Music associated with people who are gender/sexuality nonnormative is extravagantly heterogeneous (Taylor 2012a), not only because queer people are diffused into every culture, society, and school but also due to their general invisibility in those cultures, societies, and schools—where they constitute neither an identifiably coherent culture as traditionally conceived nor a subculture situated in relationship to a dominant gender/sexuality culture (Taylor 2012b; Halberstam 2005). The heterogeneity of gender(s)/sexualit(ies)y militates against the former, while the latter is complicated by assimilationist impulses of dominant gender/sexuality that occur even as deviant gender(s)/sexualit(ies)y fracture among and between themselves musically and politically—underscoring, as well, how/why concepts of "cultural competence" and/or authenticity are inapplicable to queer diversity in music education.  More prosaically, the politics of shame routinely involves "silent inequalities, unintended effects of isolation, and ... lack of public access" (Warner 1999, p. 7).

Shamed and isolated, queer youths (and adults) listen to music that resonates with them, which "strikes a chord" (Wasserbauer 2016), cobbling together a bricolage of musical styles and artists (Taylor 2012a) to whom they are exceptionally emotionally attached (Dolan 2012; Wasserbauer 2016). So-called queerness in music historically has been associated (in the USA and Canada) with activities and sensibilities consistent with white, urban, affluent gay male culture, such as drag and camp (Jarman-Ivens 2016; Taylor 2013), as well as with stereotypes of music genres. For example, opera, Broadway musicals (Koestenbaum 1993), and disco signify gay (Dyer 2002), while symphonies, (absolute) instrumental music (Ives 1991), and rock signify straight (Greene 2014). The disco-rock/gay-straight juxtaposition was vividly demonstrated in 1979 when thousands of straight-presenting white young men chanted "Disco sucks!" as over 50,000 disco records were literally blown up in Comiskey Park (home of the Chicago White Sox baseball team) during what was called "Disco Demolition Night," the apex of a nationwide "antidisco backlash" directed against the music genre and people associated with "disco culture" constructed as "gay and elitist" (Frank 2007, p. 278). By contrast, music (mostly folk but also rock and jazz) composed and performed by mostly white lesbian musicians in the 1970s enjoyed an intense and enthusiastic (white) lesbian audience, even as it generated so little attention from the straight white press and music industry that it was utterly obscure to the general public (Gould 2016).

3 Hence queer celebrations focus on pride—rather than power.

The importance of affect for queer listeners, young and older, is primary and ubiquitous, suggesting that the "rubric of 'queer music'" may be productively understood in terms of an "ambiguous set of ideologies" that hinge as much on the creator's "intention and self-styled presentation as they are performatively located in the way the music is read and rearticulated" by listeners (Taylor 2012a, p. 150). This includes multiple musical styles: "rock, punk, metal, hip-hop, electronic dance music (EDM) and pop" (Taylor 2013, p. 194). Scholars in music, sociology, and music education regularly associate music with identity formation (e.g., Bowman 2004; Cook 1998; DeNora 2003; Lum 2017), but this process is rather more fraught for queer youth who do not readily find music groups and musicians with whom to identify—including in music education classrooms focused on issues of diversity. Cultural diversity research in music education may resist "privileges of heterosexuality" (Bergonzi 2009, p. 22) by using queer of color critique to analyze spaces that canonic music education research overlooks, despite their importance in the lives of queer students, families, schools, and communities. Natasha Sandraya Wilson's (2009) research of a queer space in New Orleans, the city which likely had "the largest black/African American queer population" (p. 119) in the USA before the devastating impact of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath in 2005, demonstrates how queer of color critique might be taken up in cultural diversity research in music education.

#### 6 Potentialities of Queer of Color Critique in Music Education

In a small nightclub known as the Groove, located in the impoverished, African American 7th Ward of New Orleans "female bodied women (FBWs), female bodied men (FBMs), and male bodied women (MBWs)" (Wilson 2009, p. 105), sing what they call the "lesbian anthem," despite describing themselves as "gay" or in "the gay life" rather than "lesbian"; and the song they sing along to, rhythm and blues singer Miliria's recording of "Three's a Crowd," is about (heterosexual) infidelity rather than same-sex desire between women. With its capacity to "invoke a shared vision, history, experience, or consciousness" (p. 105), the song functions as an anthem for this community of poor, African American drag queens and gay African American women, the vast majority of whom have children whose fathers are caught up in the US "prison industrial complex" (Davis 2002):

