Student music teachers' learning trajectories. A relational perspective

Abstract

In this article we take the concept of ‘communities of practice’ (Wenger, 1998, 2006) as our way of entry into studying conditions for the formation of student music teachers’ learning trajectories (ibid.): the paths that student music teachers follow, have followed or imagine following, in order to learn something. We regard learning trajectories as, not only constitutive paths for learning within communities of practice (Wenger, 1998), but also between, for instance, institutions for music teacher education and the remote practicum (Wenger, 2006). As such they are likely to be conditioned by a variety of contextual factors that can both enable or disable their establishment, maintenance and adjustment. Hence, the aim of this article is: to reveal enabling or disabling factors in student music teachers’ learning trajectories between communities of practice within the institution and in the remote practicum. To this end, we drew upon the data of two previous interview studies of educational quality and student learning within music teacher education at 7 institutions of higher music education in Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Norway.