Dr Dawn Joseph's Home Page

Dr Dawn Joseph Higher Diploma in Ed(Sec), BMus, BEd, MEd University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa), PhD University of Pretoria (South Africa) Position:   Senior Lecturer, School of Education, Faculty of Arts and Education, Deakin University, Melbourne Campus, 221 Burwood Highway, Burwood, Victoria 3125, Australia Tel:  +61 (0)3 9244 6284 Fax: +61 (0)3 9244 6752 Email: djoseph@deakin.edu.au

Professional Profile

Dawn Joseph is a Senior Lecturer in in Music and Education Studies in the Faculty of Arts and Education at Deakin University, Melbourne.  Dawn moved to Melbourne from Johannesburg (South Africa) where she was a specialist music teacher for ten years at Roedean School (an independent P-12 girls school) and for four years at St John's College (an independent years 9-12 boys school).

Dawn completed a Higher Diploma in Education (Secondary Music and Geography) and then Bachelor of Music, Bachelor of Education and Master of Education degrees from the University of the Witswatersrand.  Her research for the Bachelor of Education focused on 'Effective music education in a post-apartheid South Africa: a study of opinions in Lenasia'.  This research was part of a wider research study entitled 'Constants and Variables in attitudes towards music education in the greater Johannesburg area' which was commissioned by the Human Science Research Council of Pretoria, South Africa (1993).  During her study for the Master of Education degree, Dawn specialised in Curriculum Development, Policy and Assessment and her thesis was entitled 'Class music in the Junior Secondary School: Three Independent Schools in the Johannesburg area'.

Dawn completed a Doctor of Philosophy degree with a thesis on 'Outcomes-based Education at Independent Schools in Gauteng, South Africa' at the University of Pretoria under the supervision of Professor Caroline van Niekerk.  Her particular interest is in the Orff Schulwerk music teaching method and has successfully completed the three primary, the pre-primary and the advanced pre-primary Orff Schulwerk certificates in South Africa.  In 1999 she was selected to participate in a special Orff Schulwerk program on African drumming under the direction of Professor Komla Amoaku from Ghana.  Dawn has been an active member in the Orff Society of Southern Africa and still has close links with her South African Orff colleagues.  In 1992 she studied at the Royal School of Church Music at Addington Palace (England), where she undertook training for choir, conducting, liturgy and organ playing.  As a student, she sang alto for the University of the Witwatersrand choir and continued her choral singing under the direction of Richard Cock with the South African Broadcasting Choir (SABC).

Dawn's current area of research at Deakin University is the use of African music for teaching music concepts and cross-cultural engagement in generalist primary teacher education courses.  She teaches in undergraduate and graduate pre-service courses as well as supervising post-graduate students undertaking EdD and PhD research.  Dawn also acts as an examiner of external theses and research papers and has published articles and presented papers / seminars on the use of African music in teacher education.  She is convenor of an email list for teachers interested in teaching African music in primary and secondary schools and also maintains the African Music in Schools and Teacher Education: A Teaching Materials and Resources web site at http://www.deakin.edu.au/education/music-ed/african-music/.

During 2003, Dawn was invited to present a paper at the 2003 Conference of the Pan-African Society for Musical Arts Education  (PASMAE) held in Kisumu, Kenya, as the only Australian delegate (July 5-11, 2003).  She gained approval from PASMAE to form an Australian Musical-Arts-Education Action Team (MAT) cell as the first overseas research and development group in the area of African music in education.  Another invitation resulted in Dawn presenting an address to the First South Africa Colloquium on Indigenous Knowledge Systems held at the University of the Free State, Bloemfontein (February 29-March 3, 2004).

She is currently Deputy Chairperson of the Victorian Chapter of the Australian Society for Music Education and is a member of the Association of Music Educators (Victoria) and the Australian Association for Research in Music Education.  She is also a member of the international review panel for Teacher Development: An International Journal of Teachers' Professional Development and is a member of the editorial committee of Australian Online Journal of Arts Education and The Victorian Journal of Music Education.  Dawn is actively engaged in music education research as a member of The Arts in Education Faculty Research Group and is convenor of the Arts Bites Lunchtime Seminar Series.  Dawn continues to perform as a church musician.

Scholarly Publications