Music Education Research

Vol. 7, No. 3, November 2005, pp. 279
287 /

KEYNOTE

Here, there and everywhere: music

education research in a globalised world
Göran Folkestad*
Lund University, Sweden

Most research in music education has so far dealt with music training in institutional settings, such
as schools, and is accordingly based, either implicitly or explicitly, on the assumption that musical
learning results from a sequenced, methodical exposure to music teaching within a formal setting.
However, in order to realise and understand the multidimensional character of music teaching,
musical learning should be considered in a much broader and wider context. During the last
decade there has been an awakening interest in considering not only the formalised learning
situations within institutional settings, but also all various forms of learning that goes on in informal
musical learning practices outside schools. The study of informal musical learning outside
institutional settings has actually proved to contribute to important knowledge and aspects of
music education. The aim of this presentation is twofold: (i) to give a ‘view from the bridge’ about
current and potential directions in music education research and practice, and (ii) to illuminate this
issue by presenting some current and recent work. I will do this by focusing on two main themes: (i)
different aspects of formal and informal learning situations or practices, and formal and informal
ways of learning, respectively, and (ii) the developing of research methods exemplified by the main
results of a meta analysis of qualitative studies on music creativity and composition. By way of
introduction, I will start by presenting the definition of the field of research in music education
from which I operate. This also involves a view of the relationship between music education as a
field of praxis (music pedagogy) and as a field of research, and the relationship between these two
facets of music education and the surrounding society.

Introduction
The aim of this presentation is twofold: (i) to give a ‘view from the bridge’ about
current and potential directions in music education research and practice, and (ii) to
illuminate this issue by presenting some current and recent work. I will do this by
focusing on two main themes: (i) different aspects of formal and informal learning
situations or practices; and formal and informal ways of learning, respectively
(Folkestad, in press), and (ii) the developing of research methods exemplified by the

*Lund University, Malmö Academy of Music, Box 8203, S-200 41 Malmö, Sweden. Email:
Goran.Folkestad@mhm.lu.se
ISSN 1461-3808 (print)/ISSN 1469-9893 (online)/05/030279-9
# 2005 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/14613800500324390
280 G. Folkestad

main results of a meta analysis of qualitative studies on music creativity and

composition (Folkestad, 2004).
By way of introduction, I will start by presenting the definition of the field of
research in music education from which I operate. This also involves a view of the
relationship between music education as a field of praxis (music pedagogy) and as a
field of research, and the relationship between these two facets of music education
and the surrounding society.

Music education in research and praxis

Most research in music education has so far dealt with music training in institutional
settings, such as schools, and as a result is based on the assumption, either implicitly
or explicitly, that musical learning results from a sequenced, methodical exposure to
music teaching within a formal setting.
However, during the last decade there has been an awakening interest in the issue
of taking into consideration not only the formalised learning situations within
institutional settings, such as schools, but also various forms of learning that go on in
informal musical learning practices outside schools.
Folkestad (1998) summarises this change in perspective as a general shift in
focus*from teaching to learning, and consequently from teacher to learner (pupil).
/

Thus, it also implies a shift of focus, from how to teach (teaching methods) and the
outcome of teaching in terms of results as seen from the teacher’s perspective, to
what to learn, the content of learning, and how to learn, the way of learning. A point of
departure for this perspective on music education research is the notion that the
great majority of all musical learning takes place outside schools, in situations where
there is no teacher, and in which the intention of the activity is not to learn about
music, but to play music, listen to music, dance to music or be together with music.
Each of these examples typifies situations in which music is experienced and learned,
one way or another. Today, this is further accentuated as a result of computers and
new technology and all the musical activities on the Internet, in which the global and
the local interact in a dialectical way, what Giddens (1991) call glocal.
Applying a socio-cultural perspective on music education, the question of whether
or not to have, for example, popular music in school, is irrelevant: popular music is
already present in school, brought there by the students, and in many cases also by
the teachers, as part of their musical experience and knowledge. The issue is rather:
how do we deal with it? Do we deny the fact that popular music and world music is
an essential factor of the context of music teaching in school, or do we acknowledge
the students’ musical experiences and knowledge as a starting point for further
musical education?
This shift of focus from teacher to learner, and this widened definition of the field
of research in music education has the following implication: while music education
as a field of praxis (music pedagogy) is defined as all kinds of formal musical teaching
and institutionalised learning settings, music education as a field of research must
 Music education research in a globalised world 281

