Against the background of problems with unarticulated concepts of quality and assessment criteria when assessing music, this article concerns how the limit for approval is constructed and legitimised by jurors when assessing entrance auditions to Swedish specialist music teacher education. The data comprise video documented auditions, focus group conversations, and stimulated-recall based interviews, involving jury members at four music education departments. Social semiotic theory is used to study how jurors assess applicants’ knowledge representations in main instrument tests, what is considered decisive for an approval, and how this set limit is legitimised. Four approaches have been constructed: the demanding education and profession, the supposed capacity of the applicant, the flexible admission situation, and the care of the applicant. What is considered to be the minimum requirement for approval in these constructions differs markedly, which shows a striking difference between the views of jurors within and between institutions on how the applicants’ musical performances on a main instrument should be assessed. These findings are discussed in relation to two possible scenarios of revised admission tests.
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 and discussed. The data comprise video-documented auditions, focus group conversations, and stimulated-recall-based interviews involving assessor groups at four music education departments. Social-semiotic theory is used to study how assessors judge applicants’ knowledge representations in audition performances. A music-centred assessment culture is constructed, emphasising assessments of technical, communicative, and genre-anchored interpretation skills essential for meeting the demands of the education and profession. Also, a person-centred assessment culture is revealed, emphasising the assessment of personal traits suitable for education and profession. The discussion addresses the reliability, credibility, and validity of assessing abilities in terms of being and behaving in a particular way.
In this article, we explore and problematise admission tests to specialist music teacher education in Sweden from a governing perspective, where higher music education is considered a discursive practice. It illustrates how power operates in legitimating the tests. The study uses stimulated recall in jury members’ talk about assessing applicants for music teacher education programmes, and uses Foucault’s concept of governmentality to reveal entrance tests as something regarded as generally good for all. This operating discourse is built on governmental rationality and processes that make it possible to reach conclusions about the applicants’ personalities and prospects for learning and developing in the future. Through care as technology of power, failing applicants are excluded from becoming music teachers and at the same time they are rescued from struggling in the future. The results are discussed in relation to issues of democratic music education, ethics and requirements for widened access to higher music education.
In higher music education, problems have been reported regarding students’ lack of independence in one-to-one instrumental/vocal lessons, little space for reflection, and education based on a hierarchical master–apprentice tradition, regulating and restricting students’ opportunities to learn and reflect. This article concerns video-recorded feedback activities in one-to-one instrumental/vocal lessons in specialist music teacher education, paying special attention to the space offered for student self-reflection and independence. The data comprise video-recorded one-to-one instrumental/vocal lessons between students and teachers. A social semiotic perspective is used to study representations of feedback meaning-making in the interaction between students and teachers as well as the understandings and approaches related to traditions and norms in music education. The findings indicate that feedback is constructed through two contrasting discourses, resulting in various ways of realizing feedback related to reflection opportunities. The negotiating discourse emphasizes opportunities for student self-reflections, drawing on current institutional curricula and government requirements regarding reflection abilities. In contrast, the controlling discourse emphasizes constraints on such opportunities, connected to the hierarchical master–apprentice music tradition. The feedback approaches realizing these discourses are described in terms of space for conversation or exploration as well as a call for attention or re-creation, evident in all studied lessons. The discussion addresses some didactic issues regarding the findings.
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