teacher education is still in its early stages, there is a growing need for research to tackle and overcome the challenges related to it. When studying cultural diversity the focus is predominantly on the plurality of the cultures of the world and related phenomena and in this kind of study the intercultural approach can be adopted. The interest of an intercultural approach lies in the interaction between people who identify themselves as the members of a particular culture or cultural group. In music teacher education research, researchers have addressed issues of cultural diversity by planning courses that combine international perspectives (Addo, 2009) as well as taking on an ‘ethnopedagogic approach’ in music teacher education (Dunbar-Hall, 2009). Researchers have also planned courses
that required students to engage in course-related fieldwork in culturally diverse contexts (Marsh, 2005, 2007). There are also some music teacher education programmes in the Nordic countries and the United States that have provided their student teachers with opportunities for music teaching and learning abroad, or in foreign contexts (Broeske-Danielsen, 2013; Broeske, 2019; Burton, Westvall &
Karlsson, 2012; Campbell, 2010; Kallio & Westerlund, 2019; Westerlund, Partti
& Karlsen, 2015). These efforts are in line with the argument made by Mills and Ballantyne (2010), who point out that there is “a need for issues of social justice and diversity to be central components of the pre-service programme” (p. 454), and this is why, in their view, a single stand-alone multicultural course is not enough to drive the change. Some of the recent studies in the field have focused exclusively on pre-service music teachers’ experiences and understandings of diversity (e.g. Burton, Westvall & Karlsson, 2012; Emmanuel, 2005; Joseph &
Southcott, 2009; Southcott & Joseph, 2010; Marsh, 2007, 2015), while others have addressed the development of the programmes and music teacher education as a whole from the perspective of diversity (e.g. Addo, 2009; Arostegui & Ibarretxe, 2016; Burton, 2011; Carson & Westvall, 2016; Howard et al., 2014; Ibarretxe
& Díaz Gómez, 2008; Karlsen & Westerlund, 2017; Saether, 2012; Westerlund, 2017). In her essay, Emmanuel (2003) suggests that rather than concentrating on adding different musics to the music curriculum, music teacher education could focus on preparing teacher candidates to meet the culturally diverse student populations in their future work by organizing “an immersion field experience”.
The course that was the focus of exploration in Emmanuel’s study included an orientation week with course work and reflections on the participating teacher students’ attitudes and beliefs about cultural diversity, followed by a field practice week where the teacher students taught music in culturally diverse settings. Based on the results of the study, Emmanuel argues that attending the course developed the music teacher students’ intercultural competence. Burton and colleagues (2012) also explored the experiences of teacher students who participated in a similar kind of immersive course. The researchers conclude that “Courses such as these hold potential for stimulating reflection among preservice music teachers on culturally relevant practice for an increasingly diverse student population, so that they consider what, why, and whom they teach as they mature into in-service music teachers” (p. 103, italics in original). Saether (2013) has explored the intercultural collaborative learning that takes place in an international music camp in Ghana (see also Hebert & Saether, 2014). By analysing the interviews of the camp attendees, she discusses the ways that being dissociated from one’s
familiar surroundings, i.e. stepping out of one’s comfort zone, can produce an experience of disruption, which in turn paves the way for collaborative learning and creativity. By stepping out of the comfort zone in a culturally diverse context, the participant is simultaneously stepping away from her or his competence, which can evoke discomfort. In the study at hand, the topic of stepping out of comfort zones is further explored through the reflections of two music teacher educators on their work in culturally diverse educational settings (see Appendices II and III).
In their articles, Westerlund, Partti and Karlsen (2015) and Kallio and Westerlund (2019) report on an intercultural teaching and learning project where students from the University of the Arts Helsinki travelled to Cambodia and worked with children at three music and dance programmes run by two Cambodian Non-Governmental Organizations. The article by Westerlund and colleagues (2015) focuses on exploring how the experience abroad may have increased the master’s level music education students’ intercultural learning and competence. The data consisted of individual and focus group interviews of the students, as well as the students’ reflective diaries and the final evaluation reports from the project.
As one of the main outcomes of the study, the authors discuss the centrality of the improvisatory element in intercultural teaching, and how in the course of the project the teacher students learnt to trust their professional decision-making and responses to the unfamiliar and quickly changing teaching conditions with more confidence. Through self-reflection, the teacher students also learnt to recognize the emotional stress that was caused by the uncertainty and lack of control in group situations. As a conclusion, the study suggests that the intercultural experiences and projects provided by music teacher education programmes help student teachers to recognize their musical and pedagogical comfort zones, which leads to an increase in their intercultural skills. Continuing within the same Cambodia project, Kallio and Westerlund (2019) discuss further the necessity of stepping out of one’s comfort zone in intercultural teaching in order to be able to reflect upon the taken-for-granted assumptions of what music teaching is, depending on one’s values and educational background. The study was based on individual and group interviews and the reflections of the seven master’s level music education students, one music technology student, and one dance student from the University of the Arts Helsinki on aspects of intercultural teaching and learning, as well as their visions of how to apply what was learnt during the project in the future.
