Teaching and learning in music education – a meta-synthesis

ABSTRACT

This article reports a meta-synthesis of 14 qualitative studies on how teachers can support students’ musical learning. The aim of the article is twofold: to (1) contribute to empirically grounded knowledge in music education, and (2) advance the methodological development of meta-synthesis in qualitative research. All included studies have a common unit of analysis: teacher–student interaction. In the synthesis of the studies, four aspects emerged as crucial for students’ musical learning: (1) the framing of the teaching, (2) taking the learners’ perspectives, (3) teachers’ scaffolding strategies, and (4) representations of sounding music. Further, three pedagogical tensions were identified: (a) using local versus expansive language, (b) following the students’ or the teacher’s perspectives and interests, and (c) ways of approaching musical content through representations. The article also contributes to the methodological development of meta-synthesis by elaborating on how some of the challenges involved are tackled.

KEYWORDS:

• Music education
• teacher–student interaction
• meta-synthesis
• school

Introduction

The UNCRC (UNICEF 1989) makes it clear that children have the right to freedom of expression in the form of art, including music (Article 13). However, the ability to exercise this freedom presupposes skills and knowledge. Therefore, children’s right to aesthetic expression is also linked to the right to education (Article 28), and education of high quality depends on skilled teachers. According to Swedish law, all education should be based on proven experience and research, but finding relevant and accessible research can be a challenge for music teachers. This paper reports a meta-synthesis of qualitative research on how teachers can support students’ learning in music, aiming at inspiring music teachers to hone their craft. Although research summaries in the form of systematic reviews have been carried out since the 1990s, there are no set methods for summarising qualitative research. Most systematic reviews are carried out in the medical field and present syntheses in the form of meta-analyses using statistical calculations to answer questions on effect and impact (Gough, Thomas, and Oliver 2012). Hence, apart from presenting the results of our meta-synthesis, this paper contributes to the methodological development of meta-syntheses in qualitative research.

A systematic review is a research method developed for synthesising primary research ‘to produce a ‘better’ answer to the review question than is provided by the individual studies’ (Newman and Gough 2020, 14). In systematic reviews, as in primary research, there are different methodological approaches, depending on the theoretical perspective and the research question being asked. Typically, a systematic review uses methods similar to those used to answer the same types of questions in primary research. The kind of systematic review we present here is a qualitative synthesis – a meta-synthesis (Thorne et al. 2004), and the studies included are primary qualitative research that pursues meaning and understanding of a phenomenon and produces conceptualisations, that is, patterns of configurations (Larsson 2009). Thus, our synthesis does not present results regarding impacts and effects as in a meta-analysis. The purpose of integrating this qualitative research is to obtain a richer conceptual understanding of the phenomenon studied (Newman and Gough 2020). The literature highlights at least two challenges in synthesising qualitative research: (1) achieving a proper integration of the results of the studies and not just short summaries of each study included (ibid.), and (2) summarising and thereby reducing the results without losing the meaning and understanding conveyed by the results (Noblit and Hare 1988). To meet this challenge, it is important not to succumb to an aggregative logic by looking for similarities in the results of different studies and downplaying the differences between them (ibid.). Preserving the uniqueness of each study can be achieved by focusing the analysis on the interpretations made in the studies, not on the data collected from the observations.

The Swedish context

The review was conducted as part of the Swedish Institute for Educational Research’s mandate to produce systematic reviews of educational research. Previous studies and evaluations of music education in Sweden have revealed some challenges related to how teachers can support students’ musical learning and have formed the basis for the review. One of the challenges concerns the role of the teacher, which can be perceived as unclear. This challenge has also been shown in international research. For more than two decades, an informal learning ideal has influenced music education in Sweden as well as in a number of countries (Georgii-Hemming and Westvall 2010).

