In all cultures and throughout all times, music has been important and even vital to mankind. Already as fetuses, our mother’s heartbeat and rocking movements affect us. As teenagers, we use music to form our identities. Also, people use music to gain courage and strength, in personal lives, in political struggle and in religious rites. At the same time, music is used to manipulate us in, for example, advertising to make us consume. Thus, music can be viewed from many different perspectives and learned in a variety of ways with different purposes and in different contexts.
At the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Education, we train student teachers primarily for music education in primary and lower secondary schools; F-6 school age education and care (SAEC) and preschool. At the department, music is regarded as an important phenomenon in people’s lives, which means that issues related to aesthetics, quality of life, creativity, cultural heritage, democracy and society are in focus. However, music is always about relating to sounds that may have the ability to touch people. To be able to awake emotions with their music, students need to learn to master musical tools; to play and sing, create and recreate, listen, analyze and experience music.
Music Education Research
Music education research can include as diverse areas as digital competence in the teaching subject of music, musical diversity in music education, children’s musical games and the construction of gender when performing within rock groups, to mention a few. At HSD, music didactic research is conducted more specifically in areas such as musical learning outside of school-settings, improvisation and learning in preschool, interaction between children and educators in music activities, music creation in primary school, and aesthetic philosophy.
Ketil Thorgersen (PhD in music education)
Maria Wassrin (PhD in subject specific didaktik - music)
Maria Pemsel (Master in music education)
Jonas Asplund (PhD student in subject specific didaktik - music)
