Teacher identity, pedagogy and disciplinarity: Exploring the three strands of practice

Abstract

The relationships between discipline specialisation, teacher identity and pedagogy can be seen as the crux of practice in the music classroom – impacting on all the actions of the teacher, both within and outside the classroom. Crucially, the impact of music teacher identity on the nature of music teaching and learning, is one that has the potential to illuminate influences underlying the professional practices of teachers. This project explores how experienced, well regarded, teachers define their own identities, and implications of such identities to their practice. The primary mode of data collection was through extended semi-structured interviews, although observations of the classroom were also undertaken. Grounded theory analysis techniques were utilised, involving inductive and deductive coding to develop themes and sub-themes. The structured data set was then used to theorise the central topics of the study, while always returning to the empirical data for verification and exemplification. Findings suggest that music teachers identify firstly as performing musicians, and this impacts greatly on the way they perceive themselves in their teaching practice. The analysis raises questions about useful ways for music educators to conceive of their professional identities. Findings have the potential to provide insights into improving classroom practice.