Abstract

Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) skills and creativity are often constructed as being in opposition in the English educational system. These binary constructions are evidenced in the prestige and funding attached to each in universities. The same binary positioning and hierarchical constructions can be detected in the choices of A level combinations that schools are prepared to timetable, and are also evidenced in some of the specifications so far released for T Levels in the creative industries.
This research proposes that STEM techniques can be an inextricable part of creative endeavour, and therefore that STEM and creative paradigms need not be in opposition but in some cases (in particular technical creative media such as music technology) can form an indivisible whole, forming a blended practice. A literature review examines ideas of phronesis and praxis, craftsmanship and
aesthetics. Exploring the nature of this practice, it draws on Sennett’s (2009) and Dunne's (1997) explications of practice acquisition and development, and Dewey’s pragmatic conception of knowledge acquisition. The discussion also addresses Dewey’s (2018), Benjamin’s (2008) and others conceptions of creativity and the nature of artistic experience, particularly as applied to technically reproduced art, and introduces ideas around sociomateriality and the acquisition of agency.
In the light of these considerations, after an overview of STEM-like (“positivist”) and interpretivist methodologies, and a critique of the idea that these are incommensurable, this thesis examines the acquisition and induction into practice of aspiring musikarbeiter (“music workers”) using an actornetwork
theory lens. Drawing on the experiences of contemporary practitioners from different technical areas of the industry, and of music technology educators, the thesis teases apart and pays attention to the role of STEM and “STEM-like” skills and methods, as well as craft skills, aesthetics, and creativity, in the translation of musikarbeiter into the networks of music technological employment and artistic practice, and how their roles change as this occurs. The thesis discovers common experiences of aesthetic recruitment, technical interessement (often involving specific hardware or software skills) and the abstraction and generalisation of those skills in order to achieve agency, and frames a suggestion for curriculum intent in terms of “skills/creativity/autonomy”.