The term ‘informal learning’ is used in research to describe learning that takes place in contexts outside of school (informal contexts), especially when children and young people play in pop and rock bands in their spare time (Ericsson and Lindgren 2010). The informal learning ideal is typically visible in classrooms by students who are free to choose their own music and work in groups with limited teacher guidance (Green 2006; Mariguddi 2022). According to Georgii-Hemming and Westvall (2010), music education characterised by an informal learning ideal can be perceived as lacking direction, raising questions about the role of the teacher in supporting students’ learning. Further, in teaching about composition and improvisation, the role of the teacher can be confusing: Should the teacher lead students in music making or rather take on the role of a facilitator and guide students’ music making? (Larsson and Georgii-Hemming 2019; Viig 2015). In a review of research, Larsson and Georgii-Hemming (2019) identified two different conceptualisations of composition and improvisation that differ in the view of the teacher’s role. Structured improvisation is mostly teacher-driven and aims at musical learning, while improvisation as free music making is student-driven and aims at developing students’ social skills and musical creativity. The differences should be understood as a continuum; free music making can have elements of structure, and vice versa. According to the authors, different ways of looking at and understanding composition and improvisation are important for how the work with improvisation takes shape in teaching.

Another challenge that has been pointed out concerns teachers’ perceptions of the subject, which have implications for the orientation of teaching. Survey results in a Swedish national evaluation of music education show that a relatively high proportion of students have teachers who, to a large extent, regard music as an experiential subject (Skolverket 2015). According to the evaluation, this view of music means that the teaching primarily aims to arouse students’ interest in music, with low expectations for students’ musical learning. Teachers who expressed this view during interviews talked about students having fun in music lessons, that the subject constitutes a break from a demanding school day, and that students should be inspired. The Swedish National Schools Inspectorate has reported that many students appreciate the subject because they say they feel good about music and enjoy it. The inspectorate also reported that teachers may experience a contradiction between the view of music as a subject of knowledge and as a pleasurable subject. Teaching with clear knowledge requirements is said to risk students losing the joy and pleasure of the subject (Skolinspektionen 2011). This raises questions about the relationship between musical experiences and musical learning, and whether there needs to be a contradiction between the two.

A third challenge concerns what the teacher assesses in the students’ musical activities. Following a comprehensive Swedish curriculum reform in 2011, measurable objectives and assessment criteria have gained increased importance in the Swedish school system (Zandén 2016; Zandén and Ferm Thorgersen 2015). The national evaluation also suggests that the much more detailed assessment criteria and standards in the new curriculum may have led to teachers’ assessments being directed more towards technical skills, e.g. being able to change between chords, rather than to the sounding music’s expressive qualities. One reason for this could be that technical aspects are easier to assess than musical expressions (Skolverket 2015).

In summary, previous studies show that teachers’ work to support students’ musical learning presents challenges that could be related to interactions in classrooms, and that there is a lack of qualitative syntheses of research to support teachers in this regard. The evidence also shows that qualitative syntheses of research involve methodological challenges that need to be addressed.

Aim and research questions

The aim of the study is to contribute to researchers’ and practitioners’ knowledge of possibilities for teachers in promoting students’ learning in the music subject. We intend to fulfil this aim by integrating research that is close to teaching practice. All studies included in the review investigated the interactions between teachers and students within classroom activities. Our research questions for these activities are:

1. What aspects emerge as crucial for students’ learning of music?

2. Based on question (1), what pedagogical tensions in music teaching can be identified?

A meta-interest in relation to this is the challenges that emerge in conducting a meta-synthesis of qualitative research.

Materials and methods

Studies of teacher–student interaction

An analysis of a practice always involves some form of simplification, and the researcher needs to find a unit of analysis that does not oversimplify (reductionism) while not capturing too much (holism). In selecting the studies for this review, we decided that they should share the same unit of analysis, which would allow for juxtaposing and synthesising the results (Säljö 2009). The shared unit of analysis is teacher–student interaction, that is, activities in which thinking is understood as embedded in social practices. Not all studies have a clearly stated theoretical framework, but according to our understanding, their findings show that they broadly share this unit of analysis. By focusing on interaction, it is possible to capture both individuals’ agency and how their actions are intertwined with social factors. Although the studies have partly different theoretical approaches, their perspectives on learning can be called situated, pragmatic, or sociocultural.