deal with all kinds of musical learning, irrespective of where it takes place (or is
situated), and of how and by whom it is organised or initiated.
This also defines the relationship between the field of praxis (music teachers), and
the field of research (music education researchers), in that the role of the latter is not
to ‘produce’ teaching methods, but to deliver research results to the praxis
field*results by means of which the professional teachers may plan, conduct and
/

evaluate their music teaching. An important strand in this relationship between

researchers and practitioners, and with the rest of the society, is the mutually shared
need for a continuous dialogue, and also that research questions induced in the
reflections of the praxis field become objects of attention to research.
The same is true of the issue of whether or not to pay attention to the fact that a lot
of musical knowledge is acquired outside school, in informal musical practices, and
that this is the learning experience of many students, regardless of whether they are
small children, adolescents or adult students in Schools of Music or teacher
education programmes.

Formal and informal learning situations or practices versus formal and

informal ways of learning
The study of informal musical learning outside institutional settings, such as schools,
has been shown to contribute to important knowledge and aspects of music
education. In the following, a review and discussion of literature, which in different
ways focuses on the issue of formal an informal learning, and presented in full in
Folkestad (in press), is summarised.
In New youth: on uncommon learning processes, Ziehe (1986) defines two types of
learning: (i) common and (ii) uncommon learning processes. Notable is that the
main distinction between these two categories is not where, but how the learning
occurs.
In their 1988 study of three young rock bands, published in English in 1995 as In
garageland, Fornäs et al. found that typical of this kind of informal learning is that it
involves more than just the core subject of the learning, in this case the music; it has
more the character of integrated learning on a more holistic level. These aspects are
also illustrated in the intimate and longitudinal ethnographic study of Berkaak and
Ruud, published in 1994, which gives in-depth insight into the context of informal
learning within rock bands.
In Folkestad (1996), one of the results was that studying how to compose also is to
study how to learn how to compose. In a situated practice, like composing, the
division between the artistic performance and how it is learned becomes dissolved in
the correlation of these aspects of the process; one cannot exist without the other. In
Folkestad (1998), the theoretical conclusion of the 1996 study is further elaborated,
resulting in seeing musical learning as cultural practice: by participating in a practice,
one also learns the practice. From this, a distinction between formal and informal
ways of learning with respect to intentionality is presented. In the formal learning
282 G. Folkestad

situation, the minds of both the teacher and the students are directed towards
learning how to play music (learning how to make music), whereas in the informal
learning practice the mind is directed towards playing music (making music). This
difference in intentionality is described by Saar (1999) as a distinction between a
pedagogical framing (i.e. learning how to play music) and an artistic/musical framing
(i.e. playing music), respectively.
In her 1997 book, In search of music education, Estelle Jorgensen presents a model
in which she differentiates the concept of education, which as stated earlier, involves
all kinds of learning, by defining five categories, or sub-concepts: schooling, training,
eduction, socialisation and enculturation. My interpretation of this model is that the
two first categories might be seen as descriptions of formal learning situations.
Similarly, the two last categories might be seen as descriptions of informal learning.
The middle category, eduction, is, as I see it, the meeting place for formal and
informal learning. Formal in the sense that it is organised and led by a teacher, but
informal in the sense that the kind of learning that is obtained and the ways in which
this is achieved have much in common with the characteristics of every day learning
in practices outside school.
In an interview study of professional and non-professional rock musicians, aged
between 15 and 50, Green (2001) describes their musical learning strategies to
become rock musicians as an example of informal musical learning. Interestingly
enough, and what might seem as a paradox, when these rock musicians teach others
they teach in very formal and traditional ways, in spite of their personal informal
musical learning experience. Accordingly, when starting to teach, the construction of
teaching and the conception of what it means to be a teacher are so strong that even
with totally different personal experiences of learning music, these experiences give
way to, the generally known construction of teaching.
Two main discourses are identified in Ericsson’s (2002) study of how adolescents
experience (i.e. talk about) musical learning: the discourse of music and the
discourse of the school subject Music. The discourse of music is wide and embraces
music in leisure time as well as in school. The discourse of the school subject Music
is narrow and legitimised only through its position as a school subject. Ericsson
found that what many of the students wanted in school was more of the kind of
musical activities and learning that takes place outside school, that is, the discourse
of the school subject Music to be replaced in school by the discourse of music.
In summary, the discourse of music (Ericsson, 2002) has a bearing on what
Folkestad (1996) called playing music, musical framing in Saar’s (1999) terminology,
whereas the focus of the discourse of the school subject Music corresponds with
learning how to play music and pedagogical framing , respectively.
So far, the studies presented have dealt with musical learning, in and out of school,
within Western societies and cultures. However, in order to acknowledge the
importance of attaining a cultural diversity in music education by integrating world
 Music education research in a globalised world 283

