Open this publication in new window or tab >>2015 (English)In: Music Education Research, ISSN 1461-3808, E-ISSN 1469-9893, Vol. 17, no 3, p. 296-311Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
This article presents a study investigating how adolescents from Sweden and the Gambia learned music while interacting with each other in a concert project conducted in the Gambia. The main aim is to explore in what ways adolescents acquire music and to analyse it in a context of cultural identity. A sociocultural and ethnomusicological approach was employed, drawing on field studies and interviews with the adolescents. The results demonstrate that the students' musical and cultural backgrounds strongly influence the ways in which they learn and how they teach others. Their cultural backgrounds also affect their choice of tools for learning and teaching. The adolescents appear to be more inclined to change their ways of teaching others than to change the methods of their own musical learning. The results suggest that teachers ought not to always use the same methods in teaching their students as they experienced when learning themselves, and that teachers need an ability to identify the learning styles of their students and to create a learning environment that corresponds to this variety.
Abstract [en]
This article reports a study of how young people from two different countries, Sweden and the Gambia, learn music in interaction with each other within the context of a concert project carried out in the Gambia. The main aim of the study is to explore in what ways adolescents acquire music and to analyse it in a context of cultural identity. The primary research question is: What characterizes musical learning in a situation where the intention is that young people from different cultures are expected to learn in interaction with each other?The theoretical points of departure are to be found in (i) socio-cultural theories of learning, with a focus on how cultural tools are used in the learning and teaching processes, and in (ii) theories on orality and literacy. Since 2000, the first author has annually conducted field studies in the Gambia. The analysed data consist of observations and video recordings of the musical learning activities, individual and focus group interviews and field notes from the years 2008-2010. The participants are nine students, age 15-16, from one Swedish high school and nine students from different schools in the Gambia.The results demonstrate how the students’ musical and cultural background strongly influences the ways in which they learn themselves and how they teach others. The cultural background also affects their choice of tools for learning and teaching. The students from both groups are generous in their attitudes towards each other and they are responsive and interested in the others’ way of learning. However, while the tools they use to learn music themselves remain stable throughout the project, the tools for teaching others how to play or sing change during the course of the project. Thus, the students appear to be more inclined to change their way of teaching others, rather than changing the methods of their own musical learning. In conclusion, the results point at the importance of teachers not always using the same methods in teaching their students as they have experience of having learnt themselves, and that teachers need to have the ability to identify the learning styles of their students and to create a learning environment in which all these various ways of learning are given space. Key words: Music education, musical learning, ethnomusicology, emic and etic, socio-cultural perspective.
National Category
Pedagogy
Research subject
Music Education
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:ltu:diva-5415 (URN)10.1080/14613808.2014.930120 (DOI)000359838000004 ()2-s2.0-84938750794 (Scopus ID)383441fd-0030-4f27-b3a4-a839d0d7bbcf (Local ID)383441fd-0030-4f27-b3a4-a839d0d7bbcf (Archive number)383441fd-0030-4f27-b3a4-a839d0d7bbcf (OAI)
Note
Validerad; 2015; Nivå 2; 20131213 (annmar)2016-09-292016-09-292018-07-10Bibliographically approved