Tertiary educators’ voices in Australia and South Africa: Experiencing and engaging in African music and culture

Abstract

Music tertiary educators can foster positive experiences that promote diversity, enhance intercultural and cross-cultural understanding through our teaching. Through findings of interview data of tertiary music educators’ understandings of multicultural music practice at two South African universities and at an Australia university, I used interpretative phenomenological analysis to analyse the data. Two major themes emerged: why is it important to teach multicultural music like that of Africa, and what are some of the effective ways of preparing students to best teach it? The data provides insights into an appreciation of and respect for music and cultural diversity. In multicultural societies educators cannot deliver courses based solely on one’s own identity and cultural perspective. I argue that music education may be seen as an agent of social change where music teaching and learning can occur through exploring, experiencing, expressing and engaging in the music of our own culture and that of others.

Keywords

African music Australian teacher education culture and diversity multiculturalism South African music teacher education

Introduction

As music is a social and learned phenomenon, it continues to travel across the globe as people do. It requires no visa to cross borders, as it is part of our everyday lives. Through music participation and appreciation we can discover who we are, connect with others and ‘develop an awareness of different cultures and come to understand the rich variety of human experience’ (Dinham, 2011, p. 211). This paper situates itself across two continents (Australia and South Africa) within tertiary education settings and forms part of my wider ongoing study that started in 2010, Attitudes and Perceptions of Arts Education Students: Preparing Culturally Responsive Teachers across Two Continents (Australia and South Africa). I draw on interview data (October 2010) with three music tertiary educators from two South African universities (North West University [NWU] and University of Pretoria [UP]) as well as my reflections as the music educator at Deakin University (DU) in Australia. As tertiary music educators we are all challenged to prepare our pre-service teacher education students to be culturally responsive as we live in a multicultural society where the demographics continue to change.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (2011), Australia has a population of 22.4 million people. Hugo (2009) in his research confirms that South Africa has the highest percentage of immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa settling largely in the major cities of Sydney, Melbourne and Perth. Melbourne is located in the state of Victoria (Australia) where I currently teach. The Victorian Multicultural Commission (2012) confirms that in Victoria there are 230 countries represented, speaking more than 200 languages and dialects, following more than 120 religious faiths. This clearly represents Victoria as ‘the most multicultural state in Australia and as time progressed, new arrivals changed the makeup of our society, introducing new cultures, languages, religions and faiths’ (Victorian Multicultural Commission, 2012). In contrast, the South African statistics (StatsSA, 2012) database points out that South Africa has a population of 50.5 million people, 11 official languages and a variety of cultures and religious beliefs. Africans (indigenous black people) make up 79.4% of the population whereas whites only make up 9.2%. Hence, in the Arts and Culture learning area within the South African Revised National Curriculum (RNC) there is a dominance of the African language, and African music and culture are now richly celebrated. In the new Australian National Curriculum for Education, the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA, 2012) stipulates that contemporary arts practices from different cultures (like that of Africa), including works from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures, will be included in the Arts learning area.

This paper does not focus on individual units within the Bachelor Primary and Bachelor Secondary courses across the three universities; rather, I argue that by providing rich multicultural programs for our pre-service students in music education, we can foster positive experiences that promote diversity, enhance intercultural and cross-cultural understanding where a shared space of belonging can exist. Both Australia and South Africa have a rich history of British colonialism and have been outposts of the empire, and music education still tends to focus on ‘western music’. Across both continents as tertiary educators we strive to prepare our pre-service teachers to move beyond a ‘West is best’ paradigm and be inclusive of the multicultural society in which we find ourselves. As ethnicities, cultures, languages continue to blend, similarly there continues to be a blurring of traditional and contemporary musical styles. Across both continents, the music educators at the three universities currently teach music education within primary and secondary teacher education courses as well as in music discipline units.

