Whose responsibility is it to make music students employable? Critiquing the role of Music Schools in the career preparation of students.
Very few music graduates secure employment in a company; rather, most new music graduates find themselves working as 'enforced entrepreneurs' who shape their work to meet personal and professional needs. This means creating and sustaining their work and learning whilst balancing a variety of concurrent roles within and beyond performance or composition. Whose responsibility is it to prepare them for this way of working, and is the notion of career or employability at odds with the purposes of higher education? This lecture outlines research on the characteristics of work for musicians and illustrates the characterises of music careers. The lecture repositions career learning, placing it at the centre of pedagogies that inspire and motivate students to engage as partners in, rather than recipients of, their music education. The lecture challenges educators to heighten students' self- and career awareness and shares both the rationale and strategies for doing so.
Dawn Bennett is Distinguished Professor of Higher Education with Curtin University in Australia. With a discipline background in music education and performance (viola), her research focuses on the development of employability, including identity and graduate work. In her work as a National Senior Australian Learning and Teaching Fellow, Dawn is operationalising a metacognitive model for employability with faculty and students in Australia, the UK, Europe and the US. Publications appear at Academia.edu.