Book chapter
Teaching music interculturally: posing questions, creating possibilities
Teaching music creatively, pp.170-182
The learning to teach in the primary school series, Routledge, 2nd
2017
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Abstract
Today, as the boundaries between local and global communities disappear and the flow of information between them becomes instantaneous, the educational spaces in which we find ourselves as teachers have become increasingly culturally diverse. So too has the kind of access we have, as music educators, to the musics of the world. Intercultural performances and musical experiences present themselves to music teachers as important and meaningful ways in which to express and embrace the cultural diversity they see inside and outside the classroom. The intercultural encounter between musical ways of being, doing and knowing, in relation to ‘own’ and ‘other’ cultures in a music classroom, overflows with a complex set of philosophies, politics and pedagogies. In this chapter I draw upon my work as an ethnomusicologist and educator to introduce some of the key concepts and questions which might usefully inform our work as music educators in the field of interculturality. In particular, my aim in this chapter is to explore:
■ Defining what we mean by intercultural
■ The intercultural music classroom as a contact zone
■ The centrality of relationship to intercultural music education
■ The pedagogical possibilities of adopting a whole-school, classroom and personal
ethos to intercultural music education
■ Ways forward to intercultural music education classroom practice
This chapter perhaps differs from others in this volume as it intends to challenge us, as music educators, to think deeply and carefully about the ways in which musics of other cultures enter into a dialogue with our own. Throughout the chapter, I ask us to step back and engage in moments of reflexivity about and around intercultural music education in our practice and classrooms. For me, this enables ‘praxis’, that is, reflection in relation to and within our teaching and learning worlds so that we might direct our actions as teachers towards transformation. As Maxine Greene (1995) reminds us, ‘It is a matter of posing questions on both sides and of loving the questions that merge with one another, questions about living in the world and creating communities and collectivities’ (Variations on a blue guitar, p. 159); in this spirit, I have included several reflective prompts to begin this questioning process. However, I would first like to introduce and position my work and myself.
Details
- Title
- Teaching music interculturally: posing questions, creating possibilities
- Creators
- Elizabeth Mackinlay - University of Queensland
- Contributors
- Pamela Burnard (Editor of compilation) - University of CambridgeRegina Murphy (Editor of compilation) - Dublin City University
- Publication Details
- Teaching music creatively, pp.170-182
- Series
- The learning to teach in the primary school series
- Publisher
- Routledge; Abingdon
- Edition
- 2nd
- Identifiers
- 991013054213802368
- Academic Unit
- Faculty of Education
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Book chapter