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Since the Middle Ages, Augustine and the wealth of his writings have had an enormous impact on Western philosophical thinking. His approach to time and memory, which he sets out in his eleventh book of the "Confessions," is one of the most important sources for research about the philosophy of time. Augustine describes time as a permanent movement in which the future passes unceasingly through an unrelated present into the past. Only the very present moment exists, but this present moment is infinitely short. If the past is no more, the future is not yet, and the present is indivisibly brief, "memoria" becomes the determining factor of human consciousness. Augustine's theory of memory and time reveals an epistemological connection with the functioning of human consciousness. Since his understanding of time and memory is already of great relevance in many interdisciplinary approaches, it can also become important to the philosophy of music education. Revisiting Augustine's concept of "memoria" can give us new impetus on questions about aesthetic education, cancel culture, and utopian thinking.

In international philosophy of music education, there are some philosophers who are important points of reference. One of them is the German Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). While his philosophy is complex, an oversimplified understanding of his ideas turned him into the "bad guy" of international music education philosophy, being in favor for instance of art for its own sake. His assumed ideas are thought to be the foundation of aesthetic education, in opposition to music education concepts promoting praxis and social change. The prominent role Kant plays leads to questions: Can an eighteenth-century philosopher be blamed for twentieth-century music education concepts and their supposed aberrations? And what did Kant really say? By addressing these and related questions, this paper offers fresh perspectives on Kant's original concept and the role his assumed ideas play in international music education philosophy, aiming at revising some discourses around them. Furthermore, Kant as a case in point, can lead to general considerations about the function of philosophy in music education philosophy.

This paper explores the fundamental tenets of Plato's philosophy of education, particularly his views on a practice of great educational potential: communal musical participation. According to Plato, music can attune the individual and the community to cosmic harmony and this, in turn, is the only way to form and maintain a community. The paper explores how the concepts of "ethos" and "nomos" are utilized to explain music's role in community cohesion. It argues that Plato's understanding of the power of immediate and pre-reflective participation in music can provide valuable insight for contemporary philosophy of music education. The concept of "nomos," in particular, allows music educators to take this frame of thought to better understand the role of music in creating communities.

Can Aristotle's idea of practice be made fruitful for music pedagogical action in schools? That this is the case is repeatedly asserted in the music pedagogical discussion. This article takes up this assertion and develops a proposal for class music making based on Aristotle's theory of action.

Extending a nascent line of Asian philosophical research in music education, we mine Indian philosophies of music and education. Three key questions guide our project: (1)What are Vedic philosophies of music? (2)What are Vedic philosophies of education? (3)Taken together, what insights can we draw for contemporary music education writ large? To address our questions, we analyze key passages from the "Upanishads" and synthesize ideas from these texts. A quartet of inter-related ideas emerge from our analysis: the "guru," the "shishya," "vidya," and "moksha." In brief, the "guru" (teacher) is revered as one would god, for it is the teacher who leads the "shishya" (student) toward "vidya" (knowledge) and through that toward "moksha" (liberation of the soul), which can also be attained via making music, such as the singing of "Om" (the absolute sound). In addition to proffering insights for contemporary music education, particularly in terms of how the ancient Vedic "guru-shishya parampara" adds nuance to contemporary discussions on the master-apprentice model of music education, we imagine how music education philosophy might look like if it were to be sung.

Philosophical descriptions of democratic music education frequently rely on "inclusion" and "participation" as the defining features of democratically oriented music programs. Democratic epistemic considerations, such as regulatory ideals of musical quality and excellence, however, are less commonly cited, if not actively avoided. This paper addresses several primary reasons for the paucity of epistemic considerations in democratic music education and problematizes current concerns about epistemic judgements from a democratic perspective. Drawing on Miranda Fricker's influential concept of epistemic injustice, this paper argues that democratic dialogue that respects values of diversity and inclusion cannot legitimately ignore epistemic dimensions because doing so occludes the epistemic dimensions of cultural, racial, and gender diversity in music education classrooms.

In this paper we discuss the musical work of classical composer Benjamin Britten as a lasting legacy for public music education. Our starting point is the contemporary urgency to rethink both public music education in general, and the public-educational significance of Western classical music in particular, in the face of the dual threats posed by anti-educational tendencies of "functionalization" and "hobbyfication." Relating this situation to concerns already voiced by Britten in his time, we consider in what ways aspects of Britten's musical work can be shown to reveal a highly original, post-critical answer to these threats. While his pedagogical musings remain riddled with ambiguities, which readily invite critical deconstruction, our paper argues for the more affirmative option of reconceptualizing these ambiguities as constitutive tensions of a public-educational love for (classical) music. To gauge the practical implications of such a post-critical music-educational love, we analyze the concrete case of the Aldeburgh Festival, perhaps Britten's most full-fledged effort to reclaim music as a public affair. Thinking about this case, we reflect on how Britten's legacy could lastingly impinge on the publicness of Western classical music, as well as on ongoing and future practices of public music education in general.

