This is a timely book. It comes at a time when new curricula are in different stages of introduction in several countries (Scotland, England, Sweden to name but three) and when a renewed interest in international test scores (such as PISA) has put initial teacher education under the political spotlight. This book presents a range of international perspectives on the nature of a music teacher's professional knowledge and on its development through initial and continuing teacher education. A central theme emerges, which is to do with who controls this knowledge: is it governments, universities or teachers themselves? In this review I will present a brief overview of the book, then turn to this theme. I will consider what the various authors say about the de-professionalisation of teachers by government policies, what they imply about the – probably contentious – potential for the de-professionalisation of teachers by those of us who work in teacher education, and the role of teacher-researcher in the re-professionalisation of music education.
The book has 13 contributing authors currently working in Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Greece, the USA, Scotland and England, but with experience of a number of other countries too. It succeeds in presenting viewpoints from different pedagogical and academic traditions as well as from different ways of interpreting the concept of knowledge. It groups chapters that present these differing perspectives in three parts. Part I addresses ‘Understandings of knowledge’, Part II ‘Professional and pedagogical practice’ and Part III ‘Rethinking professionalism in music’. For the most part the chapters stand alone in exploring one aspect of the subject, some taking a purely philosophical view, others presenting empirical work on how teachers and music teacher educators engage with and construct different forms of knowledge. However, Chapter 11 in Part III (authored by Sven-Erik Holgersen and Pamela Burnard) emerges as a hub for the book, and I would recommend reading this chapter first. It achieves the difficult task of referring to every chapter and finding connections between the disparate studies, a number of which really needed a more generous word count to do full justice to their topics.
A central theme that runs through many of the chapters, but is brought into focus in Part III, is the de-professionalisation of teachers by governmental policy. Some authors consider this in relation to the value accorded to music in the curriculum. Varkøy for example (in Chapter 2) contrasts Heidegger's conception of knowledge as techne, as a way of thinking and of being in the world, with the dominance of technical rationality, with its tendency to justify music education in terms of its usefulness. The more general concern, however, is summed up by Georgii-Hemming in Chapter 12, who describes teaching as a ‘semi-profession’ (p. 204) on the basis that teachers have no clear autonomy in relation either to their employers or their clients. Burnard (in the Introduction) explores this lack of autonomy by pointing to the conflict between the co-construction of knowledge in professional learning and the ‘complex web of state regulation’ (p. 5) that acts as a constraint on teachers. Stephens (in Chapter 4) presents this constraint poetically in an analogy that compares the teacher's realisation of the curriculum with a performer's interpretation of a piece of music, which can become reduced to executing the composer's wishes ‘rather than engaging imaginatively with musical material and social context’ (p. 89). Lehmann-Wermser (Chapter 7) connects the over-regulation of teaching with two competing principles of education, one concerned with standards and measurement (linked to international tests), the other rooted in individual growth and development. Thus emerges a nuanced lament that connects the de-professionalisation of teaching in various ways with an increased control by governments, ‘from the outside’ (Georgii-Hemming, Chapter 12, p. 204).
Research, and what Georgii-Hemming describes as the ‘academisation’ of teaching qualifications (p. 204), is promoted throughout the book as the antidote, at least in part, to this de-professionalisation of teaching. However, a central anti-theme theme that emerges from the book, often by implication, is the suggestion that academic teacher education may itself contribute to the de-professionalisation of teaching. Despite the temptation to retrench and act defensively in the face of what in England at least feels like an assault on University involvement in teacher education, this is an accusation that merits serious consideration. It is apparent that most of the writers in this book for most of the time consider themselves to be on the inside of music teaching, and thus stand in opposition to increased control ‘from the outside’. But is this really the case? Holgersen and Holst (in Chapter 3) acknowledge the distinction between everyday practice and theory and recognise that the latter cannot be applied directly to practice but requires mediation through reflection and judgement: this, they argue, is the role of professional knowledge. Insofar as teacher-educators are the creators of theory and custodians of the science of teaching, they therefore stand outside everyday practice. Holgersen and Burnard (in Chapter 11) acknowledge this tacitly by representing teachers themselves as creators of professional knowledge. It is in ‘knowledge-creating music classrooms’ that teachers respond to change and adapt to a world in which ‘new skills are at a premium’ (p. 191). This is in contrast to the ‘traditional higher-education concern with disciplined, codified, propositional knowledge’ (Burnard, Introduction, p. 2) which has been the domain of teacher-educators. To the extent that music teacher education is itself a profession that is distinct from that of music teaching (and this book undoubtedly belongs to the discourse of teacher educators rather than of teachers), it seeks to exercise increased control ‘from the outside’ no less than governmental regulation. Indeed, this is precisely the situation that Donal Schön (Reference SCHÖN1983) was seeking to address in the concept of reflection in action, and which Lave and Wenger (Reference LAVE and WENGER1991) likewise addressed through their writings on situated learning in communities of practice. Both of these approaches question the nature and validity of knowledge that becomes abstracted from its immediate professional context. Both place ownership of professional knowledge firmly within the professional community itself: not with either official or academic guardians of the community.
Teachers might therefore be said to be de-professionalised to the extent that either governments or professional teacher-educators seek to usurp the right and responsibility of teachers to fulfil their role as creators of professional knowledge. Despite moments of academic self-interest, the hero to emerge from this book is thus the teacher-researcher. As Burnard writes in the introduction, the most important quality of the pre-service, newly qualified and the experienced professional music teacher is ‘the disposition both to theorize and become the ultimate arbiters of educational change in the field of music’ (p. 12). This involves problematising practice in what Fink-Jensen describes as recognising ‘astonishing practices’ (Chapter 8). It involves personal growth through the social construction of know-how in the work place (Chapter 10). It involves the communal process of recognising and questioning what constitutes musical knowledge in different contexts (Chapter 5). Valuing the disposition to theorise amongst those on the inside of music teaching marks a shift from the teacher-researcher as someone who researches teachers to someone who is a teacher engaged in research. This marks a corresponding shift for the music teacher educator from someone who imparts research to teachers to someone who facilitates research by teachers.
In Chapter 11, Burnard quotes David Hargreaves: ‘to be content with current knowledge and practice is to be left behind’ (Hargreaves, Reference HARGREAVES1999, p. 122). This articulates what is perhaps the central paradox of music teacher education: it seeks both to induct the teacher into professional practice and simultaneously to challenge and renew that practice. ‘To be effective in music education, we need this process of knowledge creation and application (as creative professionalism) to support continuous development and self-renewal of better teachers and teaching’ (p. 198). In questioning the ownership of professional knowledge this book achieves its aim of prompting the reader to reflect critically on ‘your own perspectives as well as the perspectives offered in the book’ (p. xvii). If the result is not entirely comfortable for us as teacher educators, that is perhaps a necessary condition for critical reflection, it is perhaps recognition of the central role that politics plays in the construction of knowledge, and it is also an indication of a job well done by the editors and contributors to this book.
