Background: Music therapy is a small, but evolving profession. Numbers of music therapists are increasing, yet little is known regarding the workforce and its employment characteristics. To understand the current profile of the music therapy workforce in the United Kingdom (UK), the British Association for Music Therapy (BAMT) commissioned a national survey of its membership. Aim: This survey explores the profile of the UK music therapy workforce in terms of demographics, training and employment characteristics. Method: An online survey was circulated to all BAMT members. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics and thematic analysis of open ended responses.Results: A total of 374 therapists responded (44% response rate). Following demographic information (including age, nationality and training background), we focus on employment characteristics such as income, types of work, settings, clients and age groups. Supervision and clinical fees are considered as well as commissioning and funding of self-employed and employed music therapy work.
Discussion:As an initial mapping of the current UK workforce, this study offers a pragmatic platform to consider development and strategic priorities and thus to re-vision the future of music therapy in the country. Potential implications for the international music therapy community are also discussed.
This paper explores emerging practices in research data management in the arts, humanities and social sciences (AHSS). It will do so vis-à-vis current citation conventions and impact measurement for research in AHSS. Case study findings on research data inventoried at Goldsmiths’, University of London will be presented. Goldsmiths is a UK research-intensive higher education institution which specialises in arts, humanities and social science research. The paper’s aim is to raise awareness of the subject-specific needs of AHSS scholars to help inform the design of future digital tools for impact analysis in AHSS.Firstly, I shall explore the definition of research data and how it is currently understood by AHSS researchers. I will show why many researchers choose not to engage with digital dissemination techniques and ORCID. This discussion must necessarily include the idea that practice-based and applied AHSS research are processes which are not easily captured in numerical ‘sets’ and cannot be labelled electronically without giving careful consideration to what a group or data item ‘represents’ as part of the academic enquiry, and therefore how it should be cited and analysed as part of any impact assessment.Then, the paper will explore: the role of the monograph and arts catalogue in AHSS scholarship; how citation practices and digital impact measurement in AHSS currently operate in relation to authorship and how digital identifiers may hypothetically impact on metrics, intellectual property (IP), copyright and research integrity issues in AHSS.I will also show that, if we are to be truly interdisciplinary, as research funders and strategic thinkers say we should, it is necessary to revise the way we think about digital research dissemination. This will involve breaking down the boundaries between AHSS and other types of research.
Academic authorship is an important way in which new knowledge about Indigenous Australian music and history is shared. Academic analyses, however, do not always successfully convey the emotive nature of this new historical knowledge. Publishing is also an exclusionary activity, relying on an author’s academic training and familiarity with the protocols for publication. In this article I will suggest that instead we conceive of practice as research (PaR) in music as a method that is able to increase the participation of Indigenous people in the shaping of our communal understanding of Australian history. Performance as PaR allows more stories to be told by a diversity of people. In the hands of a good PaR researcher, performances are better able to communicate the emotive nature of colonial histories, broadening our understanding of Indigenous experiences of colonialism and how these impact on conciliation. Through documenting my work with Indigenous researcher and performer Jessie Lloyd I will argue that PaR is a method well suited to Indigenous contexts, reflecting Indigenous cultural practices using oral formats that rely on story, interpersonal relationships and participation.
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