PhD Studentship associated with a Collaborative Partnership between RNCM and Olympias Music Foundation

PhD studentship associated with a Collaborative Partnership between RNCM and Olympias Music Foundation (www.olympiasmusicfoundation.com)

The RNCM and Olympias Music Foundation are delighted to offer a three-year PhD studentship commencing in September 2025. The title of the project to be carried out by the student is:

Cultural diversity and global music teacher training: Improving teacher training and development to enable adaptable, sensitive and authentic music teaching within culturally diverse communities.

The supervisory team will include Dr. Robert Gardiner (Robert.gardiner@rncm.ac.uk) and Dr. Jo Yee Cheung (joyee.cheung@olympiasmusicfoundation.com).

Project description

This project is rooted in an established teacher-education partnership between the Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM) and Olympias Music Foundation (OMF), which aims to address their shared aspiration to better understand the complex challenges of teaching music within diverse local communities. Situated within central Manchester, the aim of this PhD project is to explore the impact of training musical performers from Global Majority backgrounds to teach children aged 6-16 from Global Majority backgrounds, and how this might support children’s confidence, sense of belonging and identity, and future aspirations. We are particularly interested in exploring what ‘good teaching’ looks like in the context of other musical cultures and what happens when musicians teach their own cultural music(s) using their own cultural approaches to children from non-western backgrounds living in the UK.

This research therefore aims to interrogate the complex educational challenges of teaching music within diverse educational contexts in order to develop teacher training in England. The researcher will therefore need to stake out this field of enquiry to better understand the challenges and opportunities within this domain, and so devise sensitive and culturally appropriate methodological approaches to the research. The project ultimately seeks to enable more adaptable music teaching through developing new frameworks and models of practice that can inform regional and national teacher training programmes and policy.

Funding

The studentship will cover fees, which will be paid directly to RNCM, and the successful applicant will receive £8000 per year as a maintenance allowance.

Important dates

Deadline for submitting research proposal (see below) and application form to Acceptd: 5pm on Friday 23 May GMT

Interviews: Wednesday 3 June and Thursday 4 June

Research proposal

All applicants are required to submit a research proposal directed clearly towards the OMF Collaborative Studentship.

This proposal should give an overview of how you would plan to realise the advertised studentship. This should communicate an awareness of pertinent educational research and methodological approaches, and so exhibit personal insights and expertise within this domain. The proposal should then set out an overview of the research approaches and practical activities you would hope to engage with in order to critically analyse the challenges of intercultural music teacher education within the specific context of Manchester.

The proposal should be presented under the following headings:

1. Title: Cultural diversity and global music teacher training: Improving teacher training and development to enable adaptable, sensitive and authentic music teaching within culturally diverse communities.
2. Background / context: literature review(s)
3. For each study proposed: rationale, research questions, aims and hypotheses as

appropriate

1. For each study proposed: methods - design, participants, materials/apparatus (if

appropriate), procedure, analyses

1. References.

Please see the Guidelines for Applicants (music education) at www.rncm.ac.uk/research/programme/postgraduate for further details. Your proposal (no more than 1500 words including tables, figures, bibliography or references) should be submitted with this application via Acceptd.

Advert information