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5. Main findings

5.2. Article II: Co-constructing an intercultural professional learning community in

professional learning community in music education:

Lessons from a Finnish and Nepali collaboration

Article II draws attention to the current and complex matter of the need for music teacher educators’ continuous professional development. More precisely to the kind of development; not the kind where where music teacher educators

compe-tencies are viewed simply through musical skills, but rather the kinds that invite educators to engage in continuous questioning of their own attitudes, values, and ethics related to facing diversity in working environments and society at large (Jokikokko, 2005). As a starting point, the article recognizes that the competen-cies required in the rapidly changing world are the kinds where intercultural mu-sic education calls for not only diverse mumu-sical means but deliberations “about the ethics, politics, and ideologies of diversity that condition our understanding of diversity itself” (Westerlund & Karlsen, p.100). In order to seek the means for a holistic, dynamic process of professional learning, the article aims to illustrate the potentials and pitfalls in creating an intercultural collaborative learning en-vironment for the purposes of continuous music teacher educators’ professional development.

In the article, the Finnish-Nepali teachers’ collaboration is viewed through the theoretical concept of the professional learning community (see e.g. Hord 1997;

Morrissey, 2000; Stoll & Seashore Louis, 2007), or PLC. The concept of a PLC has been used in the past to describe various designs for educational change, including in music teachers’ professional development endeavours. One of the main goals of professional learning communities is to promote a collaborative culture inside and across institutions that has the potential to improve students’

learning through enhancing the teacher’s ability to expand their pedagogical hori-zons (Stoll & Seashore Louis, 2007). According to the PLC literature (see, Black-lock, 2009; Leo & Cowan, 2000; Morrissey, 2000; Nkengbeza, 2014; Roy & Hord, 2006), there are particular characteristics that indicate a PLC way of operating.

This article scrutinizes how these characteristics displayed in the Finnish-Nepali collaboration. A particular interest of this article was the nature of the learning that the participating music educators experienced in the intercultural PLC. In this article, interculturality as defined by Dervin (2016) was taken as a backdrop for the discussion about the PLC formation and the participants’ learning.

Empirical material and analysis

The empirical material that was used in this inquiry was generated in 2013- 2016.

The material consists of 1) eight reflective essays that the Nepali co-researchers wrote in January 2016; 2) a researcher diary written in 2013-2016 (in a total of 140 pages);

3) 17 transcriptions of semi-structured interviews (Kvale & Brinkmann, 2009) with the music school teachers and administrators; 4) ten recorded and partly transcribed meetings, each of about three hours, among the core group; and 5) 22 video-recorded workshops that I conducted for the music school teachers.

The first research question was answered by utilizing theory-driven content analysis (Tuomi & Sarajärvi, 2018). In a theory-driven approach, the empirical material cat-egories are predetermined by existing theory. Thus, the characteristics of a PLC as defined by Roy and Hord (2006) and Nkengbeza (2014) acted as theoretical lenses in this article and supported the unpacking of the Finnish-Nepali efforts to construct an intercultural learning environment. The second research question was answered through thematic content analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006), where “particular analyt-ical interest” (p.79) was placed in how the participants articulated their learning in the written reflections and group discussions.

Key findings and contribution

The findings of this article highlight that the PLC characteristics only started to act as catalysts in the process when the teacher group became smaller. Similarly, discovering jointly shared visions (see, Roy & Hord, 2006) and concrete goals that provided rec-ognized purpose and focused vision (see, Nkengbeza, 2014) for the collaborative ed-ucational development work supported the PLC formation. These, however, required enough time to work together. Having enough time was ensured by the supportive conditions (see, Roy & Hord, 2006), in the form of the project funding received from Finland and through the opportunity for the four NMC teachers to participate in the

Teachers Pedagogical Studies program. Similarly, the given time was significant for achieving genuine communication (see, Nkengbeza, 2014), which was complicated by the intercultural nature of this inquiry. Finding ways for collective learning and application (see, Roy & Hord, 2006) and getting used to shared personal practice (ibid) and developing a habit of continuous inquiry (see, Nkengbeza, 2014) was nei-ther straightforward nor easy. Importantly, in order for these features to act as cata-lysts for a PLC trust had to be developed (see, Nkengbeza, 2014) on multiple levels:

trust on the individual level, and trust in the other participants. Developing trust required enough time for developing genuine relationships (see, Nkengbeza, 2014) among the participating educators. Moreover, without trust, the kind of learning that can be characterized as critical reflexivity, as discovered in the findings of the inquiry, would have not occurred.

The professional learning that took place in the intercultural PLC can be described as a cycle where learning each other’s music and music-making practices was a starting point for further professional learning and emerging reflexivity.

Figure 4. The cycle of professional learning

Learning about different approaches to classroom practices together through read-ing, writread-ing, discussread-ing, conducting workshops, and observing each other’s classes and co-teaching together built a foundation for collaborative learning; more precise-ly, learning to learn only not in a group but as a group. According to the findings of this article, the collaborative practices made the process more meaningful and re-warding, and motivated further commitment to developing one’s professional prac-tices. Importantly, this motivated the participants to further scrutinize the different dimensions of music teaching and learning in relation to ethics, values, and wider societal phenomena. This generated emotional turbulence, where the participating educators needed to question their educational histories and manage with the unset-tled emotions related to where we, as music educators, have power and where we are powerless. It is notable, however, how all participants recognized that the collabora-tive ways of operating acted as a supporcollabora-tive feature in dealing with these complex is-sues. Importantly, it could be seen that learning collaborative practices had an impact on the participants’ professional self-confidence. This increase in their professional self-confidence supported their abilities for critical reflexivity, both individually and collaboratively. This too, however, as excerpts from the empirical material illustrated in the article illustrate, required the development of trust (see Nkengbeza, 2014).

Trust, therefore, can be recognized as the most essential ingredient in the emergence of an intercultural PLC.

At the end of the article II, I offer my own interpretation of the components of an intercultural professional learning community, where trust is in the middle and acts as a central catalyst for everything else.

The findings of this article recognize what for example Hakkarainen (2013) points out: forming collaborative groups and providing teachers with an opportunity for deep intellectual socialization through constructing a knowledge-building communi-ty can hold the potential of acting as a springboard to improved professional practic-es and the development of new kinds of reflexive abilitipractic-es. As a conclusion, the article suggests that music teacher education institutions should acknowledge the impor-tance of supporting systematic collaborative operational models inside and between institutions, and even beyond national borders, as they hold the potential for con-structing reflective, ethically engaged music education – just the kind that is needed in these rapidly changing times.

Figure 5. Components of an intercultural professional learning community.

5.3. Article III: The Politics of Reflexivity in Music