This chapter presents a brief review of literature related to diversity in music education DQGPXVLFHGXFDWLRQUHVHDUFKWKDWKDVEHHQLQÀXHQWLDOGXULQJERWKWKHSODQQLQJDQG LPSOHPHQWDWLRQRIDQGUHÀHFWLRQRQWKLVFURVVFXOWXUDOUHVHDUFKSURMHFW$WKRURXJK review of the literature on music education in the majority world is beyond the scope of this project. Instead, particular attention was paid to literature that supported my aim of foregrounding ethical deliberations. The chapter thus takes the theme of diversity in music education and music teacher education as a starting point, and then expands to literature that considers ethnocentrism and coloniality in (music) education and (music) education research.
Diversity in K-12 music education has most often been addressed through a broadening of repertoire to include, for example, popular (e.g. Smith, Moir, Brennan, Rambarran, & Kirkaman, 2017) or ‘world’ musics (e.g. Campbell et al., 2005).
+RZHYHUWKHFRPSOH[LWLHVRIWKLVGLYHUVL¿FDWLRQPD\EHRYHUORRNHGIRUH[DPSOH discussions concerning inclusion into what, when, how, and what and who for; or the XQZDQWHGVLGHH൵HFWVDQGLQFRPSDWLELOLWLHVWHDFKHUVHQFRXQWHULQGL൵HUHQWDSSURDFKHV to inclusion (Karlsen, 2017). Moreover, an uncritical focus on preserving music traditions may risk reproducing inequities, for example related to gender or social hierarchies like caste, rather than considering how traditions, and the pedagogies WKH\FDUU\PD\QHHGWRFKDQJHLIDQGZKHQWKH\HQWHUVFKRROV&ULWLFDOUHÀHFWLRQ is therefore required if music education is to uphold democratic ideals, such as participation and equal opportunity, and provide space to ethically engage with values GL൵HUHQWWRRQH¶VRZQ
In music teacher education, the importance of developing future teachers’
understandings of diversity and providing exposure to a wide range of perspectives is recognized as essential to the development of music teacher professional knowledge 0DWHLUR :HVWYDOO7KXVPXVLFWHDFKHUHGXFDWLRQSURJUDPVKDYHR൵HUHG various courses and intercultural education experiences for their preservice teachers.
These have included, for example, the implementation of an internationalized elementary general music course (Addo, 2009) or an intercultural immersion course between the United States and Sweden (Burton, Westvall, & Karlsson, 2013), and FRXUVHUHODWHG¿HOGZRUNRQGLYHUVHPXVLFV0DUVKRUPXVLFDOFROODERUDWLRQ with refugee youth (Marsh, Ingram, & Dieckmann, 2020). Teaching opportunities have also been arranged for preservice teachers in diverse settings such as a band
camp for children from remote Indigenous communities in Australia (Ballantyne, Canham, & Barrett, 2015), or overseas opportunities including a Finnish-Cambodian intercultural arts education project (Westerlund, Partti, & Karlsen, 2015; Kallio &
Westerlund, 2020) and a professional placement for Norwegian student music teachers in a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon %U¡VNH'DQLHOVHQ%U¡VNH.
,PSRUWDQWO\LWKDVEHHQHPSKDVLVHGWKDWVXFKDSSURDFKHVWRGLYHUVLW\QRWEHRQHR൵ courses or experiences, but rather that attending to issues of diversity and social justice be central components throughout music teacher education programmes (Mills &
Ballantyne, 2010). Also of relevance to this research project are studies by teacher-researchers engaging in intercultural collaborations between Finland and Nepal, and Sweden and Vietnam, towards institutional change (Timonen, Houmann, & Sæther, 2020). Moreover, it has been recognized that the unfamiliarity and unpredictability involved in stepping outside of comfort zones such as during intercultural experiences in music teacher education can be challenging, confusing, and discomforting (e.g.
Westerlund et al., 2020a).