The outcomes of the study suggest that stepping out of one’s comfort zones in intercultural teaching situations is not always a comfortable experience, but that
these experiences may allow a heightened sense of reflection and reflexivity which in turn may be a central component of one’s intercultural competence. Through this process it is also possible to gain an understanding of the boundaries of one’s own professionality in intercultural situations, which in turn might encourage one to cross those boundaries and become more interculturally courageous.
On the same note, Broeske (2019) argues in her book chapter how “student-music-teachers’ involvement in intercultural projects can create rich opportunities for expansive intercultural learning” (p. 83). In the chapter, she uses as an example the professional placement of music teacher students from the Norwegian Academy of Music into a Palestinian refugee camp (see also, Broeske- Danielsen, 2013). Broeske sees this involvement as an important locus of learning, at both an individual and institutional level. From the perspective of individual music teacher students, Broeske proposes that it would be beneficial to use intercultural sites as the locations of professional placements during the course of studies. Such settings could evoke reflective discussion around topics such as employed teaching and learning practices, taken-for-granted elements in music teaching based on the students’ “own upbringing and education, and contribute to creating a habit of questioning one’s own practices, biases and understandings” (p. 96). In her book chapter, Broeske calls for an expansive system of music teacher education where the programmes would be designed to “potentially foster expansive learning, enhance reflection and dialogue, provide a solid intercultural competence, create possibilities for existential meetings and create placement settings in which student-teachers experience being ‘the other’” (p. 97). Indeed, more research is needed on music teachers’ and music teacher educators’ intercultural competence.
Lasonen (2010) explored Finnish college music teachers’ development of intercultural expertise using the narrative-biographical research approach. The results of the study indicate that expertise is developed through one’s identity and profession, of which intercultural competence is an essential part: the participants’
“intercultural competence derived from the hidden curriculum of formal education and, moreover, from informal learning in work-related and free-time settings” (p.
52). More recently, Dolloff (2019) has suggested a move from the discourse on (inter)cultural competence in music teacher education to a discourse on ‘cultural humility’, specifically when thinking about ways of “Indigenous inclusion in the intercultural curriculum” (p. 135). The discussion in her book chapter “is framed within the movement in Canada toward reconciliation of relationships with Indigenous Peoples” (p. 136). Based on the framework of cultural humility as the
point of departure, Dolloff proposes that in order to truly “decolonize the effects of colonial history for Indigenous, Settler and Newcomer populations worldwide”
in music education and music teacher education, “learning new ways of listening, the inclusion of new voices, and reflecting on our own assumptions and biases” is required (p. 146).
In discussing the “intercultural project identity” of music teachers in relation to the development of music teacher education programmes, Westerlund (2017) ponders the following questions: “Could an entire teacher education programme move away from teaching about boundaries and identity categories towards creating spaces where establishing communication and collaboration is necessary and required, and how could this be exemplified and learned in a university?”;
and, “Is it possible to move towards a curriculum where multiple identifications, dialogue, and creating reflexivity would be at the heart of learning?” (p. 17).
Westerlund suggests that by collectively developing music teacher education programmes so that they focus on striving for a reflexive orientation, by engaging the students in global discourses and societal discussions and initiating teacher activism as professional attitude, music teacher education could be more prepared to meet the challenges produced by the 21st century’s superdiverse societies.
In sum, this doctoral study has taken the intercultural approach as its guiding principle in its attempt to reach beyond the dominant multicultural model often adopted in music education research, which focuses mainly on the diversification of musical influences and belongings in a music classroom. In contrast to studies in music education research that consider the addition of a single field trip or camp session to be a sufficient step towards enhancing intercultural learning and competence, this study looks at the development of the whole music teacher education programme in terms of cultural diversity and interculturality, and from a more holistic perspective. The approach of culturally responsive pedagogy, that sees the (music) teacher as an active advocate of social justice and change, has influenced the orientation of this research, although the social justice perspective is not the main viewpoint taken. All in all, the research at hand recognizes the exercise of critical (self-)reflection as a crucial part of music teachers’ professional development in the realm of cultural diversity, independent from the theoretical orientation one adopts.
3 Theoretical and conceptual starting points of the study
In this chapter, I outline the theoretical and conceptual underpinnings that have guided the study. I first describe briefly how collaboration has been understood as a means of development in learning institutions, and in teacher education programmes in particular. I then introduce Davidson and Goldberg’s notion of mobilizing networks and Hakkarainen’s networked expertise and knowledge creation as the theoretical notions central to this study. I then turn to examining the notion of ‘vision’ in the context of music teacher education, and how a shared vision holds potential for the development of programmes. Next, the concept of intercultural competence is introduced, along with descriptions of the two research-based models or approaches of intercultural competence that are central in the conceptual development of this study. Finally, I present the theorisations of
‘boundary crossing’ and ‘Third Space’ that have served as theoretical lenses of interpretation in my exploration of the process of intercultural knowledge creation.