NWU is situated approximately two-and-a-half hours from Johannesburg’s CBD, with a strong focus on indigenous music. Its motto ‘Innovation through diversity’ aptly describes the vision of the university (North West University, 2012). UP is approximately one-and-a-half hours from Johannesburg’s CBD, boasting an excellent music department whose focus is on the inclusion of African music within teacher education courses. DU is located in Burwood, approximately half an hour from Melbourne’s CBD. It strives to provide students with excellence and relevant education for lifelong learning. Since joining DU in 2001, originally from South Africa, I have introduced African music to my music units as an aspect of multicultural music. I bring an international and intercultural perspective to the teaching and learning of non-western music like that of Africa to my university.

Across the three universities in this study, multicultural music education is taught through listening, engaging, experiencing and exploring; this may be viewed through the lens of students’ social and cultural backgrounds. In this study, the tertiary educators I refer to were all born and educated to doctorate level in South Africa. All of us are of different ethnic backgrounds (white, Indian and coloured), yet we share a common national heritage and identity. We all include African music in our teaching units as part of multicultural music education, even though all were western classically trained. Within our tertiary teaching we focus on South African indigenous music (Zulu, Xhosa, Tswana, Sotho, Venda and Pedi tribes) as well as on English and Afrikaans folk songs and dances as we have all undertaken studies, research and professional development in African music. I argue that unlike ‘others [who] have engaged with Africa music because they have a sense of connection through cultural or religious heritage’ (Muller, 2004, p. xxi), my interviewees and I have lived, studied and taught with indigenous people in Africa. We employ a pedagogy that connects culture, society and history to the musical arts of Africa. Our collective approach in teaching and learning is through note and rote, aural and oral, imitation and digital media – hence we adopt a ‘music-as-culture’ approach to our teaching. Douskalis (2012) points out that as the demographics of society change, so must the curriculum change. He exhorts us as tertiary educators to prepare our students for the society in which they will likely teach.

Theoretical perspectives

The South African tertiary music educators in this study each experienced apartheid in different ways, exploring different music and culture. Apartheid was a form of legalized racial discrimination; it ‘was established by a body of laws made by a minority of people of European and British descent in response to their fears of living in a country where the majority of the people were of Black African descent (Muller, 2008, p. 24). In response to apartheid, non-racial education was ‘born out of a conscious effort to transform undemocratic apartheid by replacing it with a democratic, inclusive education ethos founded on a human rights culture’ (Nkomo, Chisholm, & McKinney, 2004, p. 2). For this reason, the music educators in this study strive to be inclusive in their teaching of music styles and genres and include those of Africa. Learning about other cultures and their music practice creates opportunities for intercultural dialogue. In this way both students and lecturer gain a rich understanding of the ‘other’ where music has no boundaries, thereby learning to ‘redraw boundaries and create new spaces’ (Agawu, 2003, p. 115) as part of their multicultural music learning. Research internationally continues to advocate for the importance of and need to include multicultural music (Joseph & Southcott, 2011; Anderson & Campbell, 2011; Fredericks; 2008, Chen-Hafteck, 2007; Belz, 2006; Volk; 2004, Erwin et al., 2003; Senders & Davidson, 2000; Blacking, 1995).

Australia and South Africa are nations with a rich colonial past. Both countries have had waves of migration including cross-cultural marriages giving birth to diverse multicultural societies. If the cultural mosaic of diversity is to flourish, we need to ‘recognize and acknowledge diversity, practice tolerance and respect of human rights, [and] work to liberate cultures that have been subjugated’ (Vandeyar, 2003, p. 193). The imbalance of addressing segregation and apartheid policies in South Africa is beyond the scope of this paper (see McKinney & Soudien (2010) regarding multicultural education in South Africa). Fredericks (2008) and Nompula (2012) articulate the value of including African indigenous and contemporary music in South Africa and Joseph and Southcott (2011) write specifically about multicultural music in Melbourne, discussing the need for higher education institutes to prepare students with a breadth of cultural understandings and diverse music experiences that will create culturally responsive music teachers.

