Thomas R. Hilder

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Approx. 10 hrs of learning materials, including:

Introduction

Critical pedagogies make issues of democracy and social justice central to education. A founding text for these practices is Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1968) by the Brazilian pedagogue and philosopher, Paolo Freire. Central to critical pedagogy is a critique of traditional notions of knowledge, social hierarchies, and the wider responsibilities of the educator. The role of the teacher is not to simply to fill students with ‘knowledge,’ but rather to mobilise students with existing knowledges and skills to nurture critical consciousness of the larger social and political order within which they have been oppressed. These lofty ideas inspired pedagogues in many different contexts around the world at a time of mass social movements (e.g. civil rights, feminism) for liberation and decolonisation. Critical pedagogy has inspired several strands of educational science over the last fifty years, including feminist pedagogy, anti-racist pedagogy, queer pedagogy, to mention a few. Such traditions of thought have addressed a broad range of topics that impact the micro and macro aspects of education at all levels, e.g. teacher-student hierarchies, curriculum design, classroom seating formation, assessment forms, supervision, campus design, entrance exams etc. They have also inspired wide-reaching conversations about the interconnections of music education with public learning and policy-making.

Music education science has a long history which in the last thirty years has also been reshaped by critical pedagogical concerns. This space offers an introduction into some of the latest debates in critical pedagogy within music higher education. In Part 1 we attend to discussions around race, postcolonialism, and decolonisation. Part 2 invites a consideration of issues of social justice and care in and through music education. Finally, Part 3 invites reflection on our roles as music pedagogues by exploring notions of queer pedagogy and public pedagogy.

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The Learning Outcomes for this space are:

  1. to be able to appreciate current thought and practice in critical pedagogies in music education
  2. to be able to engage with critiques of education from decolonial, queer, and disability perspectives.
  3. to be able to reflect upon the transforming role and responsibility of music pedagogues in the twenty-first century. </aside>

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Keywords: critical pedagogy; decolonisation; queer pedagogy; disability studies; public pedagogy; care

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Part 1

Read the texts by Shzr Ee Tan (2021) and Dylan Robinson (2019) and reflect on the following questions:

  1. What does decolonising mean and how do the two scholars’ ideas of decolonising compare and contrast?
  2. What is decolonising the curriculum and what is its goal?
  3. What are the challenges of decolonising music education? </aside>

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Part 2

Read the text by William Cheng (2016) and reflect on the following questions:

  1. What is the importance of care in music education?
  2. In what ways are musical institutions ableist?
  3. How might be make music education more just? </aside>

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Part 3

Read the text by Thomas R. Hilder (2024) and reflect on the following questions:)

  1. What is public pedagogy?
  2. Why is public pedagogy significant when thinking about queer issues?
  3. What are our roles and responsibilities as music scholars, according to Hilder? </aside>

Resources

Key Readings

Cheng, William. 2016. Just Vibrations: The Purpose of Sounding Good. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Hilder, Thomas R. 2024. "LGBTQ+ Choirs, Public Intellectuals, Queer Pedagogies." MusPed:Research: Vol. 8. Utfordringer og muligheter innen musikk og utdanning: 67-89.

Robinson, Dylan. 2019. "To All Who Should Be Concerned." Intersections 39 (1): 137-144.

Tan, Shzr Ee. 2021. "Whose Decolonisation? Checking for Intersectionality, Lane-Policing and Academic Privilege from a Transnational (Chinese) Vantage Point." Ethnomusicology Forum 30 (1): 140-162.