Procedure

Selection criteria

Preliminary literature searches in international and Scandinavian databases showed that there are few studies on teacher–student interactions in music education. Therefore, it was not relevant to further narrow the focus to certain classroom activities or age groups. Hence, the music studies included in this review vary in several ways, but they have a common unit of analysis; that is, they have all investigated teacher–student interactions (Table 1).

Table 1. Selection criteria.

	INCLUDE	EXCLUDE
PARTICIPANTS	Students in compulsory school and upper secondary education.Teachers, student teachers, and researchers.
TEACHING ACTIVITIES	Teaching in the form of interaction and communication around a subject content in music education.
RESULTS	Investigations of the interaction between teachers and students, providing knowledge about how teachers can support students’ musical learning through interaction and communication. The method used should be observations that show how teachers and students respond to each other in interactions. Interviews are included only if they complement the observations, or if they are analysed as interactions.
CONTEXT	Music teaching in a group setting	One-to-one teaching.
STUDIES	Primary empirical studies published 2000-2022. Studies reported in English or Scandinavian languages. Peer-reviewed publications and Scandinavian doctoral theses.

Literature search

Systematic and comprehensive searches were designed and conducted by an information specialist in close collaboration with the researchers on the review team. The following databases were searched: ERIC, Education Source, PsycINFO, Scopus, SwePub, Oria.no, JUULI, and NB-ECEC.org. A block of keywords related to music education was combined with a block of keywords related to the school context. The search strings included combinations of some of the following search terms: music education, music teaching, playing, singing, ensemble, band, technology, music making, improvisation, composing, music listening, creativity, kindergarten, elementary school, secondary education, and high school. The literature searches were mainly conducted in October 2021. In September 2022, additional searches were conducted to find recently published studies.

Study selection

The selection of studies was done in three steps by two researchers in the review team:

1. Screening based on abstracts. After a rough screening of studies that were clearly not relevant (n = 4432), the remaining abstracts were subjected to blind screening by the researchers (n = 370). Studies for which there was insufficient information in the title and abstract for assessment went on to the next screening step.

2. Screening based on full-text information. The studies were assessed for relevance in full text by two researchers (n = 155). In cases of different judgements, all researchers discussed the judgements and reached a resolution through consensus decisions.

3. In-depth relevance appraisal and quality assessment (n = 33). To avoid bias in the quality assessment, studies conducted by one of the reviewing researchers were assessed by a researcher at the institute who was not part of the review team. After this final review, 14 studies remained.

Analysis

To assess how the studies contributed to answering the review’s research question, all studies were first read in detail by all researchers in the review team and then discussed together. Then, each team member individually wrote down how they perceived that the results of each study contributed to the review’s substantive concern. This was done under the following headlines: (1) classroom dialogue (verbal and bodily representations), (2) graphical representations, and (3) recognising musical qualities and listening. These headings are aspects of interaction that the review team identified in the results of the studies, and which, according to the studies, are of importance for students’ learning in music.

Synthesis

In analysing how the studies could be synthesised, the review team first reviewed what each member of the team had written under each headline. There were times when the members expressed different understandings of a study’s results, which prompted rereading and additional discussion of the study. The teaching of music in these studies differs in several respects. However, within this variety, the project team identified four aspects of interaction between teachers and students that the studies highlighted as important for student learning. These four aspects are presented in the findings section, which shows how the different aspects play a role in different teaching contexts.

Results

In this section, we present the results of the meta-synthesis in response to our first research question – that is, what activities emerge as crucial for students’ learning of music. The aspects we found can be thematised as follows:

1. The framing of the teaching

2. Taking the learners’ perspectives

3. Teachers’ scaffolding strategies

4. Representations of sounding music

The framing of the teaching

In this meta-synthesis, ‘framing’ denotes the culture that is manifested by how the participants act and interact in the classroom. External factors (the ‘context’), such as facilities in the classroom, economical resources, and curricula, are not discussed, since they are normally beyond the teachers’ and students’ control. In the synthesised studies, the framing becomes visible in how assignments are constructed and presented, how teachers give instructions and provide feedback, and how students act and respond to the teacher and each other. The studies illustrate how framing can facilitate and restrict learning.

