The Transformative Politics of Music Education

This book introduces a unique approach to the interconnections between music education and politics. By taking a broader, more diverse, and explicitly ethico-political philosophical and theoretical stance, the book challenges institutional and structural conditions that may be resistant to change and expands the understanding of the professional responsibility of music educators in the 21st century to meet a variety of societal and ecological challenges. Emerging from a collaboration between international music education scholars and prominent contemporary educational theorist Gert Biesta, this book connects contemporary educational theories with music education to unlock its transformational capacity. In eight chapters, the contributors show how music education can move towards ways of being and doing that are attuned to social justice and to the broader social and ecological responsibility of music professionals. Strengthening the interdisciplinary connections between music education and education, philosophy, sociology, policy, systems thinking, and more, the volume offers a renewed vision of the scope and boundaries of both music teacher education and professional work in music more widely. Connecting the decades-long work of internationally established music educator scholars and ideas from large-scale research projects with a shared interest in transformative theorisation, this book fills a knowledge gap and reframes the philosophy of music education as a vibrantly multidisciplinary, theory-generating field. Relevant to researchers and students across music teacher education and performance studies, this book speaks to both conservatoires and university contexts across Europe and North America, helping us unlock the transformative capacity of music education.

Tuulikki Laes is University Researcher at the University of the Arts Helsinki, Finland, and an Academy Research Fellow appointed by the Research Council of Finland (2023-2027). Gert Biesta is Professor of Educational Theory and Pedagogy in the Moray House School of Education and Sport, University of Edinburgh, UK; Professor of Public Education in the Centre for Public Education and Pedagogy, Maynooth University, Ireland, and Visiting Professor at Western Norway University of Applied Sciences. Heidi Westerlund is Professor of Music Education at the Sibelius Academy of the University of the Arts Helsinki, Finland, and Adjunct Professor at Monash University, Australia.

List of figures List of Contributors Why music education needs transformative politics: Introduction Gert Biesta, Tuulikki Laes, and Heidi Westerlund Chapter 1. Reclaiming the education question for music education: Groundwork for a transformative politics Gert Biesta Chapter 2. Expanding mental models in music education: Transformational praxis beyond the expert gaze Heidi Westerlund and Albi Odendaal Chapter 3. Music educators as imaginative "designers": Emerging transformative ecopolitics in higher education Heidi Westerlund, Danielle Treacy, Katja Thomson, and Albi Odendaal Chapter 4. The paradox of social innovations within music schools: Taking critical responsibility in transformative practice Hanna Backer Johnsen, Geir Johansen, and Tuulikki Laes Chapter 5. Policy entrepreneurship: towards a new music education professionalism in a risk society Patrick Schmidt and Tuulikki Laes Chapter 6. The Pædeia process in music education: Recuperating creativity as democratic education Panagiotis A. Kanellopoulos Chapter 7. The transformative politics of music education research: Navigating public scholarship through transepistemic synthesis Gert Biesta, Tuulikki Laes, and Heidi Westerlund Chapter 8. A manifesto for transformative politics in music education Gert Biesta, Tuulikki Laes and Heidi Westerlund Index