Music education is a social act oriented around interactions between people in public spaces. These spaces provide opportunities for what Hannah Arendt calls natality, which we interpret as new and unexpected actions that arise in a shared space. Drawing from a range of ideas and experiences of Arendt, bell hooks, Joan Baez, Martha Nussbaum, and music education philosophers and practitioners, we argue that it is important for music educators to make room for this space by becoming more critically aware of their emotions. Opening up to the unexpected in human interactions can at times be difficult and elicit fear. It also calls for a civic love. Cultivating this kind of love includes recognizing that our emotions and matters of the heart are instruments of power that can support or hinder others from becoming actors in their own right. As agents within music education, we can strive to realize this by developing a critical pedagogic consciousness and reflecting on the unexpected and emotional spaces of interaction.

When novice music educators abandon their expressed dedication to forward-looking ideas like equity, epistemological distinctions between belief and knowledge, or lack of such distinctions, may influence such action. Political philosopher Russell Hardin argued that it makes sense for people to hold false, conflicting, and even extreme beliefs. Drawing on his work, we consider how social influences may encourage music educators to adopt a view of knowledge as the acquisition of information that is useful rather than truthful in the sense of being falsifiable and supported by evidence. First, we examine how teachers' everyday socialization may cause them to abandon practices associated with "music for all," an ill-defined ideal--officially adopted by the (US) National Association for Music Education--that we problematize here. Second, we consider the effects of broader polarization on socialized epistemology, including amplifying effects of technology, which may contribute to an in-group versus out-group mentality. Third, we investigate how advocacy related endeavors as well as bounded social circles in both K-12 music education and collegiate music teacher education may further solidify extreme beliefs within the profession. Finally, we consider implications for practice, including providing tools for more inclusive and open-minded advocacy efforts and some version of profession-wide "music for all" that focuses on socialization and recognition.

This theoretical inquiry approaches the challenge of reflexivity in the music education profession from the perspective of a collective and social understanding of memory. While memory is typically understood as being an individualistic, psychological, and cognitive phenomenon, in this paper we argue that the perspectives of collective and social memory may be of critical assistance to music teachers and music teacher educators who are facing the problem of increasing diversity. Teachers experience mounting pressure to include a wider selection of available material from the diverse musics of the world in their curriculum. We suggest that understanding the politics of memory--how memory shapes the future and reveals our reflexive capacity in terms of our bonds to, or freedom from, the past--provides new tools and perspectives for considering diversity. Furthermore, we propose that in order to make a difference, the politics of memory require an agonistic engagement in pluralistic societies, with multiple, even conflicting, relationships to memory and time, place, and space. The article argues that a critical politics of memory is not just about combining the past and present, but about re-imagining, re-negotiating, re-working, and re-generating the collective futures of the school, its educational context, and broader society.

This essay explores new avenues towards challenging inequity in these dark times. In these dark times, neoliberalism has coopted discourses that once challenged inequality and systems of power. Social justice, diversity, and identity politics--once powerful discourses that challenged inequality--have now been adopted by those in power to sustain neoliberalism and systemic inequalities. Using the concept of "re-sistence" rather than "resistance," I argue for new forms of resistance. Rather than standing firm, relying upon common areas of focus, including identity politics, music educations interested in social justice might look for new forms of resistance, adapting to the changing terrain of neoliberalism and its cooption of previously subversive discourses. Using the work of musicologist Jacques Atalli's description of noise, I explore how this has sonic aspects, and how music educators might address these issues through curriculum and music making.

This paper argues that the neoliberal (mis)appropriation of artistic creativity that begins to have a serious impact on music education can be seen as the result of a reverse détournement, whereby the very terms that used to play a pivotal role in describing the anti-systemic, anti-commercial, unsettling, emancipatory qualities of artistic creativity are being used to legitimize a thoroughly economized conception of creativity. It is suggested that this reverse détournement shapes a notion of creativity that can be referred to as subsumptive, a term that denotes the thorough instrumentalization of creativity that leads to a managerial approach to creative processes and practices. The paper identifies some of the main terms that have been sacrificed in the process of the neoliberal colonization of creativity, suggesting that we actively resist subsumptive creativity by molding a counter-hegemonic language that offers an alternative conceptual apparatus that might permit a conceptualization of creativity as subversive. Thus, it is suggested that instead of drawing on notions of flexibility and adaptability we explore the notion of nondeterminist plasticity of minds; instead of emphasizing uncertainty and risk-taking we choose to cultivate fearless exploration; in the place of notions of collaboration (that easily slips to networking) we emphasize dis-identification; instead of celebrating independence we engage with the notion of collectivity; instead of emphasizing learning how to anticipate future needs we choose to explore the merits of (temporary) withdrawal; instead of celebrating innovation we choose to explore practices of dismeasure; and instead of seeking ways to boost confidence, we explore the subversive potential of vulnerability.

