The present study aimed to increase understanding of how singing activities may be initiated in primary school, and what support and assistance teachers require to conduct singing activities as an integrated part of the school day. Five music teachers participated in a focus group interview. The following main themes were identified: 1)…

Group teaching is rapidly spreading across the world, but little research has been conducted to investigate its impact on students' musical abilities in comparison to inclusion in group tuition contexts. This article investigates how music teachers from the classical orchestra instrumental tradition discuss group tuition. Three focus group…

In recent years, Swedish preschool has been subjected to significant changes. As there is a lack of studies examining how teachers in music rhetorically position themselves within this context, the aim is to study subject positions that are constructed in conversations between preschool music teachers (PMTs) and to discuss these positions in…

Uncovering the motivations towards a profession may contribute to a better understanding of how the profession is chosen and will be pursued. However, the research on the attractiveness of the music teaching profession is rather limited and predominantly focused on identity development, thereby overlooking other aspects that may play a role. In…

'Simultaneous Learning' (SL) is a pedagogical approach aimed at fostering enjoyable and proactive music teaching. Developed by the British educationalist Paul Harris, SL has been taught worldwide for the past two decades but has not yet been investigated by a scholarly publication. We thus focused our research on the first usage of SL in the…

This article concerns assessors' use of predictions of applicants' ability to learn when assessing admission tests for specialist music teacher education in Sweden. The data consist of stimulated-recall interviews with video-recorded admission tests as stimuli, and the analyses are based on discourse psychology with a focus on the variations,…

Reflective practice is seen as a method for professional growth and lasting learning outcomes, but what this means in the context of Higher Music Education (HME) has not received sufficient attention. This paper explores how reflection is ontologised and justified as part of performing musicians' education. The data utilised derive from a…

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…

Multi-instrumental musicianship appears in various musical traditions, also frequently figuring in systems of music teacher education. Multi-instrumentalism covers forms of musical creativity and versatile professionalism that differ from ideologies of specialization often emphasized in instrumental music education. Thus, it is relevant to ask…

There is a global shortage of music teachers, and this deficit is continually growing. While there is a considerable body of research on the sources of concern, attrition, stress and burnout for practising teachers, studies investigating the perspective of pre-service music teachers instead are comparatively rarer. This gap in the literature is…

This article proposes and discusses a theoretical framework that combines elements from critical policy sociology and discourse theory to study enactments of policy for research-based music teaching in three Swedish policy contexts. Sweden, being the first country to incorporate legal demands for research-based education into its Education Act in…

While "access models" represented by subscription services such as Spotify make vast libraries of music practically accessible to teachers, digital streaming programs also introduce new complexities to classroom settings. Therefore, the concept of digitalization in relation to listening requires the attention of researchers in education…

This article aims to present how music teachers in Sweden used the facebook group "Musiklärarna" in the first two months of the COVID-19 pandemic (March and April, 2020) to cope with challenges related to teaching music. The study is based on Biesta's perspective on the teacher profession. With the consent of the participants, we have…

The purpose of this study was to investigate a broad range of choral conductors' views on competences needed in their own practice, and how education and experience have contributed to their current level of mastery. Choral conductors (N = 685) in Norway, Sweden, and Germany completed a survey covering 15 competence items that together constitute…

Following a music philosophy debate deriving from the 1990s, this article puts the extra-musical and social outcomes of situated music educational practices at the fore. The Swedish replica of the choir and orchestra school El Sistema, a programme globally asserting social change and social impact, appeared useful for elaborating such outcomes in…