One of the studies illustrated how tasks and feedback can interact as framing. The task was to compose music that illustrated travel in space, and a precondition was that two ostinatos should be included. A group of students had been working with their composition for a while when the teacher intervened (Fautley 2004, 206f).

Teacher:

OK, I’m going to stop you there lads. B, is that an… is that an ostinato pattern? … Is it a repeated pattern that goes over and over again?

B:

No.

Teacher:

OK, Why isn’t it an ostinato? … No, let B answer … Why is it … ?

B:

Because I’m doing it different all the time.

Teacher:

Brilliant. So what do you need to do?

B:

Ummm … Do it the same.

Fautley (2004) described this feedback as quantitative since it does not focus on qualitative expressive aspects of the composition or the ostinatos. Fautley’s polar concepts of quantitative versus qualitative feedback highlight differences in framing similar to Taylor’s (2006) concepts of procedural versus musical feedback and instruction. A strong ‘qualitative’ or ‘musical’ framing was displayed in Falthin’s (2015) study, in which the opportunities for learning were mainly observed as the students’ having an enjoyable musical experience by playing a song together. This was accomplished by the teacher being very much in control of the framing by defining the tasks and giving ample instructions and feedback.

In another study (Wallerstedt and Hillman 2015), the students were also tasked with learning to play a song together, but the framing was informal, and the teacher alternated between the groups. The groups could choose to learn any popular song they wanted and were largely expected to find out the information they needed themselves. When some students had problems with how to play a certain chord, the work stopped, and they waited for the teacher to come. However, when the teacher arrived, she asked them to use their mobile phones to find out how to play for themselves. Since the students did not progress in their work until they eventually received help from the teacher, this informal framing was likely to limit their musical learning.

Taking the learners’ perspectives

The second theme found in the studies is the necessity of taking the students’ perspectives. The coordination of perspectives is shown on three levels: (i) the framing (which relates to the first theme), (ii) the students’ intention in their musical playing or composition, and (iii) details in the communication, that is, understanding how the students understand certain communicative signs (e.g. gestures) or concepts. It was also important that students had the opportunity to take each other’s perspectives and share their thoughts with their peers (Bautista et al. 2018). The teachers were shown to manage this by asking open questions about the musical activities (Bautista et al. 2018) and by tuning in with the students’ perspectives to understand their intentions and the problems they faced, which were sometimes seen to be challenging (Ruthmann 2008; Wallerstedt and Pramling 2016).

Taylor (2006) studied patterns of interaction in ensemble lessons. The most fruitful feedback was when the teacher succeeded in identifying students’ musical problems and communicating them with the students. Taylor showed how this kind of feedback led to improvements in the students’ playing. The following excerpt illustrates the importance of taking the students’ perspectives (Wallerstedt 2010, 113f). The teacher had used several modes of representations to explain time in music, and here, she illustrates two beats in a bar by bending her knees to the music, emphasising the first beat in each bar with an extra deep movement.

Teacher:

Eskil, do you know what time it is? What can you count to? (Keeps bending her knees with a steady beat.)

Eskil:

Nine hundred.

Teacher:

No, I mean can you count to two or three, as we did before when we counted to the music?

Eskil:

Three.

Teacher:

Can you count to three when I’m doing like this, in the same time as I bend my knees?

Eskil:

One, two, three (bending his knees with the teacher while counting, but only counting the first beat of every bar).

