Dewey’s Theory of Experience: A Theoretical Tool for Researching Music Teacher Learning

This article explores Dewey’s theory of experience and its potential as a theoretical tool to notice, and make sense of, music teacher learning. Beginning with the assumption that music teachers’ capacity to grow professionally is integral for change in the field of music education, I present several illustrative examples of how Dewey’s theory informed the interpretive work for a study of the professional learning of three elementary music teachers. While useful in many ways, a Deweyan framework proved to have certain limitations related to the socially constructed and discursive nature of learning and teaching elementary music. As a result, several concepts from Lave and Wenger’s sociocultural theory and Bourdieu’s practice theory were used in theorizing these aspects of teachers’ experience and practice.