Uncovering the motivations towards a profession may contribute to a better understanding of how the
profession is chosen and will be pursued. However, the research on the attractiveness of the music teaching
profession is rather limited and predominantly focused on identity development, thereby overlooking other
aspects that may play a role. In pursuing a case study, my aim is to contribute to this field of research by
investigating the views of pre-service music teachers enrolled at the University of Karlstad in Sweden. The
results depict a unique motivational profile compared to their counterparts in other subjects. These differential
aspects are threefold, indicating a high prevalence of ‘extrinsic motivations’ driving their choice of profession,
that ‘altruistic reasons’ have lower significance as a motivating factor, and that there is a poor perceived
relevance of these individuals’ future profession. In addition, this study provides evidence of the prevalence of
‘musician identities’ over ‘teaching identities’ and foresees the dependence between the participants’ motivation
and their future students’ progression. Moreover, I hypothesise that career changes and Pygmalion effects are to
be expected if intrinsic motivation towards the profession is not fostered or if this population’s motivation is
linked to the progress of their students rather than the challenge of motivating them in the first place.
