This edition opens with three articles related to learning and teaching music in secondary schools in England, Finland and Spain. The first, by Cecelia Björk, Mats Granfors and Alex Ruthmann, reports on how students experience learning to theorise music through engaging with songwriting, and how teachers’ reflection on the questions that students ask can shape their own thinking on the learning process when seeking to fluently integrate theory and practical music making. It is particularly interesting to note that the Finnish National Curriculum has recently been adapted and now has an increased emphasis on creative activity and the starting point of the practical work related to this research was the music that students wanted to expore. Both the second and third articles in this current edition of the British Journal also consider motivation from different perspectives. In the second article, ‘Different forms of students’ motivation and musical creativity in secondary school’, Roberto Cremades-Andreu and Carlos Lage-Gómez report on an action research project over a 5-year period, leading to the identification of ‘six intrinsically linked connected forms of motivation’. The third article, ‘Students’ attitudes to school music and perceived barriers to GCSE music uptake: a phenomenographic approach’ by Dimitra Kokotsaki and Helen Whitford, is the first of two articles relating to research which took place in three schools in the North-East of England in 2019 exploring this topic.
In the second of five articles from Spain in the current edition, Carmen María Sepúlveda-Durán, Pilar Martín-Lobo, and Sandra Santiago-Ramajo present a study comparing the differences between the results of 12- to14-year-old students with and without specific musical training in order to explore the ‘Impact of musical training in specialised centres on learning strategies, auditory discrimination and working memory in adolescents’.
Moving on to music in Higher Education, Rupert Avis’s article ‘Ethnomusicology, entrepreneurialism and the Western classical music student’ presents a case study from a HE course in India. It encourages readers to consider the ‘untapped potential for ethnomusicology to reframe entrepreneurialism as a social, musical and relational practice’ and how this could influence courses in other parts of the world.
The final four articles in this edition all relate to teacher education. The first of these, ‘Why did you (not) choose your main musical instrument? Exploring the motivation behind the choice’ by Daniel Mateos-Moreno and Anders Hoglert, is a study which retrospectively invites pre-service teachers in Sweden to think about factors influencing the choice of instruments played, and what this could potential tell us about how to improve uptake and access to instrumental learning for young people in Sweden. ‘Use of animated stories to improve music education practices of trainee primary school teachers in Spain’ by José María Esteve-Faubel, María Teresa Botella-Quirant and Rosa Pilar Esteve-Faubel reports on a fascinating ‘interdisciplinary educational experience combining music, ICT, language and art to create an animated story with active listening as a means of improving knowledge of music education practices’. Next, Felipe Javier Zamorano-Valenzuela, José Luis Aróstegui and Cristina González-Martín’s article ‘Economic rationale shaping music teacher education: the case of Spain’ provides a critical reflection of music teacher education programmes and identifies the need for more integration of pedagogical and music knowledge, along with more attention paid to aspects of social justice. The final article in this edition, by Raquel Bravo Marín, Narciso José López García and Alonso Mateo Gómez, offers interesting insights into the sudden and dramatic changes, challenges and opportunities related to music teaching in Spanish primary schools as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
We very much hope that the challenging days of COVID-19 lockdowns and hardship are well and truly behind us. However, it has been, and continues to be, interesting to reflect on the adaptations across the music education spectrum and how these experiences have influenced current thinking, teaching and learning in the post-COVID era.
