Enacting presence: exploring in-service music educators’ understandings of relationships in a collaborative teacher study group

The purpose of this study was to explore how in-service music educators develop, name, and enact the relational practices of their work in schools while participating in a collaborative teacher study group (CTSG), and specifically how those practices relate to presence. Through a multicase research design, we analysed the practices of three U.S. music educators as they sought to develop and analyse their relational dispositions while working in a CTSG. Our analysis of the CTSG and individual interviews revealed three dominant themes: (a) the absence of relational capacity in the value system; (b) knowing and naming relational capacity as a non-linear process; (c) the importance of unlearning in participant growth. Future research is needed to examine the relationship between teacher decision-making and the impact of expectations from institutions (Kindergarten-Grade 12 and higher education) and stakeholders within the field of music education.