Music performance anxiety (MPA) is experienced widely by young musicians (DEMPSEY, E. & COMEAU, G. (2019) Music performance anxiety and self-efficacy in young musicians: Effects of gender and age. Music Performance Research, 9, 60–79.), but little is known about the role their studio teachers might play in helping them to manage it. This interview study investigates 13 studio teachers’ understanding of MPA, and their approaches to its management within the studio teaching setting. The teachers were asked about how they prepare their students for upcoming performances, MPA discussions in the teaching studio, observations of MPA symptoms, lesson elements that support MPA and training related to MPA. Four key themes were identified: conceptions of MPA, preparing for performance, managing mistakes and the teaching studio itself as a setting for MPA. The findings showed that teachers were caring, enthusiastic and often strategic in supporting MPA management, their understanding underpinned by personal perceptions of MPA. However, they also suggested aspects of their approaches that might be ambiguous or problematic: when lesson behaviours shift to prepare for imminent performances, teachers appear to both emphasise and downplay mistakes, perhaps creating confusion or lowering performance expectations. These insights suggest potential areas for further inquiry, exploring the role that studio teachers could have regarding the MPA experiences of their students.

Improvisation is widely recognised as a musical creative activity, yet it remains infrequently used in classroom practice. This qualitative study examines how eight Dutch primary music teachers understand, implement, and evaluate improvisation. Drawing on semi-structured interviews, classroom observations, and field notes, two themes emerged: implementation, including commonly used improvisation activities, perceived effectiveness of improvisation activities, and feedback, and evaluation, including perceived benefits, challenges, and reflections for improvement. Findings show teachers value improvisation for fostering creativity and confidence but face considerable challenges, including managing classroom dynamics and limited pedagogical training, suggesting that teachers’ engagement with improvisation is shaped by both pedagogical beliefs and contextual constraints.

A potentially effective approach to evaluating the effectiveness of teacher preparation programmes is to explore the perspectives of recent graduates from preservice teacher preparation programmes. Thus, this study examines the perceptions of beginning music teachers in South Korea regarding how their music teacher education prepared them for actual practice. Data were collected from five participants through individual interviews and class observations. The participants identified the three learning experiences most helpful in transitioning from university to teaching practice: peer teaching, writing a master’s thesis, and interacting with peers from various backgrounds. In addition, the data revealed that the least helpful learning experiences were a disconnection between theory and practice, early fieldwork unrelated to music teaching, and methods classes that did not cover cutting-edge technology.

Understandings of musical literacies can embody variance in both concept and practice. Curriculum literacy, where musical concepts are placed alongside musical learning, is an unrecognised skill exhibited by classroom music teachers. Drawing from research on the origins of musical literacy and exploring English secondary schools and music teachers’ programmes of study, this article will explore and theorise the manner in which teachers draw both musical and curriculum literacies together to create engaging classroom environments, which are accessible for pupils. It will argue that this is a critical feature of classroom music education and explore the implications of dualistic literacy practices both in England and internationally and, in turn, discuss the spaces music teachers require in their curriculum design processes.

The introduction of the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) in 1986 marked a significant shift in music education practice across England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Unlike previous qualifications, the GCSE emphasised a central triumvirate of accessible, practical skills – performing, composing, and appraising – which, forty years later, remain foundational in secondary music education across the three nations. In this article, we therefore analyse how the tripartite performing–composing–appraising structure has shaped the development of the GCSE between 1986 and 2026. Using historical and documentary evidence, we identify four trends of political quiescence, progressive divergence, neoliberal convergence, and neoconservative coalescence, and suggest that across all three nations a subtle shift towards a fourfold performing–composing–knowing–appraising framework is beginning to erode the GCSE as an accessible, practical approach to assessment.

This article explores how pre-service music teachers in Norway reflect on their future professional identities and career trajectories during the final year of a five-year generalist teacher education programme. We analyse two group interviews with eight participants – one conducted during the writing of their master’s theses and one shortly after submission. The study is framed by the concept of spatially situated possible selves, combining Markus and Nurius’ theory of possible selves with Massey’s spatial theory to examine how imagined futures could be shaped by institutional, geographic, and social contexts. Thematic analysis reveals four key areas of reflection: career awareness, the influence of past experiences, the shaping role of music teacher education, and the participants’ hybrid positioning between student and teacher roles. Findings suggest that the master’s thesis serves as a transitional tool for professional development and identity formation. We argue that music teacher education can be understood as a contested and evolving space – a multiplicity of ‘stories-so-far’ – where future selves are imagined, negotiated, and constrained.

Building on the author’s previous research into music teacher biography, this current paper examines the identity of secondary (age 11–18) classroom music teachers in England exploring, in particular, how far teachers consider themselves as musicians first or teachers first and how far this may impact upon what and how they teach their students. How we see ourselves as classroom music teachers, it is hypothesised, can impact how we view our pupils and their development as musicians, so this research seeks to investigate the truth of this. The findings, for example, suggest that music teachers who very much identify themselves as musicians first may well view their pupils more as musicians also.

