Ideological processes and discursive tensions in Norwegian music teacher education

Abstract

This article investigates local curricular plans and job advertisements of institutions offering music in generalist teacher education (GTE) in Norway. The aim is to identify the values and ideologies represented locally in the music subject in terms of how content, learning outcomes, activities and assessment forms are prioritised and how working staff are recruited. By using elements from critical discourse analysis, we find that several ideological processes in the new five-year GTE programme lead to tensions in the music subject. We discuss such discursive tensions in the following five categories: 1) musical skills versus pedagogical skills, 2) activity orientation versus reflection orientation, 3) academic orientation versus artistic orientation, 4) research focus versus teaching focus and 5) future orientation versus tradition orientation. Despite the tendency of preserving traditions and values in the field of music, we find that the national guidelines for music in GTE are quite open and flexible in terms of changing the traditions and adjusting for the needs of the present and future. However, in 2020 when local plans were collected, we found only limited use of the potential the national guidelines offer for local adjustment and innovation. Job advertisements, on the other hand, show a tendency towards ideological mismatch between the institutional level, which lean mostly towards innovation for the future, and music staff, who lean mostly towards traditions.