The Politics of Diversity in Music Education

• Other Authors: Kallio, Alexis Anja (Editor), Westerlund, Heidi (Editor), Karlsen, Sidsel (Editor), Marsh, Kathryn (Editor), Sæther, Eva (Editor)
• Format: Electronic Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: Springer Nature 2021
• Series: Landscapes: the Arts, Aesthetics, and Education
• Subjects: Teaching of a specific subject; Educational strategies & policy; Teacher training; Creativity and Arts Education; Educational Policy and Politics; Teaching and Teacher Education; music education and politics; music education and cultural diversity; politics of inquiry; cultural diversity in Norwegian school concerts; diverse political directives in contemporary China; democracy in popular music education; biopolitics; ecodiversity; internationalization, hegemony and diversity; global music education; intercultural collaboration in higher music education; Open Access; The Arts
• Online Access: DOAB: download the publication; DOAB: description of the publication

This open access book examines the political structures and processes that frame and produce understandings of diversity in and through music education. Recent surges in nationalist, fundamentalist, protectionist and separatist tendencies highlight the imperative for music education to extend beyond nominal policy agendas or wholly celebratory diversity discourses. Bringing together high-level theorisation of the ways in which music education upholds or unsettles understandings of society and empirical analyses of the complex situations that arise when negotiating diversity in practice, the chapters in this volume explore the politics of inquiry in research; examine music teachers' navigations of the shifting political landscapes of society and state; extend conceptualisations of diversity in music education beyond familiar boundaries; and critically consider the implications of diversity for music education leadership. Diversity is thus not approached as a label applied to certain individuals or musical repertoires, but as socially organized difference, produced and manifest in various ways as part of everyday relations and interactions. This compelling collection serves as an invitation to ongoing reflexive inquiry; to deliberate the politics of diversity in a fast-changing and pluralist world; and together work towards more informed and ethically sound understandings of how diversity in music education policy, practice, and research is framed and conditioned both locally and globally.