Here, the teacher’s aim was that the children would notice the pattern in which every second beat was emphasised, which constitutes a two-four time. By counting to the music (‘one, two, one, two … ’), she has tried to make the children aware of the time, but her question could obviously be interpreted in many ways, and the children might therefore not share her perspective of what is in focus in the lesson. By giving an answer to the farthest he could count, and by counting bars instead of beats, Eskil tried two alternative interpretations of the teacher’s question. These were both relevant answers, but they were not coordinated with the teacher’s perspective or the intended object of learning in the lesson.

Teachers’ scaffolding strategies

Compared to the previous theme of grasping students’ understanding, the third theme in the reviewed studies captures teachers’ ways of directing students’ perspectives towards certain musical qualities. Although intimately related in practice, we separated them for analytical reasons. Four strategies to direct students’ attention were identified. Two are used to make the students aware of certain aspects of the music. This is done either by posing questions about the content (Ruthmann 2008; Viladot, Gómez, and Malagarriga 2010; Wallerstedt 2010), or by systematically creating patterns of variation in music and its forms of representation (Backman Bister 2014; Falthin 2015; Wallerstedt 2010). Systematic variation could for example be to direct the attention to time by playing the same melody in two different times or to represent time by both clapping and counting to the music. A third strategy is to assist students by dividing problems into sub-problems (Fautley 2004; Rudbäck 2020), and a fourth is to motivate and encourage students (Fautley 2004). This last strategy is closely connected to taking the learners’ perspectives. However, giving positive feedback on a student’s composition (e.g. ‘That is so pretty’) that is not in line with the student’s opinion or intention may result in a negative effect.

The following example (Viladot, Gómez, and Malagarriga 2010, 56) illustrates how a teacher can use questions to direct students’ attention. Here, the class was analysing music with the help of musical notation, and the teacher asked about an aspect she assumed could cause trouble for the students.

Teacher:

Can you read these notes that are so high? […] So which one is it? This one.

Student B:

The A.

Teacher:

This is A. Did you all know that? Did you all know that this is high A? Ah! And how many extra lines, ledgers, do we add to the staff? Because it looks like we have to add them to the staff … 

Viladot and colleagues call this kind of dialogue ‘propose and resolve a question’. The critical feature is that the teacher’s question prompts the students to think about the answer and to connect the content to their previous experiences. It also places the students in a position as participants in the problem-solving activity.

Representations of sounding music

In the studies, the musical content was constantly represented in different modalities (e.g. bodily [gestures], physical [notations] or verbal [concepts]) in the classrooms. Representing a sounding musical quality such as a rhythm with a gesture means that the musical quality (the sounding rhythm) is translated into a representation (the mute gesture). Translations between representations served several functions in the students’ learning. A typical situation is as follows (cf. Pramling and Wallerstedt 2009): A piece of music contains a triangle part, and the children try to grasp what they hear. Someone represents the experience in a gesture (‘it sounds like this’ and makes a hand movement), and another child translates this into an onomatopoetic expression (‘it sounded like ‘pling pling’’), or uses a metaphor (‘it sounds like a fly’). Here, the teacher can use the children’s varying communicative resources as a bridge to understand what they hear, and to connect the children’s experiences to more conventional terminology, such as assigning the term triangle to what a child mentions as a ‘pling’. A recurring conclusion in the different studies is that introducing students to musical concepts is decisive for their learning (Bautista et al. 2018; Pramling and Wallerstedt 2009; Viladot, Gómez, and Malagarriga 2010; Wallerstedt and Hillman 2015; Wallerstedt and Pramling 2016). Alternative ways of communicating about the music, such as pointing or using deictic references (e.g. ‘press that key’ or ‘play there’), could provide a shortcut to a musical result in the classroom. The problem is that a local language does not expand students’ opportunities to participate in musical activities outside the classroom.

Even though the different representations are essential in communication about musical content, they can also cause challenges. One is that they can overshadow the music. This is shown in Rudbäck’s study (2020), in which the teaching was about the circle of fifths, a graphic representation of chords and tonality. This was supposed to function as a tool in creating music, but the sounding music was never mentioned in the lessons. Instead, the students struggled with different techniques to remember and re-represent the graphical representation.

