Where and when: Tuesday August 26 13:00 - 14:30, Auditorium 3.
Transforming society has been an important topic in music education in recent years. To a certain degree, “changing the world” seemed to be the most important purpose of music education internationally, particularly in view of global crises.
While no one would doubt music’s transformative potential, the belief that it can cause sustainable societal changes is exaggerated. Social change is a complex and ambivalent matter – and one to which various factors contribute. This lecture develops, based on a critique of oversimplified concepts, a new model of music education’s political and societal responsibility. By applying research from political studies, but also from the fields of utopian thinking, civic imagination and possibility studies, this presentation offers a new approach to music education’s transformative potential and its significance for society.
Alexandra Kertz-Welzel, PhD, is Dean, professor & chair of music education at Ludwig- Maximilians-Universitaet in Munich, & professor II at Inland Norway University in Hamar. She is author & editor of several books & a frequent contributor to leading journals. Her new book "Rethinking music education & social change" has been published by Oxford University Press in 2023.