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Leadership & Management in Music Education - MUS00085M

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  • Department: Music
  • Module co-ordinator: Prof. Rachel Cowgill
  • Credit value: 20 credits
  • Credit level: M
  • Academic year of delivery: 2022-23

Module summary

This module develops understanding of core issues in institutional leadership from multiple perspectives within contemporary music education settings, alongside critical reflection on aspects of leadership development, including negotiating professional agency and identity, strategic planning, policy, curriculum change, evaluation and creative advocacy.

Module will run

Occurrence Teaching period
A Summer Term 2022-23

Module aims

This module aims to explore the challenges, opportunities and responsibilities associated with a leadership role in music education, to enable students to identify, justify and execute a programme of change, to understand the relationships between mission, strategy, resources, action planning, delivery and evaluation, and to develop skills of advocacy, persuasion and negotiation among a variety of stakeholders in contemporary institutional, cultural, social and political settings.

Module learning outcomes

On completion of this module, students will be able to:

  • Identify and debate current issues in music education leadership in critical and theoretically informed ways

  • Relate management and leadership issues within music education to their own professional identity, philosophy and development

  • Identify needs and make persuasive cases for change from a leadership perspective

  • Design programmes of work to address music education needs effectively

  • Apply core skills in music education leadership, including curriculum development, grant-application writing and project management

  • Evaluate the effectiveness of their own plans, through critical reflection and application of relevant scholarship and experiential learning

Module content

Module syllabus (indicative)

  • Serving the local and the global: shaping music education in a changing world

  • Developing professional identity and career agency

  • Promoting equality, diversity and inclusion

  • Curriculum development and reform

  • Strategic planning and change management

  • Project design, execution and evaluation

  • Policy and creative advocacy

Assessment

Task Length % of module mark
Essay/coursework
Comparison & Critique		 N/A 10
Essay/coursework
Essay		 N/A 90

Special assessment rules

None

Reassessment

Task Length % of module mark
Essay/coursework
Comparison & Critique		 N/A 10
Essay/coursework
Essay		 N/A 90

Module feedback

Written feedback to students within 20 working days.

Indicative reading

Ahmed, Sarah. On Being Included: Racism and Diversity in Institutional Life (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2012)

Avis, Rupert. ‘Higher Music Education, India and Ethnography: A Case Study of KM Music Conservatory Students’, Ethnomusicology Forum 29/2 (2020), 230–49

Bartleet, Brydie-Leigh, Catherine Grant, Charulatha Mani and Vanessa Tomlinson. ‘Global Mobility in Music Higher Education: Reflections on how Intercultural Music-making can Enhance Students’ Musical Practices’, International Journal of Music Education 38/2 (2020), 161–76

Benedict, Cathy, Patrick Schmidt, Gary Spruce and Paul Woodford, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Social Justice in Music Education (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018)

Bennett, Dawn, Jennifer Rowley and Patrick Schmidt, eds. Leadership and Musician Development in Higher Music Education (New York: Routledge, 2019)

Borel, Eugénie Grenier. ‘The Shanghai Conservatory of Music and its Rhetoric: Building a World Class Musical Institution with Chinese Characteristics’, China Perspectives 3 (2019), 27–36

Born, Georgina. ‘Music Technology, Gender and Class: Digitization, Educational and Social Change in Britain’, twentieth century music 12/2 (2015), 135–72

Bull, Anna. Class, Control, and Classical Music (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019)

Burland, Karen. Becoming a Musician: A Longitudinal Study Investigating the Career Transitions of Undergraduate Music Students (PhD dissertation: University of Sheffield, 2005)

Burnard, Pamela, ed. Developing Creativities in Higher Music Education: International Perspectives and Practices (London and New York: Routledge, 2014)

Burnard, Pamela, and Elizabeth Haddon, eds. Activating Diverse Musical Creativities: Teaching and Learning in Higher Music Education (London: Bloomsbury, 2015)

Burnard, Pamela, and Ylva Hofvander Trulsson. Bourdieu and the Sociology of Music Education (London: Routledge, 2016)

Campbell, Patricia Shehan. Teaching Music Globally: Experiencing Music, Expressing Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004)

Collini, Stefan. Speaking of Universities (London and New York: Verso, 2017)

Connell, Raewyn. The Good University: What Universities Actually Do and Why it’s Time for Radical Change (London: Zedbooks, 2019)

Cox, Gordon, and Robin Stevens. The Origins and Foundations of Music Education: International Perspectives (London: Bloomsbury, 2016)

Dobrow, Shoshana R. ‘Dynamics of Calling: A Longitudinal Study of Musicians’, Journal of Organizational Behaviour 34 (2013), 431–52

Eskerod, Pernille, and Anna Lund Jepsen. Project Stakeholder Management (Farnham: Gower, 2013)