This article is based on results from research that addressed the ways young Black Metal musicians construct their musical learning and socialization. In this article we will focus on one of the strands in that study; a trace of a classic ideal from "Bildung" theory. Using Bildung theory, we explore similarities between the ideals and concepts in the expressed informal music education from Black Metal musicians and contemporary institutionalized music education. In this article the German and Nordic 18th century concept of Bildung will be interpreted as the component that binds and contextualizes knowledge by a dialectic process with already inherited or internalized knowledge. Exploring, identifying, and comparing links between the educative process found within Black Metal and Bildung might at first sight seem to be both a pointless task and potentially reifying of problematic elements found within Black Metal. However, as we discuss, common features of Bildung and Black Metal, such as enlightenment through criticism of the taken-for-granted, a sublime Gesamtkunstwerk and a nihilist striving to become an image of God, help to reveal those ways Black Metal learning processes can be understood in the light of Bildung theories. We do so in order to present tools for furthering the critical discussion of hegemonic music educational discourses.

Flourishing has become a popular ideal in the educational debate. Could flourishing guide meaningful choices in education? My skepticism rests on unclear definitions of flourishing, a hidden insistence of theories of flourishing on selfish and individualistic themes, and an elitist vision of flourishing as the consequence of favorable conditions. To avoid the controversial aspects of flourishing theories, I will suggest that education could instead promote medium-term goals that, without directly aiming at students' realization, nurture the base on which students can imagine their flourishing. Drawing on ancient Greek culture, I will discuss "metron" as an inspiring medium-term goal for music education. In its archaic meaning, "metron," the right measure, is both a dynamic balance and an ongoing movement that regulates individual actions and guides individuals toward their realization. I believe that "metron" in music education could help students explore their possibilities and limits as individual and social agents toward a more nuanced understanding of their selves. Thus, I will consider how promoting "metron" in music classrooms could enhance students' self-knowledge and foster their sense of self in and though musical interactions and critical reflections.

In recent years, the study of musical cultures has gained popularity as a curricular intervention for increasing cultural diversity in school music curricula. Informed by Michel Foucault's analytics of power-as-effects, this paper examines some of the underlying epistemic premises of the notion of musical culture as it operates in music curricula. Additionally, it considers how this construct's discursive effects align with or contradict its presumed contribution to cultural inclusivity. I use the International Baccalaureate high school music curriculum as my exemplar because of the key role that the notion of musical culture plays in this increasingly popular curriculum. First, I contextualize the notion of musical culture socio-historically, pointing to this construct's Euro-Americentrism. Second, I argue that musical culture leans toward musical formalism. Third, I examine musical culture's presumed distinctiveness, indicating discursive connections to a nineteenth-century, Euro-American conceptualization of cultures as fixed and discrete. Fourth, I examine musical culture's presumed comparability, suggesting that the construct indirectly embraces Euro-American high art music as its frame of reference for analyzing all cultures. Based on this analysis, I suggest approaching the study of musical cultures relationally to render visible the dynamics of power and privilege that shape them. Finally, I consider the potential of abandoning the notion of musical culture altogether in favor of approaches that eschew establishing cultural boundaries.

This paper presents an argument that social theory has valuable roles to play in music education research and philosophy. I first discuss how theory can enhance and strengthen empirical work--and provide insights and connections that abstracted empiricism alone cannot. Then, I argue that social theory--developed, extended, and advanced through empirical research--is a vital component to meaningful philosophical propositions and lead to the positioning of solidarity over objectivity. Finally, I contend that social theory is an indispensable, never-ending quest for understanding power dynamics, uncovering ideology, and developing meaningful research projects.

In this paper, I offer my reading of John Dewey's Art as Experience and propose implications for music education based on Dewey's ideas. Three principal questions guide my task: What are some key ideas in Dewey's theory of art? How does Dewey's theory of art fit within his larger theory of experience? What are the implications of Dewey's ideas for music education? As I shall show, art for Dewey is rooted in nature, civilizes humans, serves as social glue, and has an important role in society throughout most of human history. Modern life, however, separates art and life; there is a need to restore the continuity between art and the ordinary processes of living, a task that Dewey undertakes by positing the notion of art as experience. Dewey's ideas support an expanded curriculum in music education, one in which popular music may be included alongside Western classical music and music from diverse cultures. However, artistic and educational discernment are needed, which necessitates the need for music educators to be sufficiently steeped in varied musical traditions and styles.

In "Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition", Glen Coulthard argues that since 1969, colonial power relations in Canada have shifted from an unconcealed structure of domination to a mode of colonial governance that operates through state recognition and accommodation. He instead looks to identify a type of recognition based on self-affirmation and self-recognition rather than state acceptance. Following Coulthard, I examine movements created to affirm oppressed groups in the context of anti-Semitism and anti-Blackness in the mid-twentieth century and explore possible limitations of such movements, including the erasure or elision of complex intersections of identity. I then draw upon self-compassion, a mental health and wellness approach, as a potential framework for the affirmative politics Coulthard theorizes. Subsequently, I consider whether such a framework offers a mechanism to provide the self-affirmation and recognition that Coulthard identifies as vital to resisting oppression. I ultimately explore how understanding music as cultural production in music education might engender this affirmative politics to facilitate rich affirmation and validation of students and educators to musically imagine different possible futures.

