Interrogating intercultural competence through a “pedagogy of interruption”: A metasynthesis of intercultural outreach projects in music teacher education

Abstract

Highlighting the need for teacher education programs to respond to rapidly diversifying societies, this article reports a qualitative metasynthesis of intercultural outreach projects in music teacher education, conceptualizing these projects as a “pedagogy of interruption.” Results show that such outreach projects interrupt the individualistic frame of music teacher education, the known difference, the logic of teaching, and the understanding of what intercultural teacher competence is, rather moving toward letting the context teach. The complex relational work involved in intercultural outreach projects can be seen to establish spaces for framing learning within professional self-reflexivity, embracing uncertainty and trusting relational becomings through an investment in the political and moral aspects of teacher education and intercultural theorization. The article argues that intercultural outreach projects and theorization can be taken as a healthy test for contemporary music teacher education to rethink what competence and its own education is for in the 21st Century.