E v a G e o r g i i -H e m m i n g a n d M a r i a W e s t v a l l

This article concerns students of music education in Sweden. It investigates the student teachers' perceptions of their ongoing music teacher education, with a particular focus on the task of teaching music today. It considers whether they believe their teacher education prepares them for this undertaking, and in that case, how. Their various experiences from their school-based in-service education are considered, and the findings lead to a discussion of ideological issues with a bearing on democracy, the value of music, and the function of music as a curriculum subject. About the authorsEva Georgii-Hemming is Reader at the School of Music, Örebro University, Sweden.She received her PhD in Music Education from Örebro University in spring 2005. She teaches both undergraduate and graduate courses in qualitative research methodology, philosophy of music and sociology of music. Previously Georgii-Hemming has been an instructor in teaching methods and ensemble conducting in music teacher education and for 14 years she worked as a music teacher at upper secondary school. Research interests include questions about the concepts of knowledge and learning, the relation between theory and practice in music education, narrative inquiry and life history research. Earlier studies contend with questions about musical identities, young people, popular music and learning in formal and informal contexts and music teachers' work

The overall purpose of this article is to provide a convenient summary of empirical research on improvisation in general music education and thereby provide guidance to researchers and practitioners, using a systematic, narrative-review approach. By analysing 20 music education research articles, published from 2000–2015 in peer-reviewed journals, we firstly provide an overview of the key features and knowledge of existing research. Secondly we identify how improvisation has been characterized, conceptually before, thirdly, describing the implications of the literature for improvisation in practice. Our article reveals that improvisation tends to be an overlooked activity both in music education contexts and in music education research. Broadly speaking, music education research tends to characterise improvisation within two conceptual frameworks, which have different implications for implementation; ‘structured’, teacher-directed improvisation and ‘free’, child-directed improvisation. We conclude by arguing that music educational research on improvisation is an underdeveloped field and outline a number of questions to be addressed in future research.

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 comprehensive project investigating how processes of academisation affect HME across Europe. Findings from the Swedish sub-study, comprised of fourteen leaders and teachers at four academies of music, demonstrate how reflection is discursively constructed; as based on language and cognition; as embodied, and as 'purely' musical. These ideas concerning the qualities and characteristics of reflection interact and provide basis for three forms of justification: reflection for artistic knowledge development; reflection for individual success in the profession; and reflection over the role of musicianship in relation to society.

Policy changes and higher education reforms challenge performing musician programmes across Europe. The academisation of arts education means that classical performance programmes are now marked by strong expectations of research paths, publications, and the standardisation of courses, grades and positions. Drawing on interviews with ten teachers and leaders within the field of higher music education, this article discusses notions of mandate, knowledge and research in classical performance music education in Norway. Against the backdrop of academisation, the aim of this article is to illuminate central tensions and negotiations concerning mandate, knowledge and research within higher music education. The problem concerns issues of who should be judged as qualified and who should have the authority to speak on behalf of the performing music expertise community. The study is part of the larger study Discourses of Academisation and the Music Profession in Higher Music Education (DAPHME), conducted by a team of senior researchers in Sweden, Norway and Germany. Through an analytic-theoretical reading of the empirical data, informed by Foucault’s power/knowledge concept, two discourses on mandate are identified (the awakening discourse and the Bildung discourse) as well as three discourses on knowledge (the handicraft discourse, the entrepreneurship discourse and the discourse of critical reflection) and two discourses on research (the collaborative discourse and the ‘perforesearch’ discourse). The latter of the two research discourses pinpoints a subject position as a musician/researcher with knowledge, craft and skills in both music performing and research.