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 an Adjunct Professor in Monash University, Australia.