At some point in their career music teachers will acknowledge that there is no one way of teaching music: in general, teaching music comprises different – sometimes conflicting or competing - demands which makes the process of teaching problematic and dilemma-based. However, dilemmas have the positive power to provoke music teachers to question and to reflect on their classroom practice. Part of the music teacher's professional learning journey then involves investigating and analysing what one does in a music classroom – and not taking one's classroom practice for granted but understanding its dilemmas and problematic nature. In this excellent book, we are given insight into these journeys of beginning music teachers who, in the role of teacher-researcher, are exploring and analysing the problems of their classroom practice in rigorous ways.

The book opens with a prologue that immediately focuses on a dilemma: ‘What should we be assessing in music?’ The music teacher Di Brady describes how she took the National Curriculum ‘Level Descriptors’ as a starting point for the assessment of the musical progress of her pupils but then wondered whether she had lost attention for aspects that might be of value, such as originality, imagination and creativity. She asks herself: ‘Were not these things at the heart of a poetic-aesthetic subject like music and central to its justification?’ (xxii). This question formed the motor of her research study, which explores new approaches to assessing her pupils. Brady's prologue touches on the larger themes that are discussed throughout the five parts of the rest of the book: ‘Setting the scene: reflective music teaching’, ‘Investigating music educational practice’, ‘Teachers and pupils exploring together’, ‘Understanding young people's musical lives in and out of school’ and ‘Reflections’. Each section starts with an introduction and consists of several chapters that exemplify each theme.

In part one, ‘Setting the scene: reflective music teaching’, the editors John Finney and Felicity Laurence discuss the role of the music teacher as ‘critical educator’ (p. 11). In this role, music teachers are able to critically evaluate their practice and to bring about changes for themselves and their pupils through systematic enquiry. Secondly, the editors zoom in on doing research. They discuss the different paradigms underpinning research and look at questions such as ethics and power, and the role of pupils within research. Part two, ‘Investigating music educational practice’, moves on to the actual research studies of the music teachers at the beginning of their careers. The chapters in this part focus on research methodology – the different research designs and methods that the teachers have employed – and on their critical self-reflections.

Interestingly, this second part not only illuminates the problematic nature of teaching music but also of doing research. In that sense, the chapter ‘Being Researched, Becoming a Researcher: Ethical Dilemmas’ by Julia Partington is especially thought-provoking. Partington begins by describing her painful experience of being researched in a project exploring cooperative ways of working between generalist primary teachers and musicians as follows:

Having a less-than-desirable experience of being interviewed herself, this then presented Partington with a dilemma for her role as teacher-researcher: what would her role and impact as a researcher be? What follows is an account of her attempt to approach the interviewing process in her educational research in empathic and ethical ways.

Part three introduces possibly the most innovative theme of the book: ‘Teachers and pupils exploring together’, in which the pupil as co-researcher is presented. Although including pupils as researchers can be fruitful, this does not mean that it is unproblematic. In the chapter ‘Understanding Children's Musical Engagement in the Primary School through Collaborative Research’, Elizabeth Kelly mentions that she was presented ‘with the challenge of designing a research model that would be accessible to the children with whom I would be working and also acceptably rigorous as a piece of music education research’ (p. 104). During the research process Kelly was also concerned with how to create a climate in which her pupils were willing to tell her about her lessons. She notes that ‘[t]his involved a lot of hard work developing rapport, trust and confidence’ (p. 108). Overall, the three authors in this section of the book positively conclude that giving pupils a voice as a co-researcher might not always be easy but it is certainly worthwhile.

Whereas parts two and three of the book focus on the process of doing research, part four focuses on the content of the research studies, specifically, ‘Understanding young people's musical lives in and out of school’. The five contributions in this section take a look at why tension between music in school and beyond school exists and how pupils’ out-of-school musical lives do, do not or could be connected to formal music education. This results in a wide range of research studies, varying from a single case study looking at which factors influenced the compositional development of one pupil, to a survey sample of 153 pupils which mapped the extent to which pupils’ musical self-efficacy and musical identity affected motivation and engagement in musical activities at school and outside.

Until this point, the different sections present research studies conducted for Masters degrees, but the last part of the book, ‘Reflections’, gives the reader insight into the doctoral study of Kathryn Jourdan. Jourdan investigates a highly complex problem which relates not only to music education but to society as a whole: how can we take responsibility for the ‘Other’? What responsibility do music educators and pupils have towards those whose music is ‘used’? Drawing on the work of the philosopher Levinas, she explores an ethical orientation towards music education through an ethnographically informed case study, suggesting that ‘[t]he “Other” is not encountered as a “primarily stylistic” phenomenon, but one [. . .] whose voice we have heard and whose ethical call we have heeded, rather than simply for us to “come to know’”’ (p. 208). The book is rounded off with an epilogue that significantly holds the title ‘Changing Music Education’ in which teacher-researchers are portrayed as catalysts for change.

Besides being a wonderful book for (teacher) researchers and practitioners, giving insights into the complexities of doing research in music education, the meta-message that is conveyed throughout the book also makes it worthwhile reading: the idea that the concepts of power and ethics are not only applied to educational research but that research itself challenges power and ethics within education. This is a strong message in a time when processes of accountability are permeating education and are having a profound impact on the educational practice and the daily lives of (music) teachers. The ‘fidelity’ perspective (Van Akker, Reference VAN DEN AKKER and Letschert2006, p. 25) on implementation where teachers follow curricular prescriptions from external sources is more common than not, and policy makers are increasingly gaining power over (music) education through examination procedures, national curricula and a system of inspection. Not wishing to deny that some form of accountability and transparency mechanisms can be helpful, editor Finney does remind us that the music teacher could be the one ‘who will start doubting what is offered as given’ (p. 6).

Research, then, hands music teachers a tool to challenge and question any National Curriculum that prescribes standardised learning outcomes, giving teachers a sense of power over their own curricular decisions and to make ethical decisions about what is right for their pupils. Finney notes that Di Brady gained authority when she challenged ‘the veracity of public policy and its interpretations by those who monitor its implementation’ (p. 4). Moreover, this book goes one step further as research is also viewed as a tool for pupils to question their teacher's curriculum. This ultimately could lead to ‘the ‘enactment’ perspective’ (Van Akker, Reference VAN DEN AKKER and Letschert2006, p. 25) on implementation in which teachers and learners create their own curriculum realities together. Challenging educational practices as a teacher-researcher and being challenged as a teacher can therefore lead to transforming teaching and learning (as the subtitle of this book suggests).

Lastly, perhaps one critical comment can be made with regard to this otherwise inspiring book. It has to do with Di Brady's plea ‘for a community of teacher-researchers impacting on public policy’ (p. 7). One silently wonders where such a community of teacher-researchers exists – or when it will come into existence. The book has shown how individual teachers have researched their classroom, in some cases with pupils. Fortunately, there do exist examples of collaborative teacher-researcher projects. For instance, the Japanese professional development practice of Lesson Study is a way of research through which teachers collaborate to study teaching and learning strategies by systematically observing and discussing lessons. Thus, by creating communities of enquiry, teachers might have a stronger potential for shaping national policy. It would have been interesting if the book could have given examples of such collaborative forms of research through which a community of teacher-researchers could (have) come into existence. Having said that, the urgency and passion from these new music teacher-researchers to research their own practice sizzles off the pages – and forms a gentle reminder to long-standing music teachers that it's worthwhile to keep researching the problematic nature of teaching music.