MA in Music & Education (closes 2012)
Please note: this degree course will no longer be running after 2012, and applications are no longer being received for this programme.
On this page you will find:
- An introduction to this degree
- A list of topics available on the degree
- Information about who this degree is aimed at
- A course structure summary
Introduction
The MA is studied over 12 months full time or over 24 months part time. This programme is of interest to all concerned with issues and praxis within a widely-defined area encompassing the teaching and learning of music in all its forms and the role of music in aspects of children’s and young people’s development and well-being. These may be examined both within institutions of primary, secondary and tertiary education (including class, group and individual musical learning), and in the wider community.
The course provides the resources for a thoughtful, reflective and critical engagement with current issues within the field of music educational praxis, which includes both theoretical and practical aspects. In an overall context which situates music and its education at all levels in the wider area of cultural practice, students will explore a wide range of topical themes within an overarching framework constituted by the philosophy, politics and practice of music education.
At the core level, these include:
- current research, reflections and debates from key national and international practitioners and theorists of music education
- the nature of an inclusive music pedagogy and the tension between this and the fostering of excellence in musical outcomes at all stages.
Students also carry out research into a specific area of interest. This could be in the form of research in the field, including the possibility of action research – that is, the analysis of, experimentation with, and reflection upon one’s own practice, carried out while continuing existing professional work. Specialist training in appropriate research methodologies is at the core of the degree, and there is a network of local ‘practice schools’ so that research is set up with pupils of these schools where desired. Alternatively, areas of interest may be examined through literature review, analysis of ideas in the field, or through other forms of scholarly work.
The programme can be taken both full-time (one year) and part-time (over two years), and includes compulsory and optional modules in research-led areas of interest within this department.
Topics available on the MA in Music and Education
- models of teaching, learning and assessment in the teaching of music
- collective teaching and learning at tertiary level
- composing with children and young people
- singing with children and young people
- music education in the field of intercultural relations
- music and empathy
- music in transfer between primary and secondary schools
- music, emotional literacy and inclusive relationships
- modules from other postgraduate programmes in Music in composition, ethnomusicology, free improvisation, popular music studies, performance practice, musical analysis, cultural theories of music and others.
There is an active Music Education Research Forum, with regular invited contributors from the UK and abroad, and a unique partnership with Bergen University College’s Music Education Master’s programme, and their newly-established research Centre for Arts, Culture and Communication.
Who was this degree for?
This course is of interest to:
- professional music educators from a wide range of backgrounds who wish to renew and to extend their understanding of current issues, developments, research and debates in the field
- graduate students returning to extend and consolidate their music educational praxis after several years working out in the field
- recently graduated students who wish to continue their studies to focus upon music and education in order to enhance their background for subsequent entry to the PGCE and a following teaching career
- international students, both from experienced music educational backgrounds and also directly from undergraduate degrees in music
- practising musicians who wish to explore educational ideas and possibilities in order to extend their own activities within, for example, community music education or in instrumental teaching
Although this MA provides an excellent foundation for students going on to a research degree, it is also a valuable qualification in its own right and, for some students, may be regarded as adding a further dimension to their undergraduate degree, in a 3+1 model. Indeed, as the standard three-year undergraduate degree becomes ever more ubiquitous in the UK, more and more students are treating masters degrees as a way of adding value to their first degree. This practice is also in line with the so-called Bologna Accord.
Students take general and music education-specific research training modules (30 credits); taught modules (90 credits); and a dissertation (60 credits). The programmehas been offered both full and part-time, with some early evening lectures and seminars, and block weekend sessions where appropriate to students’ needs.