Despite attempts to diversify music education and music teacher education, the scholarship remains largely focussed on western contexts and can therefore be seen to be ethnocentric. This can also be said of the music (teacher) education scholarship in general (e.g. Bradley, 2012). Moreover, Kertz-Welzel (2016) asserts that even within western contexts, there exists a hegemony of Anglo-American music education and research. This can be seen, for example, in a review of seven music journals from 1990-2015, in which the 24 professional development initiatives for .PXVLFWHDFKHUVUHSRUWHGLQGL൵HUHQWDUWLFOHVZHUHSULPDULO\IURP&DQDGDWKH United Kingdom and the United States of America (Bautista, Yau, & Wong, 2017).
Relatedly, Westerlund and Karlsen (2017) have used the term “ocularcentric” to describe the PDLQVWUHDPGLYHUVLW\GLVFRXUVHRIPXOWLFXOWXUDOLVPEDVHGRQFODVVL¿FDWLRQ DQGFDWHJRUL]DWLRQ0RUHRYHU%UDGOH\KDVLGHQWL¿HGQRWRQO\WKHWHQGHQF\WR impose western analytical concepts on ‘world’ musics, but how their inclusion “often takes colonialist form through unauthorized appropriation and publication, through multiple forms of misrepresentation, and through language suggesting such music, as indigenous knowledge, is marginal or inferior to the Western musical canon” (p.
410; see also Hess, 2015; Hess, 2018). She (2012) therefore asserts that approaches to multicultural education often “maintain cultural separation” (p. 425) and “leav[e] the European canon centered in the curriculum” (p. 425). This can be seen, for instance, in university entrance requirements such as those in North America that still privilege western classical music (Bradley, 2012).
The explicit goal of the collaborative developmental work between the Nepal 0XVLF&HQWHUDQGWKH6LEHOLXV$FDGHP\ZDVWRFRGHYHORS³FRQWH[WVSHFL¿F´HJ Hammerness & Craig, 2016) music teacher education, not simply export an existing music teacher education program. Hammerness and Craig (2016), for example, R൵HUDIUDPHZRUNRIfour layers of context relevant to teacher preparation: school/
classroom, neighbourhood/community, district, and federal/state. In the recent
“scholastic race” triggered by economic globalization (Akkari & Dasen, 2008, p. 369), however, Finland’s recent successes in international standardized examinations has not only drawn much international interest to Finnish education but also supported the development of Finnish education export (Delahunty, Phusavat, Kess, Kropsu-Vehkapera, & Hidayanto, 2018; see also Lönnqvist, Laihonen, Cai, & Hasanen, 2018;
Schatz, 2015). While Finland’s successes may have motivated the initial interest in FROODERUDWLRQHPSKDVLVLQJFRQWH[WVSHFL¿FLW\ZDVGHHPHGSDUWLFXODUO\FUXFLDODVLGHDV DERXWPXVLFWHDFKHUNQRZOHGJHUHOHYDQWWRDVSHFL¿FVHWWLQJFDQQRWEHDVVXPHGWREH universally applicable (Burnard, 2013b). Indeed, although identifying and borrowing VXFFHVVIXOVWUDWHJLHVLVFRPPRQLQWKH¿HOGRIPXVLFHGXFDWLRQSUREOHPVDULVHZKHQ strategies from other educational systems are transplanted in new situations in “the original way” without being appropriately adjusted, transformed or adapted (Kertz-Welzel, 2015, p. 50). Rather, to be successful and culturally sensitive, Kertz-Welzel DVVHUWVWKDW³WKHSURFHVVRIERUURZLQJ´SUHTXLUHVFULWLFDOUHÀHFWLRQDQG should result in “a new system or strategy, a new original, designed to work within a new environment” (p. 57). The project’s collaborative development work was also not intended to be unidirectional, but to develop music teacher education in both institutions, where the institutions themselves were conceptualised as “mobilizing networks” (Davidson & Goldberg, 2010). Thus, networking interactivity was encouraged and enabled, to “ope[n] up or giv[e] way to new interacting networks as older ones ossif[ied] or emergent ones signal[ed] new possibilities” (Davidson &
Goldberg, 2010, p. 193).