As race and culture are not the focus of this paper (see Hall (1992) regarding post-colonial understanding of the hybrid nature of race and culture), I highlight the opportunity to celebrate multicultural music in a society like that of South Africa and Australia. Bradley (2006, p. 12, citing McCarthy, Crichlow, Dimitriadis, & Dolby, 2005) points out that multiculturalism serves ‘to celebrate otherness and diversity’, where ‘all identities and differences are seen as being worthy of affirmation’ (Merton, 2011, p. 24). In Africa, diversity is not a new concept; the society is multiethnic, multilingual, multifaith and multicultural. Though similar, in Australia ‘multiculturalism concerns an explicit policy of protecting particularistic local cultures in the face of hegemonic and global cultures’ (Ranks, 2012). Henricks (2012) identifies that although multiculturalism has made a positive contribution in broadening narrow horizons, exposing people to the wide range of cultural heritages, it still challenges educators at all levels on the issue of ‘how to address cultural difference without promoting cultural chauvinism and its counterpart, xenophobia’, which is not the focus of my discussion. In the same vein, if we continue to promote mainstream groups and their culture (in the case of western societies) then we need to be conscious not to marginalize minority groups and their cultures (Banks, 2004). Writing specifically about the provision of multicultural arts education, I have argued elsewhere that its inclusion within the curriculum has the potential to help achieve a national reconciliation if we recognize and value difference (Joseph, 2006).

Music is a neutral and common ground to displace fears of hegemonic and minority cultures. It can be seen as an arena to have intercultural dialogue, exploring and experiencing different cultures, including traditional or contemporary music. Music educators over the centuries in most countries at tertiary institutions have perpetuated their own history of exclusion in relation to music styles and genres, largely due to the influence of colonialism. Lucia (2011) points out that all South Africans can relate to African traditional and choral music, hence the tertiary music educators in this study present both to their students. By providing a range of music and culture we allow students and ourselves as tertiary educators to make cross-cultural connections as we move from a monoculture to a transcultural exchange of pedagogical approaches, as culture is not static. Schippers (2010) argues that this approach allows an ‘equal footing’ (p. 31) in its transmission, making way for the inclusion of other music and their cultures to be taught (Addo, 2000; Campbell, 2004).

As ‘culture is not restricted to ethnicity’ (Mixon, 2009, p. 66), tertiary music educators are exhorted to ‘train professionals who will pass on our musical culture from the many generations of the past to the new generation of tomorrow’ (Tertiary Music Education in Australian, 2011, p. 13). By including African music, students develop awareness of self through engagement. Through critical engagement with their peers and self-reflection on the music, students come to have an understanding of their ‘own culture and a general knowledge of the musics of other cultures’ (Volk, 2004, p. 190). At the two South African universities where the study was undertaken, there was a strong mixture of both black and white students in the music classes, whereas at the university where I teach in Melbourne the students remain predominantly white Anglo-Celtic Australian, with a sparse number of ‘others’, for example Sri Lankan, Greek, Italian, Asian and at times African. Hence, within my Australian context, I deliver a curriculum that is not just dominated by western music and genres but also includes music from Africa.

Methodology

This paper reports on interview data with three music educators at two universities in South Africa. It also offers my ‘personal narrative’ (Chase, 2005, p. 652) as my lived experience and story ‘become the frameworks within which [my] experience is reflected upon, shared and reconstructed in the light of new insights, perspectives, experiences and understandings’ (Beattie, 2000, p. 5). Having obtained ethics clearance, I interviewed one South African tertiary music educator from NWU and two music educators from UP at the end of October 2010. I undertook the interviews onsite in their workplace where I taped the interviews with the permission of the lecturer and transcribed them. I used Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) to analyse and codify the data into themes. The two themes are reported on using direct quotations from the interviewees (Larkin, Watts, & Clifton, 2006). IPA allows the interviewee to speak of their personal experience in their life-world; its aim is ‘to explore in detail how participants are making sense of their personal and social world’ (Smith & Osborn, 2009, p. 53). The interview allowed me to probe and shape questions around issues of culture, multiculturalism, diversity, music education and teacher education and in particular African music. This form of semi-structured conversation, according to Smith (2005) and Eatough and Smith (2006), is most effective when gaining understandings and perceptions of the interviewees. As a qualitative enquiry, further research undertaken by Smith, Flowers and Larkin (2009, p. 3), who write extensively on IPA, suggests that IPA is best undertaken when the sample is small and ‘reasonably homogeneous’.

