Danielle Shannon Treacy : Imagining possibilities

"The intensifying diversity and rapid change characterizing contemporary societies challenges music teacher education globally to equip future teachers with the skills and understandings necessary for ethically engaging with uncertainty and difference. This doctoral research project, conducted in Nepal, addresses the idea that developing music teachers' imaginations and capacities to envision the future may be of value in attending to such challenges.
The project emerged following the 2010 introduction of music as a separate subject in the Nepali National Curriculum, and the subsequent collaboration initiated by representatives of the Nepal Music Center with representatives of the Sibelius Academy in order to develop music teacher education. The project directs the research interest to the perspectives of practitioners involved in music education in Kathmandu Valley schools, with particular attention to musician-teachers co-constructing visions.

The overarching research question guiding the project was: How can musician-teachers' co-constructing of visions contribute knowledge about the development of context-specific music teacher education in a situation of fast-paced social change and globalization? Three research sub-questions were constructed to address this overarching question: 1) What contextual issues frame practitioners' envisioning of music education practices in Kathmandu Valley schools? 2) How might the process of co-constructing visions with musician-teachers in the Kathmandu Valley contribute to music teacher education in Nepal and beyond? and 3) How might the process of co-constructing visions with musician-teachers in the Kathmandu Valley contribute to understandings of cross-cultural music education research?

The theoretical framework extends educational researcher Karen Hammerness' concept of teachers' visions through socio-cultural anthropologist Arjun Appadurai's theories of the imagination and the social and cultural capacity to aspire, also drawing on John Dewey's theorisation of the continuum of ends-means. The methodology applies Appreciative Inquiry (AI) critically and reflexively, with ongoing consideration of issues of power, ethnocentrism and coloniality.

The project took place in three stages from 2014 to 2019, and the empirical material was generated through observations in schools, interviews with school administrators and musician-teachers, and a series of seventeen workshops for musician-teachers guided by the Appreciative Inquiry 4D model of Discover, Dream, Design and Destiny. Beyond solely supporting the research project, the workshops were designed to facilitate collaborative professional learning. Over 50 musician-teachers in Nepal participated the project."