music and indigenous music in the curriculum music, studies of musical learning in
non-western settings is indispensable.
In this respect, Saether’s 2003 study of the attitudes to music teaching and
learning among jalis in the Gambia produced interesting findings. That which on a
surface level, and from the perspective and prejudice of western music education,
might seem as an informal practice, was in fact found to be a very formalised and
‘institutionalised’ way of knowledge formation and knowledge mediation. The title of
her thesis, The oral university, refers not only to this main result, but also to the notion
that there is no causal relationship between orality and informality.
In the descriptions in the literature presented above, I have identified four different
ways of using and defining formal and informal learning, respectively, either
explicitly or implicitly, each one focusing on different aspects of learning:
(i) The situation: where does learning take place? That is, formal and informal is
used as a way of pointing out the physical context in which learning takes place:
inside or outside institutional settings, such as schools.
(ii) Learning style: as a way of describing the character, the nature and quality of the
learning process.
(iii) Ownership: who ‘owns’ the decisions of the activity; what to do as well as how,
where and when?
(iv) Intentionality: towards what is the mind directed: towards learning how to play or
towards playing (Folkestad, 1998)? Within a pedagogical or a musical frame-
work (Saar, 1999)?

One conclusion of the research presented above is that it is far too simplified, and
actually false, to say that formal learning only occurs in institutional settings and that
informal learning only occurs outside school. On the contrary, this static view has to
be replaced with a dynamic view in which what are described as formal and informal
learning styles are aspects of the phenomenon of learning, regardless of where it takes
place. Used as an analytical tool, what characterises most learning situations is the
instant switch between these learning styles and the dialectical interaction between
them.
As seen in this presentation, it is also a misconception and a prejudice, that the
content of formal musical learning is synonymous with Western classical music
learned from sheets of music, and that the content of informal musical learning is
restricted to popular music transmitted by ear.
Since what is learned and how it is learned are interconnected, it is not only the
choice of content, such as rock music, that becomes an important part in the shaping
of an identity (and therefore an important part of music teaching as well), but also,
and to an larger extent, the ways in which the music is approached. In other words,
the most important issue might not be the content as such, but the approach to
music that the content mediates.
284 G. Folkestad

A meta-analytic approach to qualitative studies in music education: a

new model applied to creativity and composition
The rationale of the present project, presented in full in Folkestad (in press, b) is as
follows: qualitative studies have become well established within the field of music
education research. This has led to an interesting body of research, each project
investigating in depth a specific situation or phenomenon. By necessity, these studies
have been well demarcated to a certain age group, a specific context, and so on. The
number of participants has been relatively small, in order to make possible various
kinds of qualitative methods of data collection and analyses, and not to lose the in-
depth features of a qualitative analysis in studying what has been found as complex
music educational phenomena. In the case of musical creativity and composition
some of the aspects, according to which demarcations have been made, are age
(children
adolescents
adults), novice
experts, gender, formal and informal situa-
tions (inside and outside school), and the use of ICT or traditional instruments.
The advantage of this trend is that it has resulted in a series of in-depth studies,
each one aiming at covering the full range and complexity of its delimited research
object/subject.
The disadvantage might be a limitation of the possibilities of presenting results and
theories, valid not only for the specific context and situation in which the particular
study is conducted, but on a more general level.
One way of combining the advantages of qualitative studies with the aim of gaining
more overarching theories of music education might be to develop methods of re-
analysing primary studies on a secondary, meta level.
Two research questions were addressed to the aggregate set of data: (i) what are
the conditions for an optimal context for creative activities, and do these differ
between children on the one hand, and adolescents and adults on the other? (ii)
What are the characteristics of instructions, situations and frameworks that prompt
creativity versus instructions and settings that seem limiting or restrictive?
Having the character of a pilot-study, the result of the present project focuses on
the applicability and functionality of the outlined method. One way of doing this,
however, is to see what kind of results might emerge from such an analysis, and in the
following, these will be briefly presented and discussed.
The findings of the analysis, and the theoretical integration, indicate that the basic
qualities and essential elements in musical creativity and composition are very similar
for all participants, from early childhood through adolescence up to adulthood, as
well as inside or outside institutional settings such as schools.
Creative music making takes place in a process of interaction between the
participants’ musical experience and competence, their cultural practice, the tools,
the instruments, and the instructions*altogether forming the affordances (Gibson,
/

1986) in the creative situation.