As the interviewer, I agree with Loughran, Mulhall and Berry (2004) that ‘teachers’ professional knowledge is difficult to categorize and therefore exceptionally difficult to articulate and document’ (p. 370). Through conversation, we reflected on our practices in multicultural music, African music, and how best we prepare our pre-service students for diverse classrooms as we all embraced common goals of teacher education programs at our respective universities (Greiman & Covington, 2007). The interview process gave us the opportunity to express our ‘perceptions, beliefs and experiences and practices’ (Walkington, 2005, p. 59). It also gave me the opportunity to share with the interviewee how we turn our practice into ‘potential learning situation[s]’ (Graham & Phelps, 2003, p. 19). Through such conversations, we were able to ‘express their [our] personal practical knowledge to themselves [ourselves] and to others’ (Craig, 2009, p. 602). Two key themes are discussed in the findings in relation to two questions. The first: why is it important to teach multicultural music like that of Africa? The second: what are some of the effective ways of preparing our students in our music education courses (primary and or secondary) to best teach it?

Masakhane: Findings and discussion

I refer to this section as Masakhane (‘let us build together’), an African word that comes from the Nguni tribe. It aptly describes the way students, music lecturers and the local community build together and learn about South African music and culture. As agents of change in our social and educational settings, we recognize that our students also serve as ‘curriculum resource[s], supporting the development of cross-cultural knowledge and skills’ (Bell, 2004, p. 10) when it comes to teaching indigenous traditional music. In South Africa, the African indigenous student brings an authentic experience to ‘bear on classroom interactions’ (Bell, 2004, p. 10). Fredericks (2008) confirms that in South Africa ‘tertiary institutions have advocated the use of indigenous [African] materials for more than twenty years with the result that research has been done and such materials collected by tertiary institutions across the country’ (p. 128). This is not the case at tertiary institutions in Australia for African or Aboriginal music. Shaw (2012, p. 33), writing about the United States, rightly argues that a ‘Eurocentric framework may no longer be applicable in an increasingly multicultural society’. Hence the voices in this paper support inclusive pedagogical practices that responds to cultural diversity.

Why is it important to teach multicultural music?

I refer to the three interviewees as A, B and C. We all recognized that we have long moved away from only a ‘West is best’ perspective and have been inclusive of other musics within our music courses. Interviewee A remarks: ‘I think you cannot survive in South Africa if you do not think multicultural!’ When asked is multicultural music important in your courses, interviewee A states: ‘to us it is that natural, we just do it’. According to A: ‘we have certain guidelines that we teach our students from. We give them specialization in music by taking into consideration all the ethnic groups in South Africa’. The RNC provided guidelines to be inclusive, given the legacy of apartheid (McKenny & Soudien, 2010). In Melbourne, the Victorian Essential Learning Standards (VELS) provides very few guidelines regarding what is to be included for multicultural music. In contrast, interviewee B points out that although ‘we are far into our democracy, there is still the lack of African music at tertiary education and schools’. This is partly due to the political system of the past ‘that engendered a system of cultural hierarchy based on race’ (Nompula, 2012, p. 294). However, Fredericks (2008, p. 132), in his research, found that since 2007 there seems to have been a step in the right direction for a ‘closer communication between ethnomusicologist and musicologist’. He argues that policy in South Africa ‘supports the use of multicultural content’ (Fredericks, 2008, p. 127).

