Supporting the Development of Agency in Music Teacher Education

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to provide a framework for understanding and supporting the development of preservice teacher agency across undergraduate coursework and experiences. Emirbayer and Mische’s chordal triad represents a temporal-relational view of agency that may be used in facilitating class discussions and designing field experiences and curricula. In this article, I connect the three components of the framework, which are the iterative (past), practical-evaluative (present), and projective (future) dimensions of human agency, to music teacher education research and suggest how to incorporate findings to facilitate agentic action. These connections between the chordal triad of agency and music teacher education research may serve as starting points for needed inquiry into and the inclusion of agency in music teacher education. Greater agency may provide individual teachers with the means to expand, innovate, and modify school music education for more inclusive forms and practices in local school contexts.

Values, Agency, and Identity in a Music Teacher Education Program

“…Harland and Pickering (2011) connected values and agency by positing that “values guide our decisions and actions” (p. 14). Congruently, we define agency here, as Tucker (2020b) has in prior work, as “the decisions and actions music teachers make and take on behalf of their students, programs, and selves in practical areas of music teaching such as curriculum, instruction, repertoire selection, and performance” (p. 26). Thus, critical thinking involves internal examination, while agency is related to decisions and actions.…”

“…Thus, further discussion among music teacher educators on the intersection of nurturing PSTs’ agency and PSTs’ freedom to exert agency toward their chosen outcomes is vital in the discourse around school music reform. Regardless, the choice to resist the status quo, whatever that may be in a given context, is not possible without agency, and the development of PST agency in MTE remains crucial for a socially just transformation of the field through music teacher action (Barrett, 2015; Powell, 2019; Tucker, 2020b).…”

“…Thus, investigations into the influence of PSTs’ acquisition of content knowledge and skills (which is in the qualification domain) on the development of their agency (which is in the subjectification domain) may bear fruitful findings for MTE programs. In addition, growth in the depth and breadth of PSTs’ imaginations may be key in the development of their agency, and values may be a helpful lens for uncovering invisible limits on imaginations through unexamined practices and emphases in MTE programs (Dobbs, 2014; Jorgensen, 2003; Powell, 2017; Tucker, 2020b).…”

“…This awareness could empower future music teachers to resist the neoliberal business influences on education in the United States that have reduced effective teaching and learning to what is measurable and demonstrable. Similarly, Barrett (2015), Powell (2019), and Tucker (2020b) posited that the development of PST agency in MTE is crucial for positive change in the field through students’ future teaching practices.…”

“…Teacher agency, which requires imagination, has emerged as a means of transformation of and/or navigation between music traditions and their corresponding values (see Allsup, 2016; Powell, 2019). Several authors have called on music teacher educators to inspire and facilitate agency, or conscious, intentional action, by providing opportunities for PSTs to imagine music futures beyond their personal experiences (Dobbs, 2014; Jorgensen, 2003; Powell, 2017; Tucker, 2020b). However, many researchers have found that PSTs are strongly influenced by their experiences in the Western classical traditions of bands, choirs, and orchestras and desire to reproduce their experiences for future students (Campbell, 1999; Dobbs, 2014; Dolloff, 1999; Powell & Parker, 2017; Schmidt, 1998).…”