Not Musical Enough

This book explores music identity for students training to teach children aged 3-11. The personal stories of the teaching students, collected through narrative methods, raised important issues related to the judgements they made about their music teaching abilities. Symbolic interactionism and social constructionism underpinned the development of a complex picture of students’ musical identity for teaching. The perceived hegemony of western high art music appeared to be used as a benchmark they used to say they were ‘Not musical enough’ to teach. They were musically capable but found the real strictures and their perception of schools’ expectations inhibited their musical identity. This will be of interest to academics in the field of music and teacher education, to musicians and youth workers interested in supporting young people to find their own musical ‘voice’.