Notations played a central role in many of the classrooms studied. There were examples of invented notation (Backman Bister 2014; Falthin 2015), conventional Western notation (Viladot, Gómez, and Malagarriga 2010), and lyrics and chords (as typically seen on sites on the internet) (Wallerstedt and Hillman 2015; Wallerstedt and Pramling 2016). Even in genres in which music is often learned by ear, the students asked for notations (Backman Bister 2014), and even the teacher called for ‘paper and pencil' to represent the music visually to scaffold the student’s learning.

Discussion

The aim of this article was twofold: to contribute to empirically grounded knowledge in music education, and to advance the methodological development of meta-synthesis of research. In relation to the selected classroom studies on music education, our first empirical question was: What aspects emerge as crucial for students’ learning in music? The aspects found could be summarised as the need to consider: (1) how the framing of the teaching is manifested in the classroom, (2) how the students’ perspectives can be taken on different levels, coordinating these with the teachers’ intentions, (3) how to apply scaffolding strategies, and (4) the different functions that representations of sounding music have for students’ learning in the classroom. These findings enabled us to answer the second question about identified pedagogical tensions. Three central dimensions that can present teachers with pedagogical tensions can be pointed out: (a) the choice of using local vs. expansive language, (b) to what extent the interaction shall follow the students’ or the teacher’s perspectives and interests, and (c) ways of and problems with approaching musical content through representations.

We have used the terms ‘local language’ for representations that are context-specific and ‘expansive language’ for knowledge, concepts, or symbols that are established within the field of music and can be used productively in different musical contexts. The tension appears in the tension between quickly learning to play a piece of music, or more slowly and perhaps less immediately gratifying acquiring knowledge and skills that enable further musical learning. Falthin’s study (2015) illustrated how the teacher facilitates the pursuit of joyful music making by providing the students with ‘quick fixes’ that speed up their learning. However, this approach does not provide them with formal knowledge about how chords are constructed, the name of keys, or of strings. McPhail (2014) argued with reference to Bernstein (2000) that formal musical knowledge is needed to afford students ‘the right to the means of critical understanding and to new possibilities’ (323). This is in line with the aim in the Swedish national curriculum for compulsory school, which expects students to develop musical knowledge that makes it possible for them to ‘participate in musical contexts’. It therefore remains a pedagogical challenge to satisfy the legitimate need for meaningful music making and provide students with means for expansive learning.

The second tension concerns balancing the teacher’s plans and perspectives with the students’ interests and perspectives. This requires a combination of framing and scaffolding actions based on an interest in the student’s perspective. The teacher–student interactions during composition tasks in the articles provide illustrative examples of the interconnectedness between perspective and agency. Open tasks and informal framing can enable students’ agency, but teaching must follow a curriculum that is intended to enable a higher degree of agency in the future. Hence, there can be a tension between being open to students’ perspectives and interests and teaching what must be taught. In composition tasks, student agency is arguably important, but Fautley (2004) illustrated how failure to understand the rationale behind others’ choices can create stalemates that impede both students’ and teachers’ agency and learning.

The last tension concerns the pedagogical use of representations. Sounding music is invisibly and intangibly moving in time, which poses pedagogical challenges, for example, when teachers want to draw students’ attention to specific sounding qualities. As opposed to physical objects, musical sound cannot be pointed out. It is therefore not surprising that the music classroom affords a universe of translations where verbal, bodily, and material representations are used to make the invisible visible. However, each representation says both more and less than what it is intended to represent. Psychologist John Shotter (2008) concluded that in human interaction, misunderstanding is more common than mutual understanding. Each representation affords unique ways to misunderstand what is represented as well as a new possibility to learn. Thus, the choice and use of representations demands sensitive role-taking, since representations inevitably can be misinterpreted in unexpected ways. As Rudbäck (2020) illustrated, the teaching of the circle of fifths can even make the representation totally disengaged from the sounding phenomena that it is constructed to represent.

