What does it mean for a musician to be socially engaged? How undergraduate music students perceive their possible social roles as musicians

ABSTRACT

A raft of recent music education research advocates fostering social awareness and engagement among tertiary music students. The evidence is compelling: a socially engaged tertiary education prepares students to play meaningful social roles, while also better meeting the aspirations and needs of music institutions, universities and society at large. As tertiary music institutions explore ways to increase the social orientation of their curricula, it is important that the student voice be present in research and scholarship. How do students themselves conceive of the notion of a ‘socially engaged’ musician? What social roles do they see for themselves as musicians? Exploring these questions, this article draws on qualitative survey and focus group data from a small-scale study at one Australian tertiary music institution. Findings indicate that students envisage their social roles as musicians in a gamut of ways, from believing it is ‘wrong’ for musicians to engage with contemporary social issues, to holding a sense of moral responsibility to act as social change agents. An understanding of the diverse ways in which students envisage their social roles and potential as musicians provides a necessary foundation for expanding relevant, effective, and targeted teaching and learning initiatives that develop social consciousness in students.

KEYWORDS:

• Social awareness
• social engagement
• social responsibility
• tertiary music education
• undergraduate music education

Acknowledgements

The Griffith University research team comprised the author as project leader, Professor Brydie-Leigh Bartleet, Professor Gemma Carey, Dr Meta Weiss, and Dr Naomi Sunderland, with research assistance from Teresa Kunaeva. External advisor Professor Dawn Bennett (Curtin University) provided input on design and data collection. Thank you to all these and to the participating students.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Catherine Grant is Senior Lecturer in Music Literature and Research at Queensland Conservatorium, Griffith University (Australia), where she teaches courses on music in society and music across cultures. Author of Music Endangerment (OUP 2014) and co-editor of Sustainable Futures for Music Cultures (OUP 2016), she is chair of the Australia-New Zealand Regional Committee of the International Council for Traditional Music.

ORCID

Catherine Grant http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2952-8426

Notes

1 The remaining survey data demanded a mixed-methods approach to analysis, presented in a separate forthcoming publication.

2 In the following sections, survey respondents are referred to by the identifier R+number and students participating in focus groups are referred to as S+number. Those eleven students who participated in both survey and focus group are identified by both their R− and S− numbers.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre Seed Grant (2017).