Dr Mary Stakelum

BEd BMus MA PhD PGCert (Kodaly) SFHEA

Dr Mary Stakelum is Area Leader for Music Education and Programme Leader on the MEd and MMusEd.  

Previous roles have included Director of Research and Head of Postgraduate Programmes (Bath Spa University), Associate Director of Graduate School, Course leader for MA Instrumental Teaching, BA Ed Music specialism and PGCE Secondary music (University of Reading), and Lecturer in Music and Music Education (University of Limerick).   

Research interests: 

a) Partnership pedagogy and inclusive practices 

b) Interdisciplinary approaches to exploring sound 

c) Children’s musical worlds 

She has externally examined EdD and PhD students on topics related to music education. In addition to her advocacy work on music education, she has undertaken reviews of programmes and research projects at various universities in the UK and internationally.  

Dr Stakelum served two terms as elected board member of the European Association for Music in Schools (www.eas-music.org), and previously led its Doctoral Student Forum (2011 to 2018). More recently she has joined the Steering Advisory Board of its pan-European collaborative research and development network Teacher Education Academy for Music (teacher-academy-music.eu).  

In her own research, she is developing the concept of rewilding music education and exploring new directions in cultural sustainability with an interdisciplinary arts team in Hatay Province, Turkey.  

She is a Trustee of the Society for Education and Music Psychology Research (www.sempre.org.uk), sits on the committee of MusicHE, is co-chair of the Advisory Board of Magic Acorns (www.magicacorns.co.uk) editor in chief of the international peer reviewed journal Music Education Research and conference director of the biennial International Conference on Research in Music Education (https://rime-conference.org).

Selected publications

Stakelum M (2024), Music literacy and the instrumental teacher, Music Education Research, 26(1), 47-57 [DOI].

Stakelum M (2022), Understanding Music Education: Exploring Children’s Musical Worlds, Sage [ISBN 9781473914346].

Stakelum M (2019), James Cooksey Culwick: the rudiments of music (1882), in K Houston, M McHale, & M Murphy (eds.), Documents of Irish Music History in the Long Nineteenth Century, Irish Musical Studies Vol. 12 (pp. 75-84), Four Courts Press [ISBN 9781846827242].

Stakelum M (2017), The business of music: creativity and innovation in the classroom, in R Girdzijauskiene & M Stakelum (eds.), European Perspectives on Music Education Vol. 7: Creativity and Innovation (pp. 105-120), Helbling [ISBN 9783990357514].

Stakelum M (2016), Harnessing the everyday use of technology to create inclusive musical interactions in the classroom, in N Economidou & M Stakelum (eds.), European Perspectives on Music Education Vol. 4: Every Learner Counts: Democracy and Inclusion in Music Education (pp. 97-110), Helbling [ISBN 9783990353813].

Stakelum M (2014), Boundaries and bridges: the influence of James Cooksey Culwick on the development of the teaching and learning of music in 19th-century Ireland, International Journal of Music Education, 32 (4), 409-421 [DOI].

Stakelum M & Baker D (2013), The MaPS project: mapping teachers’ conceptions of musical development, In M Stakelum (ed.), Developing the Musician: Contemporary Perspectives on Teaching and Learning, SEMPRE Studies in the Psychology of Music (pp. 135-154), Ashgate [ISBN 9781409450177].

Stakelum M (2011), An analysis of verbal responses to music in a group of adult non-specialists, Music Education Research, 13(2), 173-97 [DOI].

Faculties / departments: Research, Academic staff

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