Music Education, Professionalism, and Eco-Politics

Speakers: Heidi Westerlund, Margaret Barrett, Albi Odendaal, Danielle Treacy and Katja Thomson

Location: online via Zoom (link on request)

Speaker’s note
The project, “Music education, professionalism, and eco-politics” (EcoPolitics), has investigated how music educators can respond to uncertainties and eco-crises, thereby supporting music teachers in moving from viewing music as a neutral discipline focused on individual expertise (ego-centric) to a field that is outward-focused, relational, environmentally responsible, and socially engaged (eco-centric). We generated data in workshops, discussions, and individual and group interviews in three higher music education institutions on three continents (Finland, Australia, South Africa), which we analysed using systems approaches.

In this presentation, we will briefly introduce the project as a whole, which has aimed to identify ways to strengthen musician and music teacher educators’ deep ecological systems awareness, eco-political change agency, and capacity to imagine. We will highlight the methodological choices we took to expand professional horizons by engaging musicians and music teacher educators in eco-political reflexive processes. We will report on some of our primary findings, which point to the tacit and explicit professional mental models which musicians and music teacher educators bring to their work in tertiary education.

The EcoPolitics team from Helsinki

Danielle Treacy, Heidi Westerlund, Margaret Barrett, Albi Odendaal and Katja Thomson, Photo Eeva Anundi

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Ecolit Logo in weißer Schrift mit grünen Plfanzen, die die Schrift umranken

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