In that sense, the situation of a child or a student in school and the situation of an
adult composer do not seem to differ that much. The task or teacher instruction and
 Music education research in a globalised world 285

the commissioned work respectively both represent ‘external demands’, at once

providing the restrictions and the framework for the start of the process, as well as the
trigger that starts the composition in one way or another.
Accordingly, it is not the task or the commissioning in itself that appear to be the
problem. On the contrary, since composing in ‘an empty space’, ‘starting with a
blank sheet of paper’, or ‘a free task’, are described as being the most difficult, some
kind of definition of the framework of the composition seems to be a necessity for the
process to start in the first place.
Hence, the important matter seems to be the ways in which these external
conditions are formulated, so that they are feasible to incorporate them into the
internal act of creation, and, in school, so that the activity transforms from a
pedagogic framing into the musical framing (Saar, 1999); from composition as a task
executed in order to fulfil someone else’s wishes or demands, to composition as a free
choice, as a way of expressing oneself and to communicate in music.
Analysing the data material, it becomes evident that creative music making and
musical identity are two sides of the same coin, in that the former provides an arena
on which the latter can be explored and expressed.
A recurrent theme in the participants’ descriptions of their composition processes
is the relationship between what is described as ‘whole-parts’, ‘figure-ground’ and
‘framework/texture-details’.
In conclusion, it is clear that instructions defining the parts or the details are
limiting and restrictive, whereas instructions providing a framework are not only
productive, but are in fact a necessity. In this respect, one problem in pedagogical
frameworks might be the assessment, the criteria of which often focus on details/
parts.

Conclusion: potential directions in music education research

As a conclusion, one of the results of the presented research is that formal
informal
should not be regarded as a dichotomy, but rather as the two poles of a continuum,
and that in most learning situations, both these aspects of learning are in various
degrees present and interacting in the actual learning process. This interaction
between formal and informal learning, is often described to take place in a ‘dialectic’
way. Here I see that both (i) a Hegelian definition (thesis
antithesis
synthesis), and
(ii) a more general definition (i.e. ‘two things interacting with each other’) are in
view.
Although the most commonly used definition in the reviewed literature seems to
be the latter, the Hegelian definition is not only applicable, but might also vigorously
describe the present situation in educational practices: out of the awareness of ‘the
two musical worlds’; inside school (thesis) and outside school (antithesis),
respectively, the synthesis*new ways of musical learning*is generated, both in
/ /

formal settings and in informal practices, combining the features and qualities of
both learning styles described.
286 G. Folkestad

Why are the issues I’ve presented important in music education research?
Returning to Ziehe’s (1986) description of ‘common’ and ‘uncommon’ ways of
learning, the developments and changes during the last decades might be
summarised as follows.
For today’s children the ways of learning that occur outside school and which they
adopt from an early age by their interaction with music, movies, video and computer
games, the Internet, etc., are experienced as the ‘common’ ways of learning. And, in
relation to these, the ways of learning encountered by the children in school appear
as the ‘uncommon’ ways.
This is why music education researchers need to be here in the schools doing all
kinds of various research in the class rooms, but also to be out there where children
and students encounter musical learning in all its various forms. Moreover, as a
result of the globalised world in which the local and the global interact, particularly in
the musical learning of young people, music education researchers need to be
everywhere, focusing not only on the formal and informal musical learning in Western
societies and cultures, but to include the full global range of popular, world and
indigenous musics in their studies.

Notes on contributor
Göran Folkestad is Professor and Chair of Research in Music Education at Lund
University, Sweden. His research interests are within the area of musical
composition and ICT, in formal as well as informal musical teaching and
learning situations, and include the study of young people’s creative music-
making by means of computers and professional composers.

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 Music education research in a globalised world 287

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