Student dis-engagement with and decreased interest in Music, as a school subject, is an issue repeatedly discussed in the literature calling into question traditional approaches to music teaching and learning. Curriculum scholars have advocated for a reconceptualisation of the term curriculum; a suggestion also echoed by researchers in the field of music education. Researchers call for open, flexible, negotiable, democratic and child-centered curricula (e.g. Author, 2009; Allsup, 2016; Allsup, 2020; Barrett, 2020), which respect music teachers’ professionalism and autonomy and give them freedom to formulate, the way they better believe, their music lessons in their classroom settings. This expanded view of curriculum has significant implications for the nature of its implementation, inviting teachers to reject the ‘instruction manual’ approach and to engage more actively and creatively with the curriculum, regarding the choice of what to teach, when and how. It also calls for a more substantial engagement with students’ voice in the decision-making around their music learning, with the aim of making Music in schools more meaningful and more relevant to students.  

Yet, according to Regelski (2018), curriculum often continues to be ignored in pre-service undergraduate music programs and there still seems to be a tendency to continue to transmit to new generations of music teachers, teaching approaches, materials, and ‘good’ methods that work, combined with dos and don’ts tips of music teaching and learning.  

The aim of this paper is to present and discuss a suggested, for pre-service music teacher education, framework designed by the two authors, through which this expanded role of the music teachers as curriculum-makers at the micro-level of their school and their music class, can be understood. Drawing on Aoki’s (2004) concepts, the framework places the teacher at the crossroads between ‘curriculum-as-plan’, and ‘curriculum-as-lived’, in other words, between the curriculum documents and the reality of the music classroom. It outlines and examines the competencies required, if music teachers are to undertake the role of curriculum negotiators and curriculum makers within a broader understanding of curriculum. In particular, the framework draws attention to the importance of music teachers engaging with critical curriculum inquiry and in becoming a dialogical co-constructor of curriculum with students. The paper concludes with implications for music teacher education.

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