Isolation in studio music teaching: The secret garden

In comparison with classroom settings that are more accessible to the scrutiny of researchers and institutional monitoring, the one-to-one setting of instrumental and vocal studio teaching has been described as a ‘secret garden’. The physical isolation of the music studio has deep roots within the traditions of apprenticeship and embodies aspects of conservatoire culture that are sometimes carried over into other musical styles. With a focus on higher education, this paper explores the nature and significance of isolation for the studio, alongside some of the benefits, limitations, and challenges that it offers. The authors contend that the physical disposition of the studio within the institution gives implicit support to the attitudes and assumptions that sustain traditional approaches to music performance teaching, and that making them explicit can help to open those approaches to further challenge, review and development

Who am I?:shaping young children’s identities through everyday narratives

Abstract Young children have largely been neglected in narrative identity research. This chapter is based on the premise that identity construction is a process that begins in the early years and is formed through the everyday narratives that comprise the daily interactions through which identities are constructed, negotiated, and performed. These everyday narratives provide children with the sense of who they are, who they will become, what kind of children they are expected to be, and the nature of the world in which they live. The chapter is based on research into everyday narratives produced in early education settings. I suggest that four themes frame the construction of children’s narrative identities: the possession of material items; skills and competences; peer relationships; and the child’s relation to the rules and conventions of the child care center