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Rachel Shirley

Formerly at Lancaster University

Rachel Shirley

Thesis Title

Discourses of adult music learners: a mixed-methods study

Research overview

My main research interests are in music education and discourse analysis.

I work as a musician and music teacher, and my PhD project is a mixed-methods study into discourses of adult music learners. I’m using corpus-based discourse analysis of online texts in conjunction with more ‘traditional’ music education research methods such as questionnaires and focus groups to research how learners and teachers talk and write about adults learning music. My aims are to produce resources to support adult music learners and their teachers, and to demonstrate the potential of online data and linguistic analysis techniques in music education research.

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