Research Roundups: Music Education Research in 2024, Part 2

Welcome back to this two-part Research Roundup for 2024. Let’s jump right in! If you remember from last week, the green ticks mean the open access link is available. 

Curriculum and engagement 

If you want an overview of recent literature across the discipline, then Fredriksson, Zandén and Wallerstedt, ✅ have you covered.  

Elsewhere, Musical Futures has been investigated; originally instigated with the aim of ‘developing high levels of student engagement through practical music making’ in the UK in the early 2000s, it features in research twice, firstly in a New Zealand context, (Wang and McPhail ✅), and in an Irish context (Gubbins, 🔐 open access link).  

For further work on Ireland, Dorothy Conaghan’s vital article (link  ✅ ) on instrumental music education (IME) considers how governments can be complicit in ‘creating structural inequalities that place capitals-rich families at distinct advantage in accessing any form of IME for their children’. Conaghan has also considered the role of family capital in Ireland in a second article this year (journal link 🔐,  open access link).  

In secondary schools, work focuses on programs of study design in English KS3 (Anderson, 🔐, open access link) as well as perceived barriers to GCSE uptake (Kokotsaki, Whitford, ✅). Other work considers US contexts, and ‘issues of equity in access, uptake, and outcomes of high school music education in the context of an individual state, Maryland’ (David S. Miller, ✅). 

There continues to be a strong presence of psychology led approaches; Cuervo and Campayo for example, consider group music education for developing empathy (link, ✅). Following on these ideas of empathy and care, Elizabeth H. MacGregor’s new book Musical Vulnerability: Receptivity, Susceptibility, and Care in the Music Classroom (Routledge) suggests ‘the importance of developing pedagogies of vulnerability in order to foster caring classroom music-making praxes that acknowledge music’s capacity to heal and to harm.’ MacGregor has also published an open access article on these ideas, proposing shifts to support students’ emotional and educational growth in the music classroom (link, ✅).  

Other similar work considers students choice (or not) of main musical instrument (Mateos-Moreno and Hoglert, link ✅) and themes of belonging in music education (Jones and Bannerman, 🔐). 

Music teacher training is a strong presence, here on innovation in training in Spain (Zamorano-Valenzuela and Serrano, ✅), and in this work on feminist approaches which might value qualities like ‘equalization of power, collaboration, affective learning [and] inclusiveness of diversity’ (Maas, ✅). Elsewhere, research offers reflections for music educators on becoming active bystanders (Abramo, 🔐).  

Higher Education Research 

Researchers have been considering their own patch, Higher Education, as music is continually facing difficult times particularly in UK university contexts, like this work on stress in HE music staff (Cha and Beardsley, ✅). Other important work addresses motherhood in the music academy and gender equity (Fitzpatrick and Sweet ✅), or women educators’ stress and wellbeing during COVID-19 (Koner, Potter-Gee, Borden, ✅). Luan Shaw’s work (we’ve had a Research Short from Luan before) continues with an exploration from alumni in thinking about ‘preparing conservatoire students for the music education workforce’ (link ✅). 

Shifts in HE music curriculums, work which considers the inclusion of entrepreneurship and shifts to student centred learning (Ski-Berg, Røyseng ✅) and calls for more organisational institutional theory research. Jessica O’Bryan and Scott D. Harrison offer an overview of musical theatre education and training in the 21st century (Routledge).  

Elsewhere on students – research responds to crucial issues of student burnout and imposter syndrome in students in music education majors (Nápoles, Springer, Silvey et al.). Considering a single conservatoire as example, this work addresses why music students attend counselling. This article considers popular music and ‘student-directed learning’ to improve students’ self-efficacy (Woody, ✅). Elsewhere, intercultural music education and the experience of Chinese students in European music institutions is addressed (Li, ✅). 

Much work focuses on equity and the impact of exclusion. Quinton D. Parker’s article on the lived experiences of Black undergraduate music education students finds ‘the essence of the phenomenon to be living a dissonant existence.’ (link, ✅). This powerful article documents the experience of a blind student in higher music education, (Knapp, LoBiondo, Diaz, ✅) and the exclusionary and discriminatory experiences she has endured – one of the themes of the analysis is ‘sight is mandatory here’. 

Composers – understanding the barriers 

There’s a great influx of work on the experience of composers. Jill Morgan explores the barriers for emerging Scottish composers (link, ✅) and elsewhere, an extended project brought together professional composers, student music teachers and school pupils (Paananen and Nissi, ✅). Another ‘handbook’ publication, The Oxford Handbook of Music Composition Pedagogy edited by Michele Kaschub, brings together a range of practices on composition teaching for all ages, including songwriting, explorations into regional specific practices, transdisciplinary and improvisational creativities, as well as considerations of future directions.

Article by Dr Sarah K. Whitfield – Research Manager at Music Mark