The Discursive Terms of Music/Teacher Education at Four Higher Educational Institutions

Abstract

In this chapter, we examine how music/teacher education is represented on the websites of four Norwegian institutions that offer diverse kinds of music/teacher education at the BA, MA, and PhD levels and that offer qualifications for all types of music teaching professions in Norway. These four cases serve as examples of the main traditions of music/teacher educations in the Nordic area, with distinctive differences in their notions of music, pedagogy, professional orientation, and research. The analysis is theoretically grounded in Foucault’s concepts of power/knowledge and governmentality. The findings suggest, on the one hand, considerable variations among the institutions and, on the other hand, similarities in how the representations operate in a range of steering techniques in the ways that these education programs, orientations, groups, and individuals are portrayed. The concluding discussion questions the power/knowledge constructions that provide authority to the dominating discourses, critically pointing to some effects that diverse representations might have for positions, ambitions, and individuals. Getting the diverse communities of music/teacher educations to communicate seems imperative to evolve more reflexive, conscious, and participative music/teacher education programs in the 21st century.