The aim of this study is to explore criteria characterizing music teacher’s strategies when trying to adapt their teaching to individual students. The interaction of three music teachers with their students was explored in case studies in different parts of Sweden (a pre-study, and the main study consisting of two parallel studies). The research interest especially concerns teaching class ensemble addressing teenagers in the tuition provided under the curriculum of Swedish secondary and upper secondary school. 

This study adopts the perspective of cultural psychology according to which learning is understood as being relational, taking place in a cultural context, depending on available cultural resources and affected by it. Cultural tools are considered mediators of meaning and crucial for learning. Of special interest to the present study are the ways in which teachers distribute knowledge to their students.

Many-sided data were collected in all case studies: series of lessons were observed and video-documented; preliminary results were followed up in semi-structured interviews with the teachers, respectively.

The results show similarities in the use of general strategies; e.g. peer-teaching and -learning in the classroom and flexibility in using and developing cultural tools. Results also show three diverging practices; rehearsal-room practice, supervisor-practice and ensemble-leading-practice.

The results are discussed from a societal perspective, in light of Swedish School history. Issues concerning the government of the School and equivalence are addressed.  An unexpected result is that the concept “individually adapted ensemble teaching” may be understood very differently among music teachers actively involved in teachers’ education. The need for development of professional concepts is further underlined by the findings that teachers develop new cultural tools within different practices. This is discussed related to the framing of the central curricula. 

The aim of this thesis is to obtain a deeper understanding of students’ approaches to musical knowledge as it is distributed through one-to-one tuition in higher music education (HME). With a cultural-psychological perspective according to Bruner, the project was designed as a longitudinal, qualitative study of eight students in the performance program that concludes with a Bachelor of Arts degree in music. Two main musical genres were represented: Western classical music, and jazz and contemporary music. The students had one-to-one tuition on violin, classical guitar, saxophone and electric guitar, and were observed at three consecutive lessons per semester during one academic year. Many-sided data were collected: video recordings of instrumental lessons, semi-structured interviews with students and teachers, and the participants’ diary notes in connection with the observed lessons. In the analysis, the students’ approaches to knowledge of music cultural tools were focused. The results show that the students use three main approaches in relation to one-to-one tuition: adaptation, reflected navigation and indifference. These approaches vary and overlap, and are connected to the local cultural situations that are being studied, as well as to differences by instrument and genre. The different strategies used by the students are discussed in relation to apprenticeship in higher music education, and in relation to the consequences for students’ musical learning and knowledge development. The results are also connected to the Bologna process and the development of research-based teaching in HME. Methodological considerations and suggestions for further research are put forward.

The aim of the thesis is to illuminate music therapy in Sweden by exploring participant’s experiences of Functionally Oriented Music Therapy (FMT), music therapy grounded on psychodynamic theories and Guided Imagery and Music (GIM). How can adult participants’ experiences of music therapy used as individual treatment, be described from phenomenological perspectives? Theoretical framework is the life-world perspective according to Merleau-Ponty (2005), an ethical perspective according to Ricœur (1992) and a perspective of time consciousness according to Husserl (1991). Two pairs of persons comprising one patient and one therapist from each orientation participated, totally 6 patients and 6 therapists. Each couple was documented during three sequential sessions which were videotaped and followed up by an interview. Totally the study included 18 videotaped sessions, 36 interviews, notes and literature. The analyses show music therapy sessions based on rituals that can be divided into three phases: an entering-phase, a current-phase and an exit-phase which can be considered to be predetermined and governed by the music therapy orientations.  The participants' experiences of the sessions are described as transcendence, based on the participants' imagination during which they dialectically communicate and interact. However, the therapeutic processes do not seem to be fulfilled unless the participants have the possibility of using verbal narratives. Music helps them though to organize their experiences in the present moment since it possesses a natural innate structure. The results are discussed in relation to theories in music therapy and Damasios neurological theory which includes body, emotion and consciousness (Damasio 2004, 2000). Implications for theory and practice are made and considerations and suggestions for further research are put forward. 

The aim of this thesis is to illuminate which role theories of music education can have in the dialectic between discourse and competence in the practice of music pedagogy. The thesis stems from a problem-oriented project that resulted in the formulation of the following research question: how can the connection between music education theory and the power of definition be described and problematized from a cultural-historical perspective using Vygotsky's thesis of Semiotic Thinking? In his research on the dual function of language Vygotsky makes a distinction between the usage of concepts and conceptualization. In this study this distinction has been crucial to determining the relationship between music education theory and the power of definition as practised in music pedagogy. The research project comprised a background study and three sub-studies. The focus of the background-study was the conditions for musical learning and development in persons with severe cognitive dysfunctions. The first sub-study dealt with how social workers in this area of special education conceptualise their view of music in relation to their understanding of music activities in their own practice. The second sub-study aimed to explore which concepts music-therapists use in their meta-reflections on musical situations in this area of special education. The purpose of the third sub-study was to formulate a theoretical perspective on the relationship between music education theory and the power of definition using Vygotsky's hypothesis of semiotic thinking. The main conclusions are: first, that music education theory can be understood as a structural coupling between the power of definition that is embedded in music-pedagogical discourse as a whole, and the power of definition possessed by music pedagogues; second, that the development of the power of definition in the practice of music pedagogy is a creative process that in turn entails a critical questioning of music education theory.

I denna översikt görs en kritisk granskning av dokumentationen om skolundervisning där en yrkesverksam konstnär deltar enligt programmet ”Learning Through the Arts” (LTTA). LTTA är utvecklat i Kanada och introduceras nu i Sverige i ett samarbete mellan The Royal Conservatory of Music i Toronto (RCM), Kungl. Musikhögskolan i Stockholm (KMH) och Kista stadsdelsnämnd.