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This article is about the way in which and to what extent digital media and tools are used in the teaching of music in Sweden. Through interviews and observations, teachers’ and pupils’ experiences and expectations of digital media and tools are presented. The investigation considers eight municipal schools with pupils in the ninth form. The article adopts a media ecological perspective, which implies that media create new social and communicative structures for constructions of knowledge and identity. The results show that music is expanding both quantitatively as the supply increases, and qualitatively since it is being integrated with mobile images to a great extent. Teachers choose material from the Internet and create their own digital teaching materials. Pupils choose music and artists based on personal preferences. Stage performances are important and are imitating those of professionals to an increasing degree. Use of the Internet broadens and deepens music abilities and knowledge, but the focus is still on playing in rock and pop ensembles.

Forskningsprojektet Skolämnesparadigm och undervisningspraktiker i skärmkulturen – bild, musik och svenska under påverkan tar sin utgangspunkt i att undervisningen i skolan i allt hogre grad star under inflytande av den digitala skarmkulturen. En annan utgangspunkt ar att olika skolamnen ar olika mycket inbaddade (”embedded”) (Sutherland et al. 2004) i digitala medier. I projektet star de tre skolamnena bild, musik och svenska i fokus. Vi har undersokt vilka faktiska forandringar man kan urskilja i de tre amnenas paradigm och undervisningspraktik nar digital teknologi integreras, och hur larare och elever forhaller sig till denna i de olika amnena.

There are great expectations that new digital technology will become a powerful tool for developing education activities. Like many countries in Europe and worldwide, Sweden has invested a large amount of resources in new technology and new media (hereafter called digital media), and they have become a natural and important part of school teaching. The developed use of digital media is assumed to lead to educational change and, hence, better teaching. That such expectations have not been fulfilled, however, is shown in a number of Swedish, European and international studies. One explanation of this situation may be that the incorporation of digital media differs between different school subjects. School subjects have their characteristic structures, which are of great importance for how digital media can be integrated. Digital media influence the way in which school subjects can be described from a knowledge theory perspective – i.e. what constitutes the subject’s paradigm and its teaching practice. The point of departure of this article is the school subjects of art, music and the mother tongue (Swedish), which, like other school subjects, are feeling the pressure of a digital media and screen culture to an ever increasing degree, and it queries whether and how teachers and pupils in these three school subjects conceive of and relate to the shifts that take place in the subjects when digital media are being increasingly integrated into the teaching. The study is based on interviews with pupils and teachers in the three school subjects, and the results are presented in terms of four themes that appear in the investigation – namely: (1) educational environments; (2) what teachers and pupils regard as the sacred and the profane; (3) motives for using digital media in teaching; and (4) whether and how working methods are changing with digital technology, i.e. questions concerning collective and individual aspects. In all three subjects, there are clear indications that digital media have already started to influence both the subject content and the working methods, while, at the same time, the proportion of digital media is limited and the impact is weak.

Young people’s recreational activities are based on, contain or are framed by music, where by choosing music and applying knowledge about styles they construct their identities and lifestyle projects. This study explores the relationship between music activities at school and in leisure time, how young people use and perceive music in these two environments and in what way they interact. Theories and research on late and post modernity, social construction, media, youth culture and music education are utilized in this study. Concepts such as authenticity, individualization, reflexives, aestheticization and makeability are concerns in the processing of the empirical data. The study is based on a survey, observations and interviews where three musical environments in two different upper secondary schools were investigated. 83 third-year pupils completed the survey, out of whom I interviewed 29 pupils.

Music is pictured as an activity and a positioning of the individual in a social context, or as a construction of identity, as I prefer to put it. Emotions are essential in music, and according to the pupils emotions are created by the musician, mediated in music and interpreted by the listener. It is important to be authentic and to have a unique identity, which is possible to achieve in music. In the study pupils equal music to emotions and emotions to the self, which I define as Music = feelings = I. Music symbolizes cultural affiliation, lifestyle choices and ethical standpoints described in stereotypes which young people gather from various attributes and combine personally depending on the time and cause. It seems important to be open-minded and creative, which can be promoted by music activities according to the pupils. Music as a characteriser of identity seems to be at stake both in leisure time and at school. Based on the notion that young people’s behaviours are seismic readings of tendencies in society, this study implies that upper secondary school music activities are cultural investments in identity and in the students’ life projects.

Modern communication technology makes it possible to integrate sounds, images and text, to distribute and edit these according to personal preferences, in ways that were not imaginable earlier. It creates new perspectives of describing, modelling and designing our world and our understanding of the same. In this way not only the written word is complemented by sounds and images, but even cognitive structures by associative and none- linear thinking, in other words our production of knowledge and knowledge development.

Conceptions such as the rise of the information society and globalisation have enabled an interdisciplinary field of research, such as media – and youth culture studies. Even educational research has been influenced by theories and concepts from interdisciplinary research, which are added to more traditional forms of studying activities in school. In this article I advocate for an extended use of different forms for mediation in education, and emphasize the importance for teacher students to get extended and media specific knowledge within their teacher training programs.