7KLVDLPRIFRGHYHORSLQJFRQWH[WVSHFL¿FPXVLFWHDFKHUHGXFDWLRQDOVR connects to the anticolonial stance guiding this project. Such a stance is particularly pressing, as Dasen and Akkari (2008)QRWHWKHGHVWUXFWLYHH൵HFWRIIRUPDOVFKRROLQJLQ colonized countries, contending that
1RIRUFHKDVSRVVLEO\EHHQDVH൶FLHQWDV>,QVWLWXWLRQDOL]HG3XEOLF%DVLF Schooling] in the oppression of the ‘majority world’ and in the marginalization
RIORFDOHGXFDWLRQDONQRZOHGJH7KURXJKLWVVXEWOHLQÀXHQFHWKLVFRJQLWLYH LPSHULDOLVPKDVH൵HFWLYHO\GHVWUR\HGDQGGHIRUPHGQRQ:HVWHUQHGXFDWLRQDO methods. (p. 17)
This has also been true of music, with music education in compulsory schooling often emerging during colonial periods (e.g. Cox & Stevens, 2010; Kim, 2014; Herbst, de Wet, & Rijskijk, 2005), and often with “a disregard for and dismissal of indigenous musical and educational traditions” (Cox & Stevens, 2010, p. 5). Central to our collaborative work, therefore, was challenging these historical patterns and constantly asking ourselves how we could co-develop music teacher education without erasing local knowledge and expertise to be replaced with our own epistemologies (e.g. Patel, 2016; Tuck & Yang, 2012).
Being not solely a project for developing music teacher education but a project concerned with doing so through educational research, attention to the deep entanglements of research with colonialism and European imperialism (e.g. Smith, ZDVDOVRQHFHVVDU\6PLWKDVVHUWVWKDW³7KHZD\VLQZKLFKVFLHQWL¿F research is implicated in the worst excesses of colonialism remains a powerful remembered history for many of the world’s colonized peoples. It is a history WKDWVWLOOR൵HQGVWKHGHHSHVWVHQVHRIRXUKXPDQLW\´S7KLVLVQRWRQO\GXH to the roots of qualitative research being in ethnography, with its colonial history focussed on studying and writing about people and culture. Patel (2016) for example describes educational research as “an entity borne of and beholden to coloniality”
(p. 4), proposing that it “has played a deleterious role in perpetuating and refreshing colonial relationships among people, practices, and land” (p. 12). In her approach to GHFRORQLVLQJHGXFDWLRQDOUHVHDUFKVKHGH¿QHVFRORQLDOLW\LQUHODWLRQVKLSWRVHWWOHU colonialism:
Settler colonialism values ownership and property rights above all else, and it UHTXLUHVVWUDWL¿FDWLRQEHWZHHQWKRVHZKRDUHSURSHUW\RZQHUVDQGWKRVHZKR aren’t. Because the university-based researcher has a material status-based interest, through grants, data, and publications, the relationship to knowledge is one born of limited resources and protectionism. (p. 35)
This can be seen, for example, in cross-cultural research that has a “history of treating local people badly” (Liamputtong, 2010, p. 2) and taking knowledge from local FRPPXQLWLHVDQGR൵HULQJLWWRVFLHQWLVWVDQGRUJDQL]DWLRQVZLWKOLWWOHLIDQ\EHQH¿W to the communities (Liamputtong, 2010). The researcher-researched relationship has even been related to settler-slave relationships as it usually only serves to improve or
solidify the researcher’s status (Patel, 2016). To move away from colonialism then, Patel (2014) calls for “put[ting] into practice ways to be in relation that d[o] not begin and end with ownership” (p. 360), focussing instead on answerability.