Interviewee C found that by offering a range of music that correlates with the local languages and cultures ‘does not only promote multicultural music, rather, it creates an awareness of your own identity and your own pride in where you come from and also what you can offer’. Through this interchange of music-as-culture approach, C talks of ‘transmitting and sharing the diversity of music language and culture’. Interviewee C is aware of the students’ cultural backgrounds and recognizes that her own language and culture is different, yet C finds it ‘enriching regarding the diversity of students’. She further states: ‘there is a wonderful atmosphere and good will [amongst the students]. People respect each other. The students appreciate each other’s culture and are receptive of the culture and music we all share’. Fitzpatrick (2012), in her American study, exhorts us as music educators to acknowledge the rich music heritage each student brings into the class and challenges us to have culturally relevant pedagogy. This inclusion, she argues, ‘can foster greater respect, clearer understanding, and better connections in the music classroom’ (Fitzpatrick, 2012, p. 53).

Both Australia and South Africa are seen to be multicultural societies. Hence it is imperative to prepare our students to be culturally responsive in the classroom by providing more than just ‘western music pedagogy’. I strongly agree with interviewee C who rightly points out: ‘when we trained at uni we missed out on a lot of stuff as we were mainly western taught’. Interviewee C felt ‘it goes without saying to be inclusive’, to have multicultural music, as there are English, Afrikaans and indigenous black students in the class. Interviewee C firmly believed that learning ‘onsite’ with the students ‘is a very rich experience. It is something I personally feel is far richer that studying it from a book or doing a course’. She says: ‘we are really spoilt here in South Africa to have such resources on hand’. In my experience in Australia, I largely have Anglo-Celtic students who see themselves as Australians, yet they find it hard to define what makes one Australian as this land has a history that was ‘forged on successive waves of migration’ (Victorian Multicultural Commission, 2009). I cannot boast the rich diversity of music teaching in the same sense as my South African colleagues in this study. Rather, as a music tertiary educator I continue to be informed by multicultural music like that of Africa by undertaking professional development both nationally and internationally. Interviewee C learnt a range of multicultural music, ‘not through an official course’. She points out that ‘it is something that I learnt through my own community, with my own students and also with the choirs in which I am involved’. Through the teaching of South African music as an aspect of multicultural music in my teacher education courses in Australia, we not only sing songs, play instruments (djembe, marimbas, bells) and learn movement to accompany the songs, we also discuss the history of apartheid, making links to the socio-musical experience, and recognize how race is coded in cultural practice. Through intercultural dialogue, students across both continents begin to understand the links of racism in South Africa’s history of apartheid and my Australian students recognize the marginalization of Aboriginal people. It is when such connections are made and realized by students that the need to be inclusive of culturally relevant music content becomes even more real to them as early career teachers. It is important to note that though tertiary educators may teach many types of different music, styles and genres, Nzewi, Anyahura and Ohiaraumunna (2008) identify that there still are common basic elements in all music cultures in the world.

What are some of the effective ways to teach African music?

Miya (2003, p. 2) provides us with the understanding that there are many diverse cultures and music in Africa, hence ‘no one can claim to know everything about music in Africa’. At the South Africa universities, the teaching and learning of African music is strongly linked with the local community where students teach and learn onsite at local schools and in the community. For example, at NWU students and lecturers undertake an immersion into a particular type of music and culture like that of Venda. As this is not possible for my Australian students, we locally undertake a half or full day excursion to CERES (Centre for Education and Research in Environmental Strategies) in Melbourne. CERES offers educational programs for schools and tertiary institutions where we learn about cultures like that of Aboriginal, Indian, Indonesian and African. The workshops at CERES provide authentic learning and teaching experiences, which include music and movement. The African music taught at CERES is largely from West Africa; hence, I focus on South African music. In addition to CERES, my students are encouraged to attend professional development workshops and concerts in the area of multicultural music to enhance their teaching and learning of non-western art music.

