Teaching ambition: a case study of high school music students

Abstract

Music teacher socialisation (MTS) has received increased attention in music education research, but few researchers have explored MTS with students during their primary socialisation, or pre-college, years. The purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to examine the perspectives of high school music students who plan to pursue a music teaching career. Participants were a purposeful sample selected from an outreach honor choir at a large Southwestern university in the USA. Data included one formal interview with each participant, field notes from observations of the outreach honor choir and participants' visual representations of music teachers. Three themes resulted from data analysis: (1) MTS, (2) ideal music teacher and (3) expressed music teacher identity. Implications for practice in K-12 and university education are included, as well as suggestions for further research.

Keywords:

• primary socialisation
• teacher recruitment
• teacher identity
• music teaching

Notes

1. The Society for Music Teacher Education can be found online at http://smte.us/. Founded in 1982, it is open to members of The National Association for Music Education in the USA who have an interest in music teacher education.

2. District and All-State honor groups are auditioned-only ensembles in band, orchestra and choir that are formed once per year. Students prepare set audition materials and compete against others for placement in the group. Districts are areas within the state that are determined by the individual state music education association; All-State denotes competition across the entire state. Typically a student must make a District group in order to audition for an All-State group.

3. All participants are identified by pseudonym.

4. Junior is Year 11; Senior is Year 12.