For decades, education has been inundated with neoliberal policies described as enabling its structures to adjust to a global knowledge economy. Located at the intersection of such "reform" language and classical liberal economic theory is a troubling paradox--the idea that knowledge should be centrally concentrated in order to "liberalize" education along free market lines. This essay considers implications of centralized knowledge for music education in light of this contradiction and the rhetoric that obscures it. To raise awareness of this paradox, I briefly summarize some of the literature on neoliberalism and state intervention before examining the ideas of an individual skeptical of central knowledge planning despite his pivotal role in the birth of modern educational "reform": Peter Drucker. The ideological collapsing of Drucker's nuanced views by neoliberal interests stands in stark contrast with what could be a less instrumental argument for the development of problem-solving skills for lifelong benefit. Finally, I ask whether we reinforce this contradiction if we champion music's curricular legitimacy and relevance, yet fail to teach students to think musically for themselves as evidenced by prescriptive instructional methods or participation in standardizing musical knowledge through failure to resist the totalizing ideology of the audit culture.

In the pedagogy of Western classical string music, creativity is often viewed according to the works of luminary composers, suggesting the question: how might string teachers, students, and musicians conceive of creativity? After problematizing standard definitions and ontological ideas of musical creativity, I outline an open model using the poststructuralist philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari. Expanding upon Deleuze and Guattari's idea of mapping and tracing, this open model describes creativity as a continual process of exploration and rethinking, with or without full understanding of the paths of previous luminaries in the domain of Western classical music. The model further suggests that creativity might blossom from the soil of individual and group experience, regardless of expertise level, according to two conditions: awareness and imagination. Awareness describes the consciousness of creating using available materials, regardless of intention; imagination is defined as the difference between repeating what is and having the curiosity, willingness, and excitement to burst forth towards the possibility of what might be. In conclusion, this paper considers how this model might work in practice, considering especially how an open model might work alongside a pedagogy of systematic string technique.

It is well-known that "phronesis" is realized when people reflect on their actions (praxis) and act accordingly, but the question of how this concept of practical reasoning can serve both people who make music and at the same time the music they make has not yet been answered. This paper aims to reveal in what way "phronesis" can lead to fulfillment in and through music and also to musical quality, especially when people make music with others. First, "phronesis" will be explored as it is interpreted in North America and Germany. Second, the German term aesthetic praxis is introduced, because it reveals that "phronesis" is significant for this concept. The line of argument aims at showing that the notions of 'acting ethically' and 'acting aesthetically' do not stand in opposition to each other when people make music. On the contrary, "phronesis" is a kind of knowledge that is relevant to an aesthetic praxis and therefore young people should be enabled to practice "phronesis" when making music. If this process is initiated, they are enabled to reflect on their own musical actions, as ethical and aesthetic practitioners.

In this paper I will explore the contribution of philosophical anthropology to music education research which, over recent years, has been showing an increasing interest in the human body. In order to do this I will especially be drawing on the ideas of one of its pioneers, Helmuth Plessner. Plessner's philosophy should be understood as an effort to overcome the Cartesian dualism 'mind/body' and to highlight the unity of a human being and her/his relation to her/his environment. With his central theory of "eccentric positionality," Plessner draws on a human's relation to her/his body because a human is able to acknowledge that "I am body" and "I have body" while at the same time being able to realize her/his own situation and reflect upon it. Plessner grounds his thinking about music on his phenomenological observation about sound. He remarks that sound, which can be at the same time far and near, has voluminosity, impulsivity, an undeviating relation to human expressivity, is organized in vertical and horizontal arrangement, and tends towards sequentially. Because of all this, sound is compliant with a human body. His philosophy and especially his writings about music and sound could be fruitful for music educational theory and praxis. Some crucial aspects of his theory are embodiment in music, the relation between the meaning of music and body movements, the relation between the conduct of music and conduct of a human and the formation of culture as an open process. In this theoretical terrain concrete proposals and more general suggestions for an efficient and successful music education practice can be located.

The pedagogical aim of liberation, as drawn from critical pedagogy, poses significant philosophical problems. In this paper, I argue that the fundamental right to direct the education of children rests with the family situated within a particular local community. This authority is then delegated to the state through the institution of the school via a social contract that can be described as "in loco parentis." Advocating liberation as a universally appropriate educational good encourages teachers to violate this social contract by seeking to free children from family and community attachments deemed to be repressive within the context of a particular form of moral reasoning. Music educators utilizing the language of critical pedagogy thus adopt the framework of a contestable philosophical tradition that in turns instrumentalizes the music curriculum, subordinating the study or creation of music to external social goals. Instead, I argue that seeking to liberate children engenders political proselytization due to its imperative in converting children from one philosophical tradition to another. I conclude that directed efforts towards liberation should be avoided in the music classroom, that parents have a right to resist efforts to liberate their children, and that music education should prioritize artistic over political ends.