The music begins, and before [the performer] walks out onto the stage, the melody hits the crowd and almost immediately, everyone starts to say, "Awh, yeah!" Some people raise their drinks in the air and lower their heads, a gesture that indicates something that has personal resonance. Arms fly into the air with palms facing up and fingers spread apart. Some fingers begin to snap while arms are still up in the air and everyone's body is moving back and forth with the rhythm of the song. (Wilson 2009, p. 104, emphasis added)

In addition to race, gender, and sexuality, Wilson addresses in her analysis how poverty and so-called welfare reform in the USA impact the lives of African American same-sex couples who present as women. She notes that the rich musical history of New Orleans provided a ground from which their cultural performance emanated—with rhythm and blues rather than jazz, which has attained the status of "'high' art in New Orleans," making it inaccessible to impoverished African Americans. Invoking queer of color critique, Wilson continues:

These rituals and cultural performances are necessarily connected to the various injustices that plague these women's lives and the lives of women in general. They are also about more than "queer" subjectivity, but they demand that we ask penetrating questions. Why are male bodied men—children's fathers—caught in the revolving door of the prison industrial complex? Why are female bodied women trapped in various relationships where they are mistreated? Why do female bodied men live with the fear of sexual assault? Why are there members of this community who cannot read and write? To answer any of these questions requires an honest interrogation of the institutions of the political economy in which the Groove and its communities [and schools] are embedded and the pervasive inequalities central to US society. (p. 119, emphasis added)

Taking up these questions in queer spaces with music and people who are neither diversity-relevant nor cool, cultural diversity discourses in music education might defund neoliberalism and "go into the death" (James 2015) of biopolitical fungibility, materializing—not celebrating—diversity, rendering it uncool by investing in people, students, and musics who do not currently exist in hegemonic cultural diversity in music education curricula and research, those groups and individuals (students) neoliberalism produces as excess, leaving them to biopolitical death.

Robin James (2015) describes this tactic of "counter-resilience" as melancholy: "the refusal to do the affective cultural labor [heteropatriarchal] capitalism requires of potentially resilient people [and potentially resilient cultural diversity discourses in music education]" (p. 141, emphasis original). Resilience discourses make us responsible for overcoming damage inflicted by white heteropatriarchy (James 2014a). Instead of demonstrating resilience by including what has been historically excluded, "queered" cultural diversity in music education intensifies exclusions as melancholy, injecting them into the profession/pedagogy/curriculum as "bad vibes," which is to say, "failed" or "misfired resilience" that produces "antisocial effects" unsettling and "killjoying" the white heteropatriarchal project of canonic music education through distinctly counterproductive means.

The political death of others cannot be resisted or foreclosed by cultural diversity in music education discourses of inclusion—which infer hierarchy and positionality, discursively producing a "domain of abjection" (Butler 1993, p. 3), as a constitutive outside, "a domain of unlivability and unintelligibility" (p. 22). Taking up queer of color critique as "a living methodology" (Chan-Tibergien 2006, p. 102) to reframe and rewrite the biopolitics of diversity through "a multiplicity of narrative knowledges in overlapping [sexual, gender, racial, economic] communities" (p. 99), cultural diversity in music education research might "realize a new democracy" (p. 100) grounded in the lived experiences of uncool diverse populations of students, musics, and communities. This necessitates changing what we do as well as what we think we know about ourselves, our profession, its purposes, and complicity in white heteropatriarchy and take up Wilson's question: Where/who are the displaced/ discounted/disallowed/discordant musics/peoples/communities in cultural diversity in music education?

#### References

Associate Professor Emerita Elizabeth Gould joined the Faculty of Music in 2005, teaching philosophy-based courses in music education and sexual diversity studies. Her research interests include gender and sexuality in the context of the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, feminist assemblages, and queer theory. She is currently investigating interactions of race, class, and gender/sexuality in music education on antebellum Boston's Beacon Hill North Slope.

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter's Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.

