What can discourse psychology say about teachers’ music talk and their teaching strategies?

Abstract Background This article addresses how music teaching are constructed by teachers in the Swedish Music and Culture schools. I will present the preliminary results of group conversations with teachers from six schools. All together 27 teachers in music (instrumental teaching), drama, media (photo and film), dance and art were participating. Aims The findings will be discussed within a discourse psychological framework, a perspective founded in social constructionism and post-structuralistic theory. The concept includes a relativistic approach where a focus on the actor and language appear. Pluralism is a keyword and the analysis stays in micro sociology. In such a perspective, it becomes interesting to study how teachers construct music as a school activity. Main contribution On the empirical level three different themes concerning teachers’ talk about music are found, which also have implications for their teaching strategies. In the firs theme, Practice, the teachers are describing the importance of skilfulness in accordance to the activity of music. In the second theme, Repertoire, a struggle between traditional and commercial music is shown. In the third theme, Why Music?, the teachers are expressing their arguments about why music is so important in education from an overall perspective. In doing this they describe music as (i) a part of life and a creative activity, (ii) as a language and therefore a part of the children rights, (iii) and finally as a subject that has side effects on pupils self-confidence and identity. Implications What the teachers consider to be important knowledge for their pupils to develop is here described as a field of variation. In each theme described above, different consequences for the pupils are being discussed as well as what could be considered “as possible” in music education. A study within a discourse psychological framework has values in relation to the bottom-up perspective that it delivers. This has important implications for the development of the field of music education and music teacher knowledge