To respond to the current advocacy of a transcultural inquiry into music education philosophy rooted deeply in Western civilization, the primary purpose of this essay is to provide a broader alternative to examine the phenomena of music teaching and learning to bridge the philosophical gap between the West and the East. This essay also attempts to expand the discussion of Eastern philosophies by including Balinese taksu, an aesthetic and ecstatic experience rarely discussed in music education literature. I juxtapose the intellectual and spiritual methods of attaining enlightenment through Zhuangzi's wuwei [image omitted], non-action or effortlessly losing self, and Balinese taksu and associate them with Turner's liminality theory, Csíkszentmihályi's flow state, and other Western scholars' discussions on spirituality and music to illustrate the ultimate spiritual enlightenment that an exemplary person or a virtuoso can achieve. The intersecting parallels between wuwei and taksu enable me to suggest a multi-stage development of musicianship as a way of learning that allows students to identify their inner selves, to evaluate the difficulty levels of obstacles challenging their mastery and overcome them, to roam in between practice routines, and eventually to enjoy the ecstatic experience of flow, losing self in performance.

Contemporary music education leaders suggest ambiguous definitions of "diversity," often assuming it both unquestionably good and compatible with equity. The purpose of this inquiry is to explore the assumptions underlying such discourse. First, I use the legal history of diversity in education to examine the American National Association for Music Education's statements on equity, access, inclusivity, and diversity. Second, drawing on Thomas Green's educational systems framework, I analyze the political strength of arguments surrounding diversity and equity. Third, considering instances when white parents deem diversity "best" for their children, I investigate the advantages and limitations of what Natasha Warikoo calls the "diversity bargain." While not condoning unbridled self-interest, I posit how music educators might use parents' self-interest to support more ethical practices. Designed to benefit all students, diversity initiatives conflict with efforts aimed at equity. Music education diversity and equity rhetoric rely on either a troubling misreading of a politically strong state rationale or on the weak political positions of societal interests or educational goods valuable for their own sake. Rather than focusing on diverse content, teachers and students might experiment with how artistic expressions enable the exchange of individuals' stories and insights. The music education profession might also provide attention to equity apart from diversity.

Over the past quarter century, charter schools have evolved from a fringe educational philosophy to a prominent academic option for American school children and their families. While the history and political positioning of charter schools have been well documented, the tenet of choice continues to be central in the debate regarding the merit of the charter alternative to traditional public schools. In this essay, I seek to dispel the notion that choice is a simple selection between binary opportunities, but rather a complex exchange between stakeholders. I present how educational options such as charters present a different paradigm of values when compared to precedents of the common schools of the mid-nineteenth century and established public education policy. Although some practices in charter schools may challenge the comforts of long-standing educational traditions, I assert that within these choices there may be opportunity for the music education community to truly reimagine its practices. I conclude with a call to music educators to make important decisions regarding charter schools and music education. Thoughtful steps can be taken to develop this curricular conversation and music educators have a professional duty to begin the dialogue. Failing to do so will be, by default, a choice to limit music education to traditional venues, thereby ignoring one of the fastest growing educational enterprises of our generation and an opportunity to provide a music education for all.

In this paper I begin to theorize what secondary school music education might look like "post-deconstruction." In particular, I explore the argument for a reconsideration of the importance of conceptualization in the process of music education. I argue that is it through coming into contact with powerful conceptual knowledge that students' potential to participate fully as capable musicians in their world is most likely to be realized. Conceptual knowledge provides the link between experience and the understanding of that experience. The great paradox of postmodernism is that in opening up some possibilities we have subsequently closed others down. There is a danger that in placing the knower rather than knowledge at the center of our educational endeavors, we have reduced access to something extremely important: the dimensions of knowledge that hold the power for students to move beyond their experiences, to imagine, and conceptualize a different world.

In classical Greek philosophy, the pursuit of Truth was done primarily through logical argumentation using language as "Truth tool." The major thinkers in classical China, on the other hand, were famously suspicious of language, with Confucius declaring, "I wish to be wordless." They turned instead to music to express the philosophically ineffable. In this paper, we use the example of the Chinese "guqin" to show how music serves as "Truth tool" in the Chinese philosophical tradition; in fact, music may be Truth itself. Through a quartet of interrelated themes--namely, the "Search for Truth," the "Search for Harmony," the "Search for Ethical Awakening," and the "Search for Sagehood"--we show how playing the "guqin" constitutes the doing of philosophy in this musical tradition. Through the "guqin," performers and listeners experience Confucian, Daoist, and Buddhist philosophical insights; no words are needed. We conclude by proffering implications for contemporary music education.

Within the last few decades, scholars have uncovered remarkable similarities between Confucian and pragmatist philosophies. Given these resonances, how would a philosophy of music education founded on a synthesis of Confucian and pragmatist ideas look? How would such a philosophy compare with extant philosophies of music education? In this paper, I sketch Confucian and pragmatist metaphysics, meld ideas from the two philosophies, and proffer implications for music education. As I shall argue, a Confucian-pragmatist intercultural blend lends support to three historical movements in the philosophy of music education: the cultivation of morality through music, music education as aesthetic education, and the praxial philosophy of music education. It also illumines extant philosophies of music education in fresh ways. This essay extends a line of research on the application of comparative philosophy in contemporary music education.