Recent music education research has explored coloniality and resistance to coloniality in music education practices and philosophy (e.g. Bradley, 2012; Dillon &
&KDSPDQ'ROOR൵*UDKDP+HVV/RFNH 3UHQWLFH Rosabal-Coto, 2014). Moreover, discussions of decolonizing music education research have begun to emerge (e.g. Hess, 2018; Kallio, 2019). Hess (2018) examines research activities through Critical Race Theory and anticolonialism to move toward more ethical research practice. She calls for researchers to interrogate their “reasons for engagement” (p. 579) and attend to the “needs of multiple stakeholders including those of the populations with whom we engage” (p. 574). Kallio (2019), however, questions WKHYHU\SRVVLELOLW\RIEHLQJ³PHWKRGRORJLFDOO\UHVSRQVLEOHZKHQQDYLJDWLQJGL൵HUHQW DQGDWWLPHVFRQÀLFWLQJZRUOGYLHZVLQPXVLFHGXFDWLRQUHVHDUFK´SDQGSURSRVHV conceptualizing methodological responsibility not as “an end destination to achieve, but a FRQGLWLRQRISRVVLELOLW\´(p. 12, emphasis original).
Ethnomusicologists have only relatively recently become concerned for “the study of music in times and places of trouble” (Rice, 2014, p. 193) embracing themes relating music to various social, political, economic and ecological crises worldwide.
This emerging work raises concerns for ethics in ethnomusicological research (e.g.
Hofman, 2010). In her rethinking of the role of the scholar in social justice and advocacy work, Hofman (2010) troubles the representation and production of the VXEDOWHUQWKURXJKDFDGHPLFNQRZOHGJH6KHLGHQWL¿HVUHVSRQVLELOLW\DV³WKHPRVW crucial concept related to ethics and ethnomusicological work” (p. 28) suggesting that
“By becoming aware not only of our moral dilemmas but also of our moral limitations and the choices we make, we can grow as moral subjects together with our research partners” (pp. 32-33). Rice (2014) also argues that “Studying music in conditions of gross social and economic inequality can drive ethnomusicologists to rethink their methods and move them away from vertical knowledge structures to horizontal ones in which knowledge is created in equal partnerships with communities and community musicians” (p. 204).
These challenges do not mean that I, or other researchers in the Global Visions project, should disengage from this cross-cultural development work. Indeed, other music education related collaborations in Nepal, with for example Norway and
Denmark12, suggest that if we were to disengage, others would have been asked to FROODERUDWHLQRXUSODFH5DWKHU,WDNHLQVSLUDWLRQIURPWKHLGHDJXLGLQJUHÀH[LYH SUDJPDWLVPWR³EDODQF>H@HQGOHVVUHÀH[LYLW\DQGUDGLFDOVNHSWLFLVPZLWKDVHQVHRI direction and accomplishment” (Alvesson, 2003, p. 14). Importantly, in balancing learning and action–neither acting without knowledge nor postponing action too long–I take guidance from Davis (2015) who asserts, like others, that it is essential WRSXWUHODWLRQVKLSV¿UVWThe very idea of learning from and with musician-teachers in the Kathmandu Valley in an attempt to break away from the top down approach frequently used globally in educational projects, however, requires “Spivak’s project of
‘unlearning’ and ‘learning to learn from below’” which “turns crucially on establishing an ethical relationship with the subaltern” (Kapoor, 2004, p. 642). Thus, I engaged with this research project with a willingness to be transformed by it, and the critique to which it will be subjected.
12 The Nepal Music Center collaborated with Rikskonsertene (Concerts Norway) 2004-2009 (see e.g.
Lange, Shrestha & Korvald, 2009). In addition, the Embassy of Denmark supported a music teacher training program from November 2010 to July 2012 (Danish Center for Culture and Development, 2012).