South Africa boasts a range of prolific writers, performers and music educators in relation to African music. Interviewee B identifies ‘Hugh Tracey, David Rycroft, Percy Kirby and John Blacking’. He argues that though ‘they were white, they made such a huge impact on African music and increased the awareness of African music’. Commendably, interviewee B talks of the many conferences he has attended as a South African and ‘someone will quote from Blacking’. As a long-standing music educator and academic, he found it ‘interesting that we [in South Africa] have taken so long to incorporate this into our music education, yet people like John Blacking and David Rycroft have taken it to the international arena’. I fully agree with interviewee B, hence, I have included African music within my Australian courses since joining DU in 2001. One unit in particular focuses on African music where I argue that the teaching and learning of African music is an enriching experience building intercultural relations and understandings (Joseph, 2012).

My students in Australia see me as a culture bearer in particular of South Africa music. As all the tertiary educators in this study are not indigenous black South Africans, interviewee A considered her local indigenous African students as culture bearers. She remarked, ‘the culture bearer can tell you more of the tradition’. Interviewee A suggests you learn more through hands-on and face-to-face interaction than through reading it from a book. She adds that her students are ‘competent, you know, in teaching the stories and whatever [implying the song, words, movement]’. This was reiterated by interviewee C, who confirmed that ‘the students themselves have a lot to offer’ in relation to showing and telling. Having this local knowledge bank in the class helps makes connections between white and black students.

Interviewee B has researched and composed African music for many years. He found that it is necessary to ‘work through some of the preconception of what African music is about’. This he found is an important aspect, especially when teaching both black and white students. An effective way to promote understandings is to have open dialogue and also demonstrate through practical hands-on music activities. I agree with interviewee B, who firmly believes that ‘there is more to African music than just drumming’. He further comments that the use of YouTube as a resource is highly favoured where his students learn about music instruments in Africa. He gives the following examples: ‘from Zimbabwe the marimba and mbira, or the Kora in Mali and Senegal, so it not just about drumming’. In the same vein, I also use online media to demystify the notion that African music is about drumming and rhythm as it also includes melody, movement, other instruments and context.

According to interviewee C, one of the effective ways of teaching multicultural music was by taking her university students onsite to local schools where her students taught English, Afrikaans and African songs and dances. They not only taught the melody but also talked of the cultural context and movement that accompanied the songs. The university students mentored each other where black students taught the white students about their music and talked of their culture and vice versa. Interviewee C remarks, ‘we have a lot of Xhosa, Zulu and Pedi [and Afrikaner] students on our campus. We don’t need to look for it [resources]’. She comments that her ‘students can sing it, model it, do the movements of it and the pedagogy of how it is to be taught’. Interviewee C adds that most of the indigenous songs are taught ‘by rote, they don’t necessarily have the notation’. These songs are generally learnt in their local communities and passed down through aural tradition.

The onsite teaching and learning is most effective for all concerned. This I personally experienced during my one-week intensive visit to UP in October 2010 where I also went onsite to the schools with the lecturer and her students and learnt new repertoire. The onsite teaching and learning in the schools took place once a week during the music education unit over the semester as part of the Bachelors degree. Interviewee C points out that ‘we have some composed and we teach some songs, so I learn with them’. In this way the lecturer not only acts as facilitator onsite but is a learner alongside her students. It was important to her that the teaching program she presents to her tertiary students ‘reflects diversity and a wonderful mixture of cultures from our country’.

In a similar vein, Interviewee A states that they have much material locally. She adds that ‘the material is here’, there is no real need to go out looking for it or just reading about it. She is of the opinion that ‘the old way of doing fieldwork, of observing from a distance, that is totally out-dated’. She strongly suggests that music learning should take place in a hands-on practical way where the local community can connect with university students, ‘where you know the people and can make contact with them’. In this way indigenous African music can then be preserved, protected and promoted. If not, it could become obsolete.

