Samantha Sebastian Dieckmann

Fellow & Tutor in Music; Associate Professor in Music Faculty of Music

I am an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Music, and a Tutorial Fellow at Somerville.

My main research interests lie in how intercultural relations and notions of ‘diversity’ play out in a range of music education settings. Music education is broadly conceived, and my projects have involved investigating music-making across a range of classroom, policy and curriculum development, extracurricular, community music intervention and self-directed music contexts. One strand of my research focuses on the musical lives of migrant and former refugee communities in resettlement contexts. Another focuses on the functionalisation of music as public pedagogy to enable ethnocultural self-representation and address intergroup conflict. My current project considers the construction and experience of ‘diversity’ in secondary school curricula and classrooms. I publish on these topics in journals and edited volumes across music education, community music, music psychology and ethnomusicology, and serve on the editorial boards of Research Studies in Music Education and International Journal of Community Music.

My teaching for the Music Faculty includes undergraduate courses on ‘History and Philosophy of Music Education’, ‘Music Education: Practice and Pedagogy’, ‘Music in the Community’ and ‘Musical Multimedia’. In some of these modules, students undertake placements in school and community settings and are assessed both practically and theoretically. At Somerville College, I provide tutorials for the modules on ‘World Jazz’, ‘Critical Studies in Ethnomusicology’, ‘Foundations in the Study of Music’, ‘Music Mind and Behaviour’ and ‘Musical Thought and Scholarship’.

Recent postgraduate supervisees’ dissertation titles include, ‘Institutional music education and public pedagogy in Afghanistan’ (DPhil), ‘Music and trust in international relations: Bilateral relationship between Canada and France’ (DPhil), ‘Black musicians and accessibility to music education and the classical music industry, UK and US’ (MPhil), ‘Music integration programmes for migrants in North-Rhine Westphalia, Germany’ (MPhil).


Publications

War and conflict in resettlement contexts: Music in children’s everyday lives. 2021, in press. Book chapter. Oxford Handbook of Early Childhood Music Learning and Development. Co-author with Kathryn Marsh.

Addressing tribalism in displacement: Self-directed music activities in Blacktown’s South Sudanese community. 2020. Book chapter. My Body was Left on the Street: Music Education and Displacement.

From dropping out to dropping in: Exploring why individuals cease participation in musical activities and the support needed to reengage them. 2020. Journal article. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts. Co-author with Amanda Krause, Melissa Kirby and Jane W. Davidson.

Peace, empathy and conciliation through music. 2019. Journal special issue. International Journal of Community Music. Co-editor with Jane W. Davidson.

Bridging musical worlds: the effects of musical collaboration between student musician-educators and South Sudanese Australian youth. 2019. Book chapter. Visions of Intercultural Music Teacher Education. Co-author with Kathryn Marsh and Catherine Ingram.

Emotions. 2018. Journal article (co-authored). Music and Arts in Action. (Special issue: Keywords for music in peacebuilding). Co-author with Jane W. Davidson.

Organised cultural encounters: Collaboration and intercultural contact in a lullaby choir. 2018. Journal article. The World of Music (New Series). Co-author with Jane W. Davidson.

Constructing whiteness in Blacktown: Everyday encounters with diversity in Australia’s music. 2018. Book chapter. Diversity in Australia’s music: Themes Past, Present and for the Future.


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