Research Short: Secondary Music Teacher Identity

This week, I spoke with Dr Christopher Dalladay about his recent paper, ‘The personal and professional identity of secondary classroom music teachers in England’, published in the British Journal of Music Education. Based on his doctoral thesis, this research particularly focuses on the relationship between a secondary classroom music teacher’s identity as a musician and their identity as a teacher, and how far these complement and/or conflict with each other, alongside consideration of other personal characteristics (e.g. extro/introversion).

Research participants were invited to take part through professional associations (Music Mark and The Music Teachers’ Association) and they were asked to take an online questionnaire (n=48) and a selection also invited to subsequently take part in online interviews of approximately one hour (n=14). Interviews were recorded on audio with the permission of participants to make analysis of data more straightforward to manage and, throughout, participants were identified only by codes and/or pseudonyms.

The article identifies two potential conflicts in the musician-teacher identity:

1. Teaching is a time-consuming job that leaves little time for teachers to develop further their own musicianship; that this can only be detrimental to the development of their students;
2. They feel disenfranchised and restricted in the planning and delivery of the curriculum they would most like to cover in school because of curriculum constraints, differences in educational philosophy between school management and themselves, and from the perception of many music teachers that their subject is not always considered important by their school.

The research begs the question of whether the teacher’s identity might also impact whether they are more or less focused in their teaching on the development of young musicians or to simply provide an ‘experience’ of music. Further research may also be interesting in comparing music teachers’ identity with those of other curriculum areas, such as artistic subjects or the sciences.

This research may be of particular interest to secondary music teachers and to teacher trainers, such as ITT providers or SCITTs. However, those responsible for local and national policy-making in music education will also wish to consider the subject matter and findings of this research, as well as the senior management teams of schools. Stakeholders might make use of the findings when considering Continuing Professional Development programmes for teachers, the design and refining of curriculum and its principal aims (e.g. are we trying to develop young musicians or offer pupils a musical experience?), and to inform the realistic expectations of teachers by themselves and senior managers.

Chris has been a music teacher in primary and secondary phases and a secondary music teacher trainer at university. His PhD concerned music teacher biography and its impact on teaching and learning. Other research interests include a teacher’s subject knowledge, and composing in education. He is also a pianist and singer.

Find out more:

• Read the article in the British Journal of Music Education.
• Contact Chris to discuss his research further at cdalladay@aol.com

Written by Kerry Bunkhall – Research Manager for Music Mark

See the full list of Music Mark’s research