In the last two decades, Spain's general music education curriculum has moved beyond the exaltation of so-called Western art music to also include some instances of non-Western musical traditions. This process of diversification is often articulated as entirely positive. The present paper interrogates such discourses, following a post-structural, socio-historical approach. It looks into the circumstances surrounding the emergence of Spain's multicultural music education as a field of study, paying special attention to the inherent limitations and (contradictory) effects it produced. It argues that, despite its progressive-sounding rhetoric, Spain's multicultural music education still draws on age-old colonial discourses that pin the Self and the Other against each other. Following this line of inquiry, the paper then unpacks the emergence of the notions of music and schooling, as well as Spain's recent move toward deregulating music and the arts as school subjects. Interspersed, the paper includes brief critical discourse analyses of policy documents and scholarly texts to exemplify its main points.

In the twenty-first century, many music education scholars seek to reconceptualize music education toward social justice. Critical pedagogy is at the forefront of this shift. However, as teachers aim toward equity through employing critical pedagogy, some undesired effects of using this teaching approach may arise. In this paper, I consider the problematic side of critical pedagogy and ask two important questions: Are there any restrictions or limits placed on who can enact critical pedagogy in music education? And are there any so-called "casualties" of critical pedagogy in music education or in education more generally? To consider these questions philosophically, I employ a critical race lens to explore tenets of critical pedagogy and their applications to music education, as illustrated in the ideas and practices of four elementary music teachers who strove to challenge dominant paradigms of music education. By examining critical pedagogy in music education with a critical lens, I seek to illuminate the philosophical complexities and paradoxes of engaging critical pedagogy in the classroom.

Charles Taylor has argued that recognition is a vital human need. This essay discusses recognition as a philosophical concept, following a line of argumentation that can be traced back to Hegel's early philosophy. An important premise of this tradition is that because a subject's freedom is conditioned by other subjects, individual agency cannot develop without recognition. Moreover, recognition implies struggle, through which self-realization fulfills the conditions of ethical growth. I will examine the educational implications of these ideas in relation to contemporary social philosophy and pedagogical theory, focusing especially on the potential of the theory of social recognition as a critique of calls for symmetric pedagogy. Using Axel Honneth's work as a reflective surface, I will then draw some conclusions as to how to develop the concept of recognition within the contemporary philosophy of music education. Contains notes.

This paper suggests a framework for re-thinking the relationships between power and knowledge in music education. Informed by Jacques Rancière's notion of equality it explores how a dialectic between knowledge/mastery and ignorance/equality effects a rupture in the canonical relationships between knowledge and authority. Further, and based on a commentary of Alain Badiou, the paper explores the sense in which the Rancièrian perspective induces an understanding of equality as both a condition and a productive process: as a condition ignorance becomes the radical root of the emergence of new knowledge; as a productive process it leads to the creation of a space where those who have been doomed to silence are able to appear. Following on from that, the paper explores how the supposition of equality might trigger the development of a "what if … ?" attitude, transforming the pedagogic encounter to continuous exploration with the teacher starting by presupposing that she does not know anything until she and her student(s) begin building together, thus bringing students' creative endeavors to the center of the music education encounter. This productive ignorance might have important consequences for how we think about notions of discipline and passionate engagement in music making, as well as music education's relationships to music history and culture, remaining faithful to the aporetic dimension of music. Contains notes.

This article considers the contribution that Jacques Derrida's work "Of Hospitality" might make to higher music education as it unsettles the usual ascription of normative value to learning and teaching music at the university. Along these lines, what is most at issue in the encounter with Derrida's thinking is the concomitant notion of forms of temporality--unpredictability, slowability, immeasurability, anticipation, serendipity, and surprise. Higher music education is seen as the practice of social transformation through the realization of the notion of unpredictability of the "oral" being--together with and through music educational interactions that are not sacrificed to economically driven performance indicators and measurable outcomes. Furthermore, the article draws on the learning and teaching practices of de-familiarization of educational spaces and pedagogical responsibility to the others as ways to disrupt students' fixed expectations about what good music teaching and mastery are. Overall, this article is a call to see unpredictability as another framework through which higher music education can seek to re-invent theoretical concepts as well as codes and conventions of teaching and learning practices by inviting us to contemplate their own insufficiency, incompleteness, and discontent. Contains notes.

Although much has been written about Nietzsche's views on education over the years, and much has also been written about Dionysus, the god of wine and ecstasy, very little attention has been given to the meaning of, and need for, a Dionysian education. This two-part article is an attempt to begin that project. In Part One, drawing Nietzsche's articulation of the Dionysian, Apollonian, and anti-Dionysian into the orbit of broader scholarship on Dionysus, the author invited readers to think about what a Dionysian education might look like in a modern-day school setting, why such an education would be valuable, as well as some of the barriers to implementing such an education and the enjoyment of its fruits. Here in Part Two, the author considers some of the ideas current among philosophy of music scholars concerning "the Dionysian" in rock music. By analyzing and clarifying these views with reference to research conducted in Part One, the author proceeds in Part Two to investigate what combined role rock music and philosophy might play in the high school classroom where a Dionysian education is fostered.

