities do each of us have in terms of what we teach, how we practice and the resources we use? How might we integrate parallel drives to promote cultural and economic sustainability in music making and learning? Practical implications of these kinds of questions will be offered in the context of current work to develop new taught provision in this area on University College London’s Secondary School Music PGCE (initial teacher education) programme.

ABSTRACT. A review of previous research studies using SenseMaker® ‘distributed ethnography’ suggests that when undertaken with ethical intent, musicing provides opportunities to participate in an idealised co-existence with fellow musicers, through a mutual sense of communitas or ‘collective joy’. As a consequence of music’s ‘floating intentionality’, musicing also provides opportunities for co-participants to ‘perform’ emergent biographical identities, including more global or terrapolitan identities. Musicing –especially without audition- is therefore one way of mobilising civic imagination, creating interstices in everyday life characterised by (post)humanistic values of love, reciprocity and justice.

Musicing speaks to the various dialects of civic imagination – redistributing power and privilege, building community solidarity, solving problems – in direct and indirect ways, and to a greater or lesser extent depending on the collective intentions of those participating. Musicing therefore represents an alternative kind of performance, not just about the performance of musical works, but also the ‘performance’ of human relationships and underpinning values, as well as social and biographical identities. As a social practice purposed with ethical intent, musicing might therefore be considered a resource with which humans can begin not just to imagine, but also to inhabit, alternative ways of being in and with the world, as acts of solidarity and communality. As such, musicing represents a potentially potent form of civic imagination, inviting a consideration of how musicing intersects with civic life more generally, and also how it might be considered a resource for materialising more sustainable futures.

Implications for music education include a consideration of the highly situated ways in which musicing practices evolve, and the complex ways in which citizens put their musicality to service in their civic identities. Educating people to be ethically-guided musical citizens is an important but neglected dimension of music education discourse.

ABSTRACT. For the past three decades curriculum scholars have been focusing on teacher’s role in the curriculum design. It is strongly supported that teachers are active stakeholders both in curriculum design and in curriculum implementation. In addition, for any educational reform to be smoothly put into action, it should firstly gain the teachers’ acceptance. As the academic coordinators of the design and implementation of the National Music Curriculum in Cyprus, we sought to find out, how we could most effectively revise/ enrich/ improve the music curriculum. Accordingly, we decided to investigate primary and secondary schools music teachers’ views on and attitudes towards the official and lived Music Curriculum and listen to their suggestions for improving music teaching and learning in Cypriot schools. We recruited sixteen participants from all over Cyprus using purposeful sampling. The research questions seemed to be most effectively examined through semi structured group interviews because of the need to construct a deeper understanding through participants’ hands on experiences and reflections. Interviews were transcribed and thematic analysis was conducted. Results indicate that the content of music, which currently seems too demanding, crowded and overloaded with information, should be diminished and focus on the “core” musical skills, knowledge, attitudes and behaviors. Music teachers require more freedom to take decisions on the why, how, when and what of music teaching and learning and they repeatedly referred to the need for Music, as a school subject to be attractive and relevant to students. Findings suggest that music teachers should be encouraged through in-service training to take risks, become more creative in selecting material and pedagogical methods and negotiate the official Music Curriculum to meet the needs, interests and experiences of their students.

ABSTRACT. At the RiME conference of 2019, a paper was presented on "the identity of secondary music teachers in England" which was developed out of doctoral studies into the biography and classroom practice of trainee and experienced secondary classroom music teachers, and the resulting PhD thesis of 2014. The topic of identity is now the main focus of the current research. The earlier paper will be revisited, reviewed and taken further, working with some of the same participants that contributed to the previous research plus others; this time all 'serving' secondary music teachers. This project has been recently started and will continue over the next few months. It is principally being carried out through questionnaire, and online interviews with a selection of the respondents. The purpose is to carry out an investigation into how classroom music teachers view themselves and, particularly, the relationship between their identity as a musician and that of music teacher, to create what has been termed the musician-teacher identity. In addition, the research seeks to explore how are these two identities complement and/or are challenged in their development. The 2019 paper included the presentation of two models related to music teacher and musician-teacher identity; the current research will refine these as it becomes appropriate. It is the aim of this current paper presentation to report on the progress of the research project and some of the data which has emerged by the time of the RiME conference.