This study explores the characteristics of musical and communicative interactions – primarily vocal – between parents and children aged 6 to 36 months in Barcelona, Spain. Five families participated. Data were gathered using LENA® audio recordings across full days and semi-structured interviews. Episodes were analysed using a validated instrument and thematic coding. Findings reveal mismatches between parental perceptions and observed behaviours, highlight children’s active participation, and identify underreported functions and settings of musical interaction. This research underscores the importance of combining parental accounts with data gathered from real-life scenarios to understand everyday family musicality as a shared, dynamic, and reciprocal phenomenon.

This study investigates the intersection of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) and democratic pedagogy in K-12 music education in Macau, centring on the experiences of a single teacher, Adam, throughout a school year. This study explores how GenAI tools assisted Adam in teacher planning, shifting learning objectives and bridging gaps among students in the music classroom. The data further highlighted a paradox in integrating GenAI in music education: while Adam saw AI tools as enhancing certain aspects of creative expression, such as generating musical ideas or assisting in composition, he also recognised AI’s deterministic nature as a constraint on deeper creative agency and critical engagement. This research contributes to the growing discourse on GenAI in education, problematising the assumption that GenAI inherently democratises music education. It emphasises the critical importance of thoughtful GenAI implementation to ensure that it complements rather than supplants the essential human elements of teaching, advocating for a holistic and sustainable approach to personalised and democratic music education.

In 2024, the Women and Equalities Select Committee in the UK Parliament published a report entitled Misogyny in Music. It included the recommendations that ‘music colleges, conservatoires and other educational settings need to do more to address the gendering of instruments, roles and genres and improve the visibility of and support for female role models’. While there is a dearth of policy levers available to implement this recommendation, this article critically analyses three existing policy/regulatory frameworks that could be used for its implementation in England. The article also highlights a significant limitation of the report – its exclusion of trans and non-binary musicians.

This paper builds on research conducted in 2008 by Wright into the uneasy power dynamics between a music teacher and her pupils in a secondary school music classroom in Wales as a result of her Western Classical ‘habitus’; by this, we mean the habitual behaviours, attitudes and values that are commonplace when operating as a classical musician. Some 18 years on, and in a transformative Welsh education climate, narrative data collected from pre-service teachers practising in similar classrooms in Wales suggest that they have begun to move away from their Western European classical ‘habitus’ and believe in shared pedagogic ownership that takes account of pupil voice and choice. Furthermore, in learning to teach, they develop pedagogic behaviours more akin to popular musicians, such as being more improvisatory and more willing to tolerate uncertainty. A key factor is the trusting and collaborative relationships they developed with their mentors (teacher-tutors) within an education system in Wales that has committed itself to the concept of subsidiarity. These findings mark a positive step forward for the music education community within a new and aspirational educational landscape in Wales.

This paper seeks to understand the different conceptual representations of R. Murray Schafer’s ideas in scholarly literature and their relevance within framework of transversal competences as a perspective of education in the 21st century. A systematic review of the literature was carried out using the PRISMA guidelines as a reference. Five multidisciplinary databases were searched between 2000 and 2024 in English, Spanish and Portuguese. The 29 scientific papers included in the review present perspectives from four continents, diverse areas of knowledge and different educational focuses and levels. The results show the relevance of three concepts: listening as a disposition, creative music education as a procedure and soundscape as an interdisciplinary resource. These concepts are approached from the artistic-musical and transdisciplinary fields, and represented from different perspectives: inclusive, aesthetic, social and economic. It is concluded that M. Schafer’s ideas are characterised by their topicality due to the transversal approach they promote, where creativity, social and environmental commitment, and the participation of all in musical learning are coherent with the challenges of musical education and training to which we aspire.

The aim of this research is to examine student motivation to participate in general music classes. The research involves students aged 10–14 from a general education primary school in Croatia (N = 186). The results indicate that these students were motivated to engage in general music classes; however, a nonlinear decline in motivation was evident as students progressed through the school years. Girls were more motivated to participate in general music classes compared to boys, and students involved in additional musical activities reported higher levels of motivation. Furthermore, listening to music influenced students’ perceptions of general music lessons and was associated with their motivation.

This article documents the lives of three female cathedral choristers and the impacts of cathedral choral training on their subsequent lives and careers. The participants reported the acquisition of musical skills such as sight-reading and knowledge of liturgical repertoire as key. Extra-musical skills were also reported, including being organised and flexible, focusing on details, working hard, behaving in a professional manner and taking up leadership roles. In addition to the many positive experiences, the choristers identified a need for targeted pastoral care in their cathedral choral training. Further research needs to investigate the environmental structures and supports in cathedral choirs and the dynamics between conductors and child female choristers.