It was evident across the two South African universities in this study that the students and local community provided a rich source of music and culture that can be shared with the university lecturer and students. Interviewee A highlights in her interview that teachers undertaking a one year in-service course where they serve as ‘the best resource’. According to interviewee A, these teachers prepare for their final assignment as a cultural festival presentation at their school. Interviewee A expressed that she and her students ‘experienced the most marvellous fieldwork’ as they took university equipment (videos and sound recordings) along onsite and, upon return to the campus as part of their debriefing, they ‘transcribe it [the fieldwork in relation to the songs and dances]’. Interviewee A remarks that ‘it is not only on traditional music’ – she also sees the need to create a repository, hence ‘we motivate them to produce a portfolio of what they practice in their community’. This includes not just traditional African indigenous music but ‘church, gospel … and also new dances’.

This onsite teaching and learning with ethics approval, says interviewee A, ‘is wonderful, it is a treasure to us … we then get a micro vision of their culture’. In this way the rich heritage of the local people and culture serves as a teaching and learning resource for students as well as visiting academics from other parts of the world like Finland, Sweden and Australia. It was clear and evident that the focus of multicultural music at the South African universities was to build teaching and learning resources for a South Africa national identity, as interviewee A confirms: ‘material that addresses the identity of the different ethnic groups in South Africa’. This aspect of the teaching and learning resources is a useful lesson for tertiary educators.

Similarly, interviewee B, like interviewees A and C, also takes students on field trips. B in particular takes students as part of their coursework to surrounding rural areas near the university as well as to Venda. Students and music lecturers undertake field trips to the Amakia village in Vendaland, where they live onsite for two weeks. I was fortunate to have viewed video footage of their fieldwork in relation to what they learnt onsite from culture bearers about Venda music, culture, and indigenous instruments. Students and the lecturer kept a daily diary of their fieldwork experience. According to interviewee B, they discussed what they had learnt, how it was taught, how it challenged their cultural understandings and how they would teach it.

Interviewee B noted that ‘the African music students are high on practical and low on theory, so I match the two – I try to bring their theory up to the level of their practical ability’. Due to the legacy of apartheid, interviewee B points out that the African indigenous student ‘comes from a disadvantage education system. They don’t read very much so they do find the theoretical parts challenging’, as English is not their first language and most of the academic articles are written in English. He observes that ‘by contrast, my white students are challenged by the practical component when it comes to music’. They understand the theory aspect, but putting it into practice is challenging in relation to singing, dancing and moving at the same time. I have also experienced this with my Anglo-Celtic Australian students. Hence, as the tertiary educator he identifies: ‘so that again challenges me as I have to teach them in a different way, I have got to show them in their own music how to connect the two’.

The theory and practice nexus is best understood through hands-on teaching and learning, something that I promote in my Australian context. Unlike my colleagues in South Africa who take their students on field trips to learn onsite and work with the local black communities, I bring Africa to them in the sense that I was born in South Africa and lived there for over three decades. I regularly return to South Africa as part of my ongoing research and professional development in African music. My workshops at DU include music from Africa, in particular South Africa where we sing Zulu, Tswana, Sotho, Pedi and Xhosa songs. Through storytelling, they learn of the culture and of the people. Nompula (2011, p. 372) rightly argues: ‘indigenous music is an oral tradition that aims to transmit culture, values, beliefs and history from generation to generation’. In my teaching, I attempt to make this connection for my predominantly Anglo-Celtic Australian students as I teach African music as an aspect of multicultural music.

My ongoing research has shown that it is new and presents different experience for them (Joseph, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009). They learn of the different ways to teach (songs, djembe drums and marimbas) using imitation, rote, note and call-and-response. As movement is inseparable from song in Africa, the students readily learn through video footage. They also undertake research projects as a form of sharing about the wider African music and culture (Joseph, 2012). As Australia becomes increasingly multicultural, Multicultural Arts Victoria (MAV) and professional music organizations offer professional development and workshops on multicultural music. By participating in these workshops it is hoped that cultural diversity and respect can be promoted, enhanced and celebrated (MAV, 2011).

