Musician and teacher: employability and identity

This article reports on a study into factors that contribute to the employability of music graduates as teachers. By considering the results of a survey that covered a range of contexts, as well as interviews with secondary school head teachers, it considers the relationship between self-identity and employability. It finds that, in developing their identity as a teacher, music graduates not only make a transition in identity from musicians to music teachers, but that they also make a second transition in order to think of themselves as teachers within the particular context in which they are going to work. It concludes that the first of these transitions might successfully be avoided if pedagogy was to be considered as an aspect of musicianship from the outset. The second transition, however, requires the prospective teacher to construct a narrative of employability that reconceptualises their experiences and abilities in terms of the context in which they intend to work. This involves negotiating a tension between articulating the perceived current needs of an employer and demonstrating the potential to become an agent for change.