Music SIG - Tuesday 14 May, 12-45pm, room 944

Music Education Special Interest Group

 

Research Seminar Announcement

 

Educating non-specialist music teachers: a study of content and discourses in teacher education

 

Dr Jon Helge Sætre, Associate Professor in Music Education, Faculty of Education and International Studies, Oslo University College, Norway

 

Date: Tuesday 14^th May 2013

 

Time: 12.45 – 1.45

 

Room: 944

 

Further details from Lucy Green, l.green2@ioe.ac.uk

 

All are welcome

 

The aim of the research reported in this presentation is to understand how general teacher education (GTE) music course work is thought to prepare student teachers to teach music in compulsory schooling in Norway.  Since this presumably is done in different ways, I also aim to describe how music is contextualised in GTE and how it is regulated by forces from outside.  The project focuses on the dominant teacher education model in Norway, the four-year, integrated bachelor programmes educating generalist teachers.  Most teachers in the compulsory Norwegian Grunnskole (for ages 6 to 16) come from these programmes.

Theoretically, GTE is seen as a social and discursive field, in which both agents and structures play vital parts (Bourdieu, 1984, 1990; Bernstein, 2000).  A second theoretical perspective is the distinction between two main bodies of educational content in teacher education: a) content focusing on the subject matter in itself, and b) content focusing on how to make the subject matter meaningful and understandable to others (Shulman, 1986, 1987; Klafki, 1956/2000; Alexander, 2001).

The main research methods are a survey sent to music teacher educators, and a series of qualitative interviews, both asking about the content of the music classes.  The presentation will present and discuss findings from the first analyses of the data.

 

Jon Helge Sætre is Associate Professor in Music Education, Faculty of Education and International Studies, Oslo University College.  He is currently holding a position as research fellow at the Norwegian Academy of Music.  In 2008 Sætre completed a professional doctorate programme at the Centre of Educational Research and Development, Oslo University College.  His teaching experience includes music in primary and secondary school and music teacher education, and he is also a performing pianist with several recordings of contemporary chamber music.  Sætre is co-editor of the book General music education - perspectives on practice (2010), co-author of Handbook on assessment in music in secondary school (2009, Oslo Municipality, Department of Education), and author of research articles on topics like composing in general music and assessment in music.