Conclusion

By including multicultural music within our teacher education music courses in both Australia and South Africa, we prepare our pre-service students to live, work and connect with the diverse society in which they find themselves. By learning about different music and culture and engaging in intercultural dialogue with lecturers, peers, schoolchildren, culture bearers and the local community, students across both continents can have a greater appreciation and respect for music that is non-western, such as that of Africa. Douskalis (2012, p. 99) confirms that ‘having students learn about each other’s cultures and learn to perform each other’s music allows students to engage in an encompassing environment in the classroom and truly prepares students to enter society with a better understanding of their environment’. By providing rich multicultural programs for our pre-service students in music education, we can foster positive experiences that promote diversity and enhance intercultural and cross-cultural understanding. I argue that music education can be seen as an agent of social change in our teacher education courses.

As tertiary music educators in this study, ‘we bring to the classroom a rich and multifaceted culture of our own’ (Fitzpatrick, 2012, p. 55). According to Nompula (2011, p. 369), ‘South African music educators have come to realise that indigenous music is as valuable as western music’. This beckons Australian music educators to be more inclusive of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander music and cultures. Hagan and McGlynn (2004, p. 245) suggest that as educators we need ‘a more critical multicultural approach to their [our] practice to meet the challenges posed both by societal diversity and the system in which they [we] work’. The students that I observed in South Africa were encouraged to value and share their own heritage (English, Afrikaans and African). Similarly, in my own teaching I encourage students to talk of their music and culture and offer African music and culture as an opportunity to learn of the ‘other’. It is within these teachable moments that students across both continents gain a richer and deeper understanding of their identity as they function within multiple cultural communities.

My engagement with the music lecturers, students, local community and schools offered me new insights to adapt my practice for my Australian students as ‘each style has something different to reveal to us about the culture and society of the people and country from which it originates’ (Jorritsma, 2008, p. 24). I further learnt of the benefits when drawing on local students to share their music as indigenous culture bearers as an authentic way to preserve, promote and protect indigenous music. Having experienced a sense of shared ownership through a hands-on approach to music teaching and learning, interviewees felt that their students had a collective sense of purpose to promote South African music as a meaningful way to establish their identity. Davis (2011) points out that the way we orient and interpret music has an effect on our socio-cultural experience and our identity Similarly, when learning of non-western music like that of Africa my Australian students’ cultural understanding and music identity is challenged.

Although there is a growing presence of Africans coming to Australia, Lyons and Dimock (2003) point out that there is not much funding to support African studies at universities in Australia. They argue that African studies in Australia at tertiary institutions have continued ‘mainly because of dedicated academics, who continue their research and teaching on African issues’. In Australia, I do ‘work in isolation’ at my university (Lyons & Dimock, 2003, p. 331) in relation to African music. Hence, my ongoing research into the teaching and learning of African music and culture provides me with the chance to ‘create meaning around [my] practice’ (Young, 2006, p. 1) as I continue to undertake study and research with colleagues in South Africa. I propose that, as tertiary music educators, we transcend geographical borders and create more meaningful cross-institutional and community pathways locally and internationally where intercultural dialogue can take place for students and lecturers, as this can only engender positive change in teaching and learning practice.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank the following academics for assisting with the translations: Professor Caroline van Niekerk (University of Pretoria, South Africa) for translating into German, Professor Alberto Cabedo Mas (Universitat Jaume I de Castelló) for translating into Spanish, and Dr Lin Zheng (Deakin University, Australia) for translating into Chinese.

Funding

This research received support from Deakin University (Faculty of Arts and Education) under the Small Grant Teaching and Learning fund for projects called ‘Internationalisation of the Curriculum’.

Author biography

Dawn Joseph is a senior lecturer in music and education studies in the Faculty of Arts and Education, Deakin University. She is currently responsible for teaching music in both undergraduate and postgraduate courses. She researches, publishes and reviews in national and international journals in the areas of teacher education, music education, African music, ageing and wellbeing, cultural diversity and multiculturalism. She is a national committee member of the Australian Society for Music Education and Chair for the Victorian Chapter.

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