‘Workplace landscapes’ and the construction of performance teachers' identity: the case of advanced music training institutions in Greece

Abstract

This paper draws on the metaphor of 'workplace landscape' to highlight the role of institutional values, evidenced within a Greek University Music Department and a MusicConservatoire, in the construction of musical performance teachers' professional identity. Underpinned by a social constructionist framework and within an ethnographic case study approach, the findings revealed that, on the one hand, participating teachers were constrained by the 'cultural scripts' within their workplaces, and on the other, that they utilised and appropriated these cultural tools in constructing their professional identity and practice. The findings imply that advanced music training institutions should engage more radically in a critical rethinking of their 'workplace landscapes' as settings for professional identity construction in order to ensure that musical identities are most effectively nurtured. I n t r o d u c t i o nPerformance teachers (i.e. those who engage in teaching musical performance students at an advanced level) could be considered advanced music training institutions' greatest assets, as they stand at the interface of the transmission of knowledge and values. On the one hand, instrumental teaching practices are organised as a one-to-one contact that has been likened to a 'master-apprentice' approach to teaching (Jørgensen, 2000;Nerland, 2007), where the teacher becomes the 'significant other' for the students involved (Froehlich, 2002, p. 153). To this end, previous research has described and analysed, developed and evaluated teaching models, approaches and strategies within music lessons (Young et al., . On the other hand, and within the context of advanced music training, the significance of this professional role is realised also through the high positions teachers occupy on account of their artistic endeavours as performing artists in music communities beyond the institution (Kingsbury, 1988;Nielsen, 1999). Research indicates that performance teachers consider themselves as being more 'musicians' than 'teachers', thereby focusing on 'performerteachers' careers (Mills, 2004a'performerteachers' careers (Mills, , 2004b, and seeking to reveal the impact of professional discourses on the teaching practice itself (Nerland, 2007).

Isolation in studio music teaching: The secret garden

“…Purser reported that although the teachers had been able to develop their work with reference to their own conservatoire teachers, alongside experience and reflection, these were ‘people working in professional isolation’ with limited opportunities to ‘exchange information (or knowledge, or wisdom)’. Triantafyllaki (2010: 197) reinforces this view, arguing that institutions should provide studio teachers with ‘the space, time and resources to explore and reflect on their professional practice as it develops both within and beyond their educational workplace’. Although Purser (2005: 298) concedes that peer observation schemes are becoming more common in conservatoires, he notes that students’ performance achievements remain more visible than studio practices, and although he would not want to homogenise those practices ‘it is hard not to draw the conclusion that some forum for sharing experience and modes of good teaching practice would be beneficial’.…”

“…Thus, Kingsbury (1988: 34) notes that the administrative offices of an American conservatory are magnificently furnished in ‘shining evidence of a tradition of elegance’, and he describes the concert hall as a splendid focal point, with ‘an arched parquet ceiling and an expansive, handsome wooden concert stage’. Similarly, Triantafyllaki (2010: 191) describes the concert hall of a Greek conservatoire with its ‘imposing, high, glass ceiling and solid stone columns’, representing the public front of the institution and making students’ performing activity highly visible.…”

“…If the isolation of the studio is part of the signature pedagogy of music education, then the distinction among spaces is matched by a distinction among practices. Triantafyllaki (2010: 191) describes a university music department in which performers and ‘theoreticians’ occupy distinct spaces, ostensibly to respect the quiet wanted by musicologists; and in European conservatoires, musical theory and practice have been described as ‘dislocated areas’ (Cox, 2007: 27). The Association of European Conservatoires (Cox, 2007: 5), on the strength of ‘the largest European project on professional music training to date’, urges the development of more holistically conceived curricula:[M]ost of the time we … think of the Principal Study [studio] lesson as one type of learning, sitting in its own compartment, and the aural class as another – and so on through all the traditional divisions of the curriculum.…”

“…Personal and professional contact among studio teachers can help to overcome such feelings of insecurity, but the opportunity for teachers to meet both formally and informally is again limited by the isolation inherent in studio teaching: according to Finnish teacher-educators interviewed by Juntunen (2014: 16), ‘the biggest obstacle to collaboration amongst colleagues [is] having so many part-time teachers’ who, engaged for only a few hours a week, rarely attend meetings and developmental work. Triantafyllaki (2010: 191) points out that not all institutions provide studio teachers with ‘common rooms such as a staff room, cafeteria or a visitors’/seating area’, and Spencer (2015: 70) adds that issues of access can be extended to parking spaces, office facilities and the institution’s internal internet sites. A lack of common spaces forces participants to construct their professional identities elsewhere, through lessons, performance activity and institutional documentation, and for the university studio teachers interviewed by Spencer, those identities are characterised by neglect, exclusion, powerlessness and resignation (100).…”

A combination of one-to-one teaching and small group teaching in higher music education in Norway – a good model for teaching?

“…There are studies showing that the identity the teacher brings to his lessons and his degree of professional specialisation influence the way the teacher approaches his students (Kennel, 2002; Triantafyllaki, 2010). The positions of teacher and student seem however in many ways institutionally regulated and thus shaped by the culture of the institution in which the activity takes place.…”