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Composing on iPad as Middle Ground Education

In this article, I apply Biesta’s philosophical term “middle ground” as a theoretical basis for investigating music teaching where the students’ creative productions are part of their learning activities. The middle ground term illuminates how arts education depends on both incorporating the student’s desires and, at the same time, leading the student into encounters of responsibility with the material and socially-constructed world. I analyze how an educational design where secondary school students composed music with GarageBand on iPads can be characterized as middle ground education. The analysis is based on material from a microethnographic study in secondary school music lessons. From this, I discuss how middle ground education can be designed and propose the importance of students being given promotional challenges.