The personal and professional identity of secondary classroom music teachers in England

Abstract

Building on the author’s previous research into music teacher biography, this current paper examines the identity of secondary (age 11–18) classroom music teachers in England exploring, in particular, how far teachers consider themselves as musicians first or teachers first and how far this may impact upon what and how they teach their students. How we see ourselves as classroom music teachers, it is hypothesised, can impact how we view our pupils and their development as musicians, so this research seeks to investigate the truth of this. The findings, for example, suggest that music teachers who very much identify themselves as musicians first may well view their pupils more as musicians also.