Despite calls for the inclusion of the body, emotion, and sociality into music education theory and practice, the complex interplay of these aspects of being remains largely unarticulated and ignored. Deleuze and Guattari assert the importance of ongoing interconnections, arguing that multiplicities rather than singularities comprise humans. In this paper, I begin by drawing on their ideas to propose a human ontology based on the inseparability of cognition, embodiment, emotion, and sociality, positing that these four aspects enable and influence musical experiences. Next, I use Deleuze and Guattari's philosophical figuration of a body without organs to explain how the integration of these four qualities can serve to complicate rather than simplify our understanding of ourselves, our musical endeavors, and our music teaching. Lastly, I offer that teachers might begin engaging their inseparably cognitive, embodied, emotional, and social students in musicking by embracing the ongoing processes of complicating, considering, and connecting.

In recent years, comparative education and comparative music education became important fields of research. Due to globalization, but also to international student assessments, it is most common to compare the outcomes of entire school systems or specific subject areas. The main goal is to identify the most successful systems and their best practices in order to help struggling countries to improve. While the notion of borrowing from successful systems might at first glance seem convincing, it has its clear downsides: it fosters a kind of "cargo culture," where the export and import of educational models and successful practices is undertaken without taking into account critical aspects of this procedure. This paper examines critically borrowing foreign educational practices as a goal of comparative music education, in the context of globalization. It takes an interdisciplinary perspective, using results from comparative education research and utilizing it for music education and music education philosophy.

Aesthetic experience as a determining factor in music appreciation has lost salience in recent years, especially in philosophy of music education. Markand Thakar, music director of the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra and Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra and co-director of graduate conducting at Peabody Conservatory, has written a book subtitled "An Investigation into Musical Beauty." In a series of dialogues between a talented music student and a wise professor, he equates beauty with the aesthetic experience and cites this as the hallmark of masterpieces in Western music of the seventeenth to twentieth centuries. The author reviews Thakar's book, notes similarities and differences with Bennett Reimer's philosophy, and defends the theory against the mandates of praxialism.

Amongst the multiple key philosophers who have addressed critical issues pertaining to music education since the mid-1900s, Bennett Reimer was one voice that began a systematic examination of the nature and value of music and music education as a foundation for a philosophy of music education. With the musical experience at the center of his philosophy, Reimer sought to explain how music articulates feeling, a core of who we are as human beings. Over the sixty years of writing, Reimer's thinking continued to be influenced by other disciplines including the literature on creative thinking and cognitive neuroscience. The impact of his writing on the field is multifarious, including philosophy, advocacy, curriculum, and the role of music in school-based programs.

Bennett Reimer's consistent, fifty-year argument for a feelingful aesthetic experience through various venues is at the heart of this review of his work. The experience is cognitive and holistic and can be advanced through better research in curriculum and assessment that supports musical knowing. To further all types of research Reimer established the Center for the Study of Education and Music Experience at Northwestern University. His students, like those of Elliott Eisner in visual arts education, learned to appreciate the difficulty of formulating research questions in aesthetic education. To further his agenda, Reimer used musical intelligences in his philosophy to support the advocacy efforts of the National Association for Music Education.

In this paper, I compare all three editions of Bennett Reimer's "A Philosophy of Music Education" with early Chinese philosophy, in particular, classical Chinese aesthetics. I structure my analysis around a quartet of interrelated themes: aesthetic education, education of feeling, aesthetic experience, and ethics and aesthetics. This paper suggests that Reimer's philosophical writings have some degree of transcultural applicability beyond Western thought, counterpointing criticisms that his philosophy is narrow, ethnocentric, and culturally limited. It also serves as a plausible point of departure towards a transcultural theory of aesthetics for music education relevant to the pluralistic and globalized world in which we live.

This paper reviews some of the social, historical, and political forces and events that influenced the development of Bennett Reimer's early philosophy of music education in the late 1950s and continuing to his death in 2013. John Dewey's ideas about the moral and political purposes of art education are employed as critical tools for understanding the political dynamics of Reimer's career during the early Cold War as all education was conceived by government and prominent education reformers as social control rather than liberation.

Consistent throughout his writings on aesthetics and education, Bennett Reimer maintained the idea that music must be understood and studied as non-conceptual. Music's forms of knowing point to the subjective realms of life and operate effectively without the assistance or necessity of language. An education in the arts is an education in feelings, a claim that became untenable in an age of evidence and standardization. Critics hostile to a characterization of music as unknowable pointed to very clear concepts, locating the activity of music in both social and sonic contexts whereby extra-musical delineations could be articulated and musical conventions taught. The authors of this essay argue that music can be understood in ways that are both conceptual and non-conceptual, if by the latter one draws upon post-structural notions of the text, particularly Roland Barthes's explorations of what he called the third meaning or the third space. We leave open the idea that Reimer, in his own explorations of the non-conceptual, shared in this discovery.

In this essay, a quintet of values in doing philosophy of music education are examined: the need for a broad view, a personal perspective, a constructive vision, a relevant plan, and the courage to speak about important issues in music education. The following questions frame the analysis of each, in turn: What do these values mean? What importance do they hold today? How can they be expressed practically in the life and work of philosophers and those interested in the philosophy of music education?