A meta-interest for the study was also to contribute to the methodological development of the meta-synthesis of qualitative research. We claim that our meta-synthesis allowed us to create a richer understanding of teacher–student interaction in music education than a single qualitative study could provide. However, as previous research has also shown, conducting a meta-synthesis involves two main challenges. In the following section, we elaborate on how we have tackled these challenges.

The first challenge is to create a proper integration of the results from multiple studies rather than a study-by-study account (Newman and Gough 2020). This was made possible by our analysis following a cyclical process. After all the researchers had thoroughly read all the studies, the results of each study were discussed and grouped. This procedure was repeated, leading to a regrouping of studies, resulting in a pattern that included all relevant results from the studies – that is, the synthesis – as illustrated in Table 2. The fact that all researchers in the review team read and discussed all the studies also made it possible to assure the quality of the analysis of the studies by allowing potentially different interpretations to become visible and to be discussed.

Table 2. An overview of each study’s contribution to each aspect of the synthesis.

Author/Year	Framing	Students’ perspectives	Scaffolding strategies	Representations of music
Backman Bister 2014				✓
Bautista et al. 2018		✓	✓	✓
Borgström Källén 2014	✓
Falthin 2015	✓			✓
Fautley 2004	✓	✓	✓
Pramling and Wallerstedt 2009		✓		✓
Rudbäck 2020			✓	✓
Ruthmann 2008		✓		✓
Saetre 2011	✓			✓
Taylor 2006		✓	✓
Viladot, Gómez and Malagarriga 2010		✓	✓	✓
Wallerstedt 2010		✓	✓	✓
Wallerstedt and Hillman 2015	✓			✓
Wallerstedt and Pramling 2016		✓		✓

The second challenge is to reduce the results of the qualitative studies without losing the meaning and understanding they convey (Noblit and Hare 1988). To this end, in our reading of the studies, we were careful to focus on the interpretations made in the studies and not on the data collected from the observations. Focusing on the interpretations also made it possible to preserve the uniqueness of each study and assess how each study complemented each other rather than downplaying the differences between the studies by aggregating results that confirm each other. The differences allowed the results in the studies to complement and enrich each other. However, the studies in a review also need to be about the same idea for a reasonable synthesis. How can this be made possible? Our answer is that the included studies should share the same unit of analysis, which in our study is teacher–student interaction. This allowed a comparative analysis of similarities and differences in the studies, resulting in a configuration of four different aspects of teacher–student interaction that are decisive for students’ learning, showing not only that those aspects matter but also how and why.

To further strengthen the scientific ground for music education for all children, in line with the UNCRC, we see a need for additional meta-syntheses of qualitative studies with different foci. This study covers knowledge contributions on the interaction between students and teachers, but there are several other areas of interest that could be regarded as decisive for high-quality education. Some examples include the interpretation of curriculum, power, and governance, and gendered aspects of music education.

Acknowledgment

This study was supported by the Swedish Institute for Educational Research. We would like to thank Eva Bergman in the assistance of the literature search and Maria Bergman and Catarina Melin for their contribution.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Karolina Fredriksson

Karolina Fredriksson is a researcher and a project manager at the Swedish Institute for Educational research. As part of her work at the Institute, she has conducted four systematic reviews in educational research. Karolina has a PhD in Education and has published articles in international scientific journals, presenting classroom studies of teacher-students interaction.

Olle Zandén

Olle Zandén is associate professor in Music education at the Academy of Music and Drama at the University of Gothenburg. His research interests have focused on dialogue, assessment and curriculum in music education. He has conducted research on interaction in the music classroom, criteria and standards in admission tests to music teacher education and effects of new curriculum on music teachers’ professional practice.

Cecilia Wallerstedt

Cecilia Wallerstedt is professor in Education at the Department of Education, Communication and Learning at the University of Gothenburg. Her research interest concerns knowledge, teaching and learning in music, and the interaction between teachers and children/students. She has conducted practice-based research in several projects in preschool, primary- and secondary school.