Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemAustralian secondary music teachers’ enactments of Kodály-inspired professional learning( 2023-11)Previous research has investigated how music teachers’ practices are often significantly informed by their personal backgrounds, beliefs, and identities, and researchers have called for further inquiry into how professional learning programs can influence and interact with these factors and school contexts to inform practice. The Kodaly approach is a significant phenomenon in music education internationally, though it took root in Hungary almost a century ago. In Australia, Kodaly-inspired professional learning programs such as the Australian Kodaly Certificate continue to be offered regularly around the country. However, little contemporary research documents the characteristics and adaptations of the approach today in the English-speaking world. This research investigates how five Australian secondary music teachers enact Kodaly-inspired professional learning in their diverse settings, employing multiple case study methodology informed by narrative inquiry. Drawing on semi-structured interviews, lesson observations, and document analysis, the study explores how these teachers experience, interpret, and translate the Kodaly approach into their teaching context. The thesis documents, in depth, the characteristic pedagogical and curricular features of the Kodaly approach in Australia and how the approach is espoused by the Australian Kodaly Certificate program of professional learning. The five case study teachers demonstrated subtle variations in their interpretation of the underlying philosophical principles of the approach, dependent on their personal backgrounds and contexts. Their classroom practices reflected consistent use of some of the teaching tools, curriculum, and pedagogical strategies associated with the Kodaly approach following participation in the AKC, but also several extensions, variations, and alterations to the approach in response to personal interests, backgrounds, and context. This thesis builds an understanding of the Kodaly approach today by examining Kodaly-inspired pedagogy in a small sample of contemporary Australian classrooms. It also provides case study examples of music teachers enacting professional learning, highlighting how individuals’ backgrounds, beliefs, identities, and school contexts can inform how they interpret professional learning, subsequently shaping their practice. A refractive model of professional learning that links the work of Bourdieu and Ball is proposed for understanding this process. This research adds to the discourse about classroom music education in Australia by focusing on the reality of teachers’ lives, learning, and practices.