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.

More information is available at: https://sites.uniarts.fi/web/ecopolitics

The EcoPolitics team from Helsinki

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

Bios

Heidi Westerlund:

Heidi Westerlund is a professor at the Sibelius Academy of the University of the Arts Helsinki, Finland. Her research interests include higher arts education, music teacher education, collaborative learning, cultural diversity and democracy in music education. She is one of the project leaders of the project “Music Education, Professionalism, and Eco-Politics”.

Margaret S. Barrett:

Margaret S. Barret is Professor and Head of the Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music and Performance at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. Her research focuses on the role of music and the arts in human cognition and in social and cultural development. She is one of the project leaders of the EcoPolitics project.

Albi Odendaal:

Albi Odendaal is Associate Professor of Music Education at the School of Music, North-West University in Potchefstroom, South Africa. His research interests include musical memory, music teacher education, multicultural education, and professionalism.

Katja Thomson:

Katja Thomson is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the project “Music Education, Professionalism, and Eco-Politics” and a lecturer in music education at the Sibelius Academy of the University of the Arts Helsinki, Finland. Her spatially oriented research focuses on intercultural music practices as part of social engagement in higher music education institutions.

Danielle Treacy:

Danielle Treacy is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the EcoPolitics project at the Sibelius Academy of the University of the Arts Helsinki, Finland. Her interdisciplinary research focuses on ethical and methodological issues related to policy, practice and research in intercultural music teacher education, and on collaborative learning and reflective practice in higher arts education.

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