Musician/teacher/scholar: a postmodern autoethnographic self-study of the intersections between teacher identity, teacher be(com)ing, and music education

Abstract

This autoethnographic self-study interrogates how musician, teacher, and scholar identities are produced and (re)imagined within K-12 music and higher education contexts. Situated in constructivist and postmodern frameworks, this (in)quiry explores the intersections between teacher identity, teacher be(com)ing, and music education. Asking how recursive practice enables critical interrogation, this (in)quiry cycles narratives, structures, and traditions in band; the researchers journey from conductor/teacher/leader to musician/teacher/scholar; and how this process generates educational knowledge.

Using autoethnographic self-study, the (in)quiry draws on layered forms of data from a twentyyear music-teaching career and transition to higher education. A recursive vignette framework structures analysis, each vignette tracing shifts in identity and authority.

Findings question how contest culture, evaluation, and non-renewal shape teacher identity through discourses of disposability, control, and deficit while masking teacher well-being and organizational health. Recursive reflexive practice and be(com)ing epistemology and method (re)position the author as musician/teacher/scholar, reclaiming agency and reimagining leadership as relational and student-centered. This (in)quiry contributes to music education by troubling hierarchical band traditions, grounding teacher narratives as knowledge, and offering implications for music education, school leadership, and the use of autoethnographic self-study as a tool of institutional critique and learning.