The Discovery of Music Pedagogic Culture: Music Teaching as Communication Process

This qualitative study introduces the concept of music pedagogic culture, and explores this phenomenon, as a pedagogic communication process in a variety of educational and social contexts. Within the framework of a popular discourse on multiculturalism in music education, the issues related to the multiplicity of world musics have been covered extensively. However, many theorists tend to disregard the fact that multiculturalism suggests the multiplicity of the instructional approaches, as well. The diversity of music teaching practices has not been perceived as a multicultural issue, and as a result has been excluded from the discussion.;This study sought to develop a methodical approach to the investigation of music teaching as a social and cultural phenomenon, and Bartel's Lens of Pedagogy (2010) were employed as an analytical tool to examine music pedagogic culture at a variety of levels. Four highly qualified and experienced music educators participated in this research project. Data were collected over four-month period through participant observation and semi-structured interviews before and following each observation. The concept of music pedagogic culture has emerged as an attempt to understand and explain the complexity of music educators' communicative behavior in different educational contexts.;Using a combination of micro-ethnography and a constructivist grounded theory methods, this study aimed: 1) to identify the key components and functions of a music pedagogic culture; 2) to determine what identifiable characteristics and qualities can be regarded as properties of a culturally distinctive music pedagogic model; 3) to examine how participants' pedagogical beliefs and values are reflected and expressed in their music pedagogic culture; 4) to examine how cultural/subcultural context is manifested in the music pedagogy; 5) to identify and explain some of the factors that might have an impact on the process of decision making related to the transformation of professional values and revision of routine instructional methods of the internationally educated music teachers in a new educational milieu.