## Cultural Diversity, Ecodiversity, and Music Education

Vincent C. Bates, Daniel J. Shevock, and Anita Prest

Abstract Diversity discourses in music education tend toward anthropocentrism, focusing on human cultures, identities, and institutions. In this chapter, we broaden conceptualizations of diversity in music education to include relationships between music, education, and ecology: understood as interactions among organisms and the physical environment. Diversity in music education can be realized by attending to the ongoing interrelationships of local geography, ecology, and culture, all of which contribute dynamically to local music practices. We situate our analysis within specific Indigenous North American cultures (e.g., Western Apache, Nuu-chahnulth, Stó:lō, and Syilx) and associated perspectives and philosophies to shed light on the multiple forms of reciprocity that undergird diversity. Indigenous knowledge, in combination with new materialism and political ecology discourses, can help us come back down to earth in ways of being and becoming that are ecologically sustainable, preserving the ecodiversity that exists and grows in place, forging egalitarian relationships and a sense of communal responsibility, fostering reverence for ancestors along with nonhuman lives and topographies, and cultivating musical practices that are one with our respective ecosystems.

Keywords Ecodiversity · Music education · Indigenous · Cultural diversity · Place · Local

V. C. Bates (\*)

D. J. Shevock Misciagna Family Center for Performing Arts, Pennsylvania State University Altoona, Altoona, PA, USA e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
A. Prest Department of Curriculum and Instruction, University of Victoria, Victoria, Canada e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
Department of Teacher Education, Weber State University, Ogden, UT, USA e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
#### 1 Introduction

When people discuss diversity in music education, they are usually referring to differences among social groups and institutions, often with political aims of promoting equity and culturally sensitive teaching relative to race, gender, and sexuality. Sometimes other considerations such as dis/ability, class, and religion come into play, but even the most inclusive and intersectional analyses tend to be anthropocentric—centered on human experiences, needs, and desires, regardless of impacts on nonhuman beings and places. In this chapter we embrace a holistic view of music and education, situating human diversity within ecodiversity (plant and animal life, water, minerals, landforms, weather, and so forth), thereby extending the scope of diversity and justice to include political concerns about climate change, ecosystem destruction, and extinction, while also deepening understandings essential to overcoming human oppression, domination, and exploitation. In other words, we believe that a more complete vision of justice, encompassing all environmental considerations, can serve to level both human and human/nonhuman hierarchies. To these ends, we first review relationships between cultural diversity and ecodiversity, outlining an ecocentric vision that blurs distinctions between culture and nature and places music as an element of diversity within ecosystems. Next, we consider biocultural perspectives of some Indigenous North American musical cultures in which sound, song, stories, spirituality, and sentient beings are bound up and intertwined with conceptions of place (understood in this chapter as physical geography). Finally, we recommend efforts in fostering ecodiversity in and through music education as means to environmental sustainability.

#### 2 Ecodiversity

How we perceive diversity in this chapter reflects the confluence of multiple scholarly streams. Within the field of sociology, new materialism recognizes that humans are just "one materiality among many"—a perspective that "has the consequence of cutting across animate/inanimate and human/animal dualisms that underpin the natural and social science conceptions and systems of privilege" (Fox and Alldred 2017, p. 25). In addition, political ecology maintains a "theoretical commitment to critical social theory and a post-positivist understanding of nature and the production of knowledge about it, which views these as inseparable from social relations of power" (Bridge et al. 2015, p. 7). Finally, new materialism and political ecology correspond with myriad Indigenous perspectives (MacLure 2016). For instance, in the Diné (Navajo) philosophical ideal of hózhó, four facets of "holistic living and learning"—cognitive, physiological, psychological, and intuitive—are "embedded in and reflective of the natural processes of nature and cosmos" (Werito 2014, p. 27). This reflects a general tendency among human cultures living in close proximity to nonhuman environments, Indigenous groups in particular, to adopt more inclusive and less anthropocentric perspectives (Esteva and Prakash 2014). Our own concerns about ecological sustainability seem to have grown from our respective origins, experiences, and work in rural music education (e.g., Bates 2013; Prest 2013; Shevock 2017). We tend to see anthropocentrism at work in environmentally destructive forces (e.g., industrialization, urbanization, militarism, and consumerism), which are present in educational institutions through teachers' pedagogical practices and in stated and hidden forms of curriculum. Holistic, Indigenous, rural, and new materialist perspectives offer environmentally sensitive alternatives to these forces.

An ecological perspective—where ecology is understood in its fullness and musical practices are situated as material realities within and among all other elements of nature (see Allen and Dawe 2016)—can expand the ways in which we think about music and music education. This ecological grounding is evident in Shevock's (2017) broad definition of music as "the intentional experiencing of sound" (p. 41), without centering humans as the ones intending and/or experiencing. Teacher, learner, and musicker (e.g., one who makes music) roles