Gabriel, Deborah, and Shirley Anne Tate, eds. Inside the Ivory Tower: Narratives of Women of Colour Surviving and Thriving in British Academia (London: UCL Institute of Education Press, 2017)

Haddon, Elizabeth. ‘Bi-musicality and Dialogical Musicality: Influences of Javanese Gamelan Participation on Western Instrumental Learning’, British Journal of Music Education 33/2 (2016), 219–35

Hess, Frederick M. Educational Entrepreneurship: Realities, Challenges, Possibilities (Cambridge MA: Harvard Education Press, 2006)

Howe, Blake, Stephanie Jensen-Moulton, Neil Lerner, and Joseph Straus, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Music and Disability Studies (New York: OUP, 2015)

Impett, Jonathan, ed. Artistic Research in Music: Discipline and Resistance (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2017)

Jarman, Freya. ‘Teaching Music Analysis to First-Year Undergraduates with Radical Subject-Specific Diversity’, El oído pensante 4/1 (2016)

Kallio, Alexis Anja. Difference and Division in Music Education (Abingdon: Routledge, 2020)

Kallio, Alexis Anja. ‘Decolonizing Music Education Research and the (Im)possibility of Methodological Responsibility’, Research Studies in Music Education 42/2 (2020), 177–91

Kertz-Welzel, Alexandra. Globalising Music Education: A Framework (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2018)

Lencioni, Patrick M. ‘Make Your Values Mean Something’, Harvard Business Review 80/7 (2002), 113–17

McPherson, Gary, and Graham F. Welch, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Music Education, 2 vols (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012)

Noon, Mike. ‘Pointless Diversity Training: Unconscious Bias, New Racism and Agency’, Work, Employment & Society 32/1 (2018), 198–209

Norton, Naomi, Jane Ginsborg and Alinka Greasley. ‘Instrumental and Vocal Teachers in the United Kingdom: Demographic Characteristics, Educational Pathways, and Beliefs about Qualification Requirements’, Music Education Research 21/5 (2019), 560–81

Peters, Michael A., and Tina Besley, eds. The Creative University (Rotterdam: Sense, 2013)

Puwar, Nirmal. Space Invaders: Race, Gender and Bodies Out of Place (London & New York: Berg, 2004)

de Reizabal, Margarita Lorenzo, and Manuel Benito Gómez. ‘When Theory and Practice Meet: Avenues for Entrepreneurship Education in Music Conservatories’, International Journal of Music Education 38/3 (2020), 352–69

Rumiantsev, Tamara W., Wilfried F. Admiraal and Roeland M. van der Rijst. ‘Conservatoire Leaders’ Observations and Perceptions on Curriculum Reform’, British Journal of Music Education 37 (2020), 29–41

Schipper, Huib. Facing the Music: Shaping Music Education from a Global Perspective (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010)

Sturm, Jonathan. ‘Strategic Planning from the Bottom Up: Visioning a Future while Building Morale and Investing in the Culture of Success’, Journal of Performing Arts Leadership in Higher Education 8 (Fall 2017), 41–49

Tan, Shzr. ‘Preface: Decolonising Music and Music Studies’ and ‘Whose Decolonisation?: Checking for Intersectionality, Lane-policing and Academic Privilege from a Transnational (Chinese) Vantage Point’, Ethnomusicology Forum 30/1 (2021), 140–62

Tate, Shirley Anne, and Paul Bagguley, eds. Building the Anti-Racist University (Abingdon: Routledge, 2019)

Thuraisingham, Meena. The Secret Life of Decisions: How Unconscious Bias Subverts your Judgement (Abingdon: Routledge, 2013)

Turnbull, Helen. The Illusion of Inclusion: Global Inclusion, Unconscious Bias and the Bottom Line (New York: Business Expert Press, 2016)

Walzer, Daniel A. ‘Transformational Leadership Considerations in Music Technology’, Journal of Performing Arts Leadership in Higher Education 8 (Fall 2017), 27–40

Westerlund, Heidi, Sidsel Karlsen and Heidi Partti, eds. Visions for Intercultural Music Teacher Education (New York: Springer, 2019)

Williams, Linda Stallworth. ‘The Mission Statement: A Corporate Reporting Tool with a Past, Present, and Future’, Journal of Business Communication 14/2 (2008), 94–119


The information on this page is indicative of the module that is currently on offer. The University is constantly exploring ways to enhance and improve its degree programmes and therefore reserves the right to make variations to the content and method of delivery of modules, and to discontinue modules, if such action is reasonably considered to be necessary by the University. Where appropriate, the University will notify and consult with affected students in advance about any changes that are required in line with the University's policy on the Approval of Modifications to Existing Taught Programmes of Study.