ABSTRACT. Teaching and learning are complex endeavors rooted in relational work on multiple levels: the relationship with oneself, between students and teachers, amongst students, and the subject matter. The relational norms students learn in school shape their capacity to take risks, participate in collective thinking, develop their own ideas as autonomous learners, and shape their motivation and engagement. In the context of music education, teachers and students participate in creative and humanistic acts that are exploratory, subjective, and vulnerable. Such participation requires trusting relationships amongst students and between the teacher and students, yet the practices and dispositions required for teacher presence and relational capacity are elusive, and as such, they are rarely explicitly taught in teacher education programs. This omission, coupled with presumptive narratives surrounding music educators’ ability to “know their students” and the pervasive “feel good” connotations surrounding the universality of music, has the potential to lead to novice teachers who are ill-prepared to engage in ongoing relational work with students in the classroom.

In this presentation we share findings from a collective instrumental study in which we explored how novice music educators develop, name, and enact the relational aspects of their work in schools. Specifically, analyzed the practices of 4 participants in their ability to develop and assess their relational dispositions while working together in a community of practice. Participants met for one academic year to record and analyze aspects of teaching practice, co-analyze teaching examples of other members in the group, and participate in individual interviews and focus groups. Preliminary findings suggest that relational work is complex for music educators, with each participant understanding and enacting relationships in different ways. Opportunities to reflect on their own teaching in a purposefully developed community of practice, however, appeared to deepen participants reflective capacity as it related to relational work.

ABSTRACT. First-generation college students, defined as those whose parents never completed a bachelor’s degree, face unique challenges while pursuing undergraduate degrees. First-generation students are more likely to work in addition to pursuing their studies, less likely to engage in social experiences, and less likely to interact with faculty. Music education degrees often feature heavy credit hour requirements, high contact hours associated with low credit courses, uncredited requirements such as clinical hours for certification, and additional costs associated with music performance and attaining teacher licensure. The purpose of this narrative inquiry was to explore the lived experiences and perspectives of music educators in the United States who were first generation college students in order to understand the challenges they faced preparing to be music teachers and how they attained a sense of belonging in their programs. Participants were four first generation college students who had earned music education degrees in the past 10 years who were currently teaching music. Across three interviews the researchers gathered life histories focusing on pre-collegiate, collegiate, and early career experiences as they related to music education, music teacher preparation, and entering careers teaching music. We worked collaboratively with participants to write and rewrite narrative accounts of their journeys towards music teaching. The participants’ stories revealed the complexities first generation college students experience in music programs, from identifying and gaining acceptance into music programs to managing degree and licensure requirements. Networks of support, such as precollegiate and collegiate music teachers and families, were crucial in helping these students pursue their career ambitions in music. Participants conveyed the importance of feeling individually welcomed and valued as a means for finding a sense of belonging. Implications include ways in which music programs can remove barriers for first generation students and foster a sense of belonging for all.

ABSTRACT. The Jamaican philosopher and decolonial theorist Sylvia Wynter has argued that White and Western ways of being are overrepresented in our present modernity and have colonized the concept of what it is to be fully ‘human’. Considering an extension of this ontological argument to how we become ‘musicians’ through the day-to-day experiences of Higher Music Education, my research asks to what extent and by what pedagogical and affective means are Higher Music Education institutions sustaining coloniality and how is this experienced and potentially mitigated by students and faculty? Furthermore, what might decolonizing pedagogies be or become in Higher Music Education?

This presentation discusses the methodology and initial findings from a practice-as-research project that aimed to imagine and develop a decolonial praxis in instrumental performance education. Working with a small group of third, and fourth-year undergraduate music students in Trinidad, we co-constructed a praxis – a thinking-doing spiralling pedagogy– which moved continuously between discussions of Caribbean decolonial theory and performance practices and students' counter-archiving of their daily experiences within a conservatoire-style institution. This counter-archiving, which focused on affective resonances as embodied sites of knowledge-making, explored the often unseen and unheard aspects of student experiences of instrumental performance studies. It revealed the extent to which students individually employ mitigation strategies and complex performances of being to manage their studies and, as they developed their decolonial theoretical knowledge, the extent to which students could identify how coloniality within education was orientating and impacting their experiences. The potential for a decolonising pedagogy emerges with close attention to affective resonances, which recentres and problematises what we mean by sound, listening and performance as political, ethical, and ontological. This, in turn, opens new potentials for human/musician performance as a site of relationality and critical-creative praxis.

