Professional reflexivity and the paradox of freedom: Negotiating professional boundaries in a Jewish Ultra-Orthodox female music teacher education programme

Abstract

Embracing an ethos of sharing music and practices across cultural boundaries, the multicultural vision of music (teacher) education has paid scarce attention to the paradox of freedom that arises between such freedoms and the complex politics that frame and constrain teachers’ choices and values. In this article, we explore these demands of professional reflexivity through an instrumental case study of music teacher educators working in an all-female, Ultra-Orthodox Jewish music teacher education programme in Israel. Through a thematic analysis of data generated together with six teacher educators, we illustrate how their context-responsive approaches to developing programme visions engage with processes of censorship and cultural translation, as teachers work to align their professional boundaries within established religious boundaries. This boundary-matching and hybridity required may be seen to result in intense processes of professional reflexivity that raises questions as to how all teacher education programme visions might engage with the moral order of a society and highlights the need for international music teacher education to develop a critical, reflexive awareness of how values shape professional work.