Although much has been written about Nietzsche's views on education over the years and much has also been written about Dionysus the god of wine and ecstasy, very little attention has been given to the meaning of, and need for, a Dionysian education. This article is an attempt to begin that project. Drawing Nietzsche's articulation of the Dionysian, Apollonian, and anti-Dionysian into the orbit of broader scholarship on Dionysus, the author invites readers to think about what a Dionysian education might look like in a modern-day school setting, why such an education would be valuable, as well as some of the barriers to implementing such an education and the enjoyment of its fruits. Part One of this larger inquiry is followed by Part Two in a later issue, where we consider what role rock music and philosophy might play in the high school classroom where a Dionysian education is fostered.

Are there qualities of sound and the experience of listening that educators can extrapolate to inform the philosophy and practice of music education? In this essay, I imagine a music education where sound--how it behaves and how we experience it--serves not only as the subject of study, but generates the framework of the pedagogy. A sonic music education is not automatic because ocularcentrism privileges the vision and influences the listening and educational experiences, often in unrecognized ways. I explore two qualities of sounds: they are, first, impermanent and continually changing and, second, diffuse--seemingly inside and outside our bodies. These qualities contrast with the visual experience, which makes objects appear permanent, fixed, and separate from our bodies. Pedagogies based on sound might present truth as impermanent and their aims as multidirectional and might employ social constructivist epistemologies and democratic education. A music education based on sounds may be a corrective to ocularcentric banking pedagogies where knowledge is fixed and progress is unidirectionally measured.

At present, instrumental music education, defined in this paper as the teaching and learning of music through wind bands and symphony orchestras of Western origin, appears embattled. Among the many criticisms made against instrumental music education, critics claim that bands and orchestras exemplify an authoritarian model of teaching that does not foster democracy. In this paper, I propose a theoretical framework by which instrumental music education may be conceived democratically. Since educational bands and orchestras have achieved global ubiquity, I theorize broadly for both the East and the West and draw on ancient Chinese philosophy and American pragmatism as sources of inspiration to construct the theory. This theory comprises a quintet of themes that emerge from a comparative analysis of key philosophical texts by Confucian and pragmatist philosophers, namely, the people, participation, equality, cooperation, and conflict. This paper aims to address critical issues in instrumental music education with respect to democracy, complement extant music education philosophies, and serve as a first step towards a transcultural philosophy of music education relevant to the interconnected world in which we live.

Is the most important function of education to provide students with basic skills and useful knowledge in order to eventually become employable? In many parts of the world knowledge league tables and policy documents inform us this is the case. As the question of what should form the educational content seems to be answered, teachers can concentrate on how they should teach, and researchers can concentrate on what method is the most effective. In the current rhetoric, however, many vital pedagogical issues have been placed in the background and the aesthetic subjects are downgraded. These tendencies worried Frede V. Nielsen who stated that didactic studies and philosophical inquiries yet again are needed to explore and give substance to the content dimension. Nielsen's writings on didactics form the basis for this essay, where we highlight which perspectives and dilemmas could be placed on a critical, philosophical didactic study agenda. The starting point is the field of tension between the what and the why of education.

Among other things, the work of Frede Nielsen gradually took the form of an analytical clarification of the integration between subject matter and pedagogy; in other words, how the reciprocal relation between musical subject matter and pedagogy can be unfolded in an inner (that is nondualist) state of things? This issue is ascribed key importance for the realization of music pedagogy in a professional core as a distinctly separate research-based discipline, characterized by having differentiated itself from musicological or artmusical competence and general pedagogy into an autonomous synthesis. A central foundation for this program Nielsen found in Klafki's Bildung-theoretical concept of "categorial Bildung." However I argue that significant features in Nielsen's music-phenomenological base (including his theory of music as a "multidimensional universe of meaning") partially pulls his thinking and analysis beyond the Bildung-position of Klafki. In that way Nielsen's Bildung-theoretical base (in the pedagogical dimension after Klafki) in connection with his phenomenological orientation (in the musical subject-matter dimension after Husserl) creates a tension in the latter part of his work. In sum, Heidegger's theoretical elaboration of a synthesis between phenomenology and hermeneutics is suggested as a plausible phenomenological position that potentially is capable of resolving this tension.

The article addresses "Bildung" from a Finnish perspective and asks: Are there specific meanings of Bildung that are typical of a certain time and place? The author applies a multi-layered theory of critical positivism, adapting its three-level structure to music education and the concept of "Bildung." First, she discusses "Bildung" as a fundamental value in education, especially in the light of ideas presented by J. A. Hollo, a Finnish philosopher in education, who emphasizes a broad education, including the arts. Secondly, she examines "Bildung" as part of an expert culture of Finnish music teachers, and thirdly, as an educational aim in legislation. Although Bildung is under threat in today's society, the article stresses that a Finnish view of "Bildung" emphasizes its social dimensions, according to which everyone has a right to a broad education, including music.