Examining people’s conceptualisations of being musical and scientific
Conference Contribution ResearchOnline@JCUAbstract
Background As people’s identities are multi-dimensional, people can hold multiple identities that are more or less important to defining themselves. Previously, it has been noted that individuals consider a wide range of musical experiences and activities as factoring into their musical identity. Can the same be said for a scientific identity? How do people think about people who are musicians and/or scientists? Aim(s) As part of a larger project examining factors influencing musical and scientific identity, the current study focused on people’s conceptualisations of being musical and scientific. Method A sample of 564 participants (17-84 years old; 72.0% female, 26.1% male, 1.9% other-defined genders) completed an online questionnaire. Data for this enquiry comes from two, counter-balanced open-ended questions, asking participants to provide a free-text response to “how do you imagine a musician” and “how do you imagine a scientist?” We used a reflexive thematic analysis to examine people’s conceptualizations of musicians and scientists via their free-text responses. We adopted a reflexive and recursive approach to consider the data. Up to three codes were allocated to each free-text response provided. Codes were labelled as applying to musicians, scientists, or both and duplicate codes were removed. Related codes were then clustered to formulate broader themes. The first author led the analysis, and the second author contributed to peer reviewing the themes and sub-themes. Results Refinement of the seven identified themes is currently underway. These include: things people do (descriptions involving action verbs – e.g., educating, learning, and experimenting), what keeps people involved (e.g., interests and motivations), traits people have (positive, negative, and personality traits – e.g., confident, open-minded, and hard-working), training and education possessed (including comments about knowledge, intelligence, and related achievements), talent and ability, comments on their appearance (e.g., being well dressed or having dishevelled hair), and othering (e.g., being just like anyone or different from others). Discussion and conclusion While some descriptors applied to both musicians and scientists, there were also several differences. Examination of descriptor frequencies reveals that stereotypes drive common conceptualisations. These include “playing an instrument” and “producing music” for musicians and “working in a lab” and “researches” for scientists. Additional examination of patterns across the themes will be discussed. The present study extends research into musical identity to more fully explore the role of beliefs and stereotypes. Beyond theoretical implications, findings have practical implications for how educators and practitioners can create environments that promote nuanced and multi-dimensional identities.
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ESCOM 12: 12th Triennial Conference of the European Society for the Cognitive Sciences of Music
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2
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Melbourne, VIC, Australia
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European Society for the Cognitive Sciences of Music (ESCOM)
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York, UK
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