ABSTRACT. Decolonising and Indigenising music education has long been an area in which there has been very little awareness within the global field of music education, but it is becoming ever more prevalent. As decolonisation and Indigenisation gains more prevalence within music education, it is essential that a “pan-Indigenous” lens is completely avoided within efforts to decolonise and Indigenise music education, as there are many distinct Indigenous peoples around the world. Each Indigenous nation has their own culture, language, ways of living, ways of being, and ways of knowing; and these cultures, languages, ways of living, ways of being, and ways of knowing are rooted in each Indigenous nation’s connection to and relationship with the Land. It is from the Land that Indigenous peoples are shaped, and Indigenous cultures spring from connections to and understandings of the Land. Indeed, connecting with the Land, including through Indigenous musicking, is essential to upset colonial narratives and to undo the continuing impacts of colonisation. Within this presentation, I will outline my own experiences with reconnecting with the Land during the process of reclaiming my Indigenous Mi’kmaw identity, and the impact that reconnecting with the Land of my Mi’kmaw ancestors has had on my music education philosophy and teaching practices.

ABSTRACT. This paper presents an ethnographic case study of the role of musical engagement in helping foster an inclusive school environment in a Norwegian primary school with an introductory class for newly arrived children. The data collection instruments were participant observation, interviews with pupils, teachers and school leaders, and field conversations. In three published articles I applied lenses of interculturality, musical participation and inclusion to the pupil, teacher and school leader perspectives in the study. I subsequently combined these concepts in the notion of inclusive socio-musical spaces to analyse how newly arrived children’s musical participation plays out in socio-musical spaces in school: what happens in these spaces, how they are facilitated, and on whose terms; what characterises inclusive practices in such spaces; and obstacles to such spaces being inclusive. The findings show that while musical engagement in school can serve inclusive purposes, music can also have exclusionary effects through tacit majority-culture notions of what music is, or of acceptable ways of responding to music in the classroom. While music can act as a marker of belonging in school, the study illustrates how music can also signal non-belonging and be a marker of outsider status. The study highlights a number of potential obstacles at individual, organisational and discursive levels to the facilitation of inclusive socio-musical spaces. Discursive obstacles can lead to blindspots in practice linked to tacit knowledge, majority privilege, and teachers’ construction of music and inclusion. Intercultural competence and cultural humility were found to be necessary to the facilitation of inclusive socio-musical spaces in culturally diverse classrooms. For socio-musical spaces in schools to realise their inclusive potential, teachers need to be aware of how certain music activities can reinforce markers of belonging and non-belonging, and to complement reproductive music activities with collaborative, creative music activities not tied to specific cultural categories.

ABSTRACT. This paper reports findings from a study investigating teachers’ perspectives on children’s musical games in school playgrounds. The research took place in nine primary schools in Greece and lasted for 6 months. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews and informal discussions with N=15 teachers, of which eight were general teachers, five were music teachers, one was PE teacher, and one was Drama teacher. The interview data was analysed following the thematic approach. Analyses of the research data showed that teachers believed that children did not know any musical games and would need to learn these through relevant school projects. They claimed that children today do not play as they used to in the past due to them spending most of their free time on new technologies. For the teachers, musical games were a valuable tool to achieve educational aims, such as teaching the beat, the rhythm, as well as memory, collaboration, and socialisation skills. However, they tended to use traditional musical games which they knew from their own childhood and which mainly appealed to young students. The results of the study showed that what teachers claimed is happening in the playground with regard to children’s musical games comes in contrast with findings from previous relevant ethnographic research. They were unaware that children play musical games in the school playgrounds usually in pairs or small groups, and that their repertoire is constantly changing and shaped by technology. There are implications for the music class deriving from this study. Observing musical games at breaktime is a way to get to know the students and their musical interests. Channels of communication between classroom and playground would allow for formal practices to be inspired by elements that children incorporate in their informal practices, such as reciprocity, social bonding, and movement.

ABSTRACT. Drawing on the author’s previous work in music education, this theoretical presentation expands an existing framework for middle level general music to encompass teaching and learning in all art forms. To my knowledge, no framework that unites arts education and middle level education currently exists despite the important role the arts might play in young adolescent development. This presentation will consider the centrality of critical and creative thinking in middle level (ages 10-15) arts learning and how these ideas interface with and strengthen the framework. Through critical and creative thinking, learning in any art form can encourage students to use art to make important curricular and extra-curricular connections and to stretch the limits of their cognitive and artistic abilities (aspects of the framework). In doing so, the hope is that middle level arts learning inspires middle level students to engage more deeply in the arts classroom and to try out multiple arts-related professional identities. I will argue that the application of the framework to all art forms requires emphasizing critical and creative thinking throughout the middle level arts curriculum in order to encourage a lifelong orientation toward learning and developing 21st century skills. Aligned with principles of middle level philosophy and grounded in democratic teaching, the modified framework provides arts educators with a guide for developing their curricula as well as a means of advocating for the importance of arts education at the middle level. With this work, I hope to initiate a dialogue about how arts educators across disciplines can better engage middle level students in arts learning during this pivotal developmental period.