Music Knowledge and Social Representations: A research project on training music teachers.

This paper deals with a research project currently being undertaken at the Faculty of Education, University of Bologna, about the training of the university students studying to become music teachers. Studies on the music knowledge of music teachers have been based on different theories and methods: the theory of personal construct (Olsson 1997a/b), the theory of social construction (Hallam & Shaw 2002), the epistemological approach and the analysis of language (Kruger 1998), the theories of professional role identity (Bouji 1998; Ferrari 1994; Hargreaves et al. 2003). A new model to study the relationships between music knowledge and training music teachers is the Theory of Social Representations (Moscovici 1981; Mugny-Carugati 1989). The general hypothesis of the project is that "music knowledge" can be investigated as a social and psychological construction as described by the theory of Social Representations, as well as social music values (Baroni 1993, Bourdieu 1983) affecting music education and teaching practice. According to this perspective, music knowledge could have its development in the crossroads between different Social Representations of music. The main aim of this research project is to study the impact of the Social Representations of music on students studying to become music teachers.