On the music teacher as a role model: An essay on understanding the music teacher from an ethnographer's point of view

This paper explores the relationship between ethnography and music education. The possible meanings of the prefix ‘ethno’ will be reflected upon in three related concepts: ethnography, ethnomusicology and ethnomethodology. In a second step, the focus will shift to music education. The concept of ‘idiocultural music education’ will be clarified in the context of the current debates about what music education is meant for in order to use ideas from ethnography in a productive way. In a third step, the core of this essay, two related productive ways of using ideas from ethnography are introduced: one focuses on the importance of ethnographic knowledge of pupils’ musical lives, the other on the importance of making explicit the inevitable positionality of the music teacher as a musical idioculture. The concluding section explains why, ultimately, the idea of the music teacher as a role model needs to be reconsidered.