Mikael Persson Senior lecturer

My primary research interests include questions regarding social justice in the broadest sense in different educational settings. In Sweden, the term 'norm-critical perspective' is frequently used to address similar questions to some extent. My research also addresses other concepts, such as integration, anti-racism, inclusion, and eligibility for higher music education. Another area of interest is discourses regarding the reasons for engaging in music and music education within society and their unequal distribution.

Empirically, I am interested in interactional patterns in music education within compulsory schools and vocational educational settings. I have a background as a music teacher with ten years of experience, and I am continuously conducting practice-based research with local music teachers in a project called Stockholm Teaching and Learning Studies (STLS). Apart from teaching, predominantly in the teacher education program, I am conducting various projects at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm.

Theoretically and methodologically, I am primarily working with discourse analysis, positioning theory, and discursive psychology from a social constructivist perspective. Analytically, I rely on concepts and techniques from ethnomethodological conversation analysis, membership categorization analysis, and early rhetorical discursive psychology.  

Currently I am working on a project "Seuxality, consent and relations within music education". Sexuality, consent, and relations have recently been added to the swedish national curricula.  More specifically, the project examines how musical creativity can affect students’ ability to express themselves. Another project, with Janne Kontio, focuses on Ethics Values and Norms within vocational education. Finally, I am working with Karl Asp in the project "Musical value as articulated or not in the digital storefront" focusing the representations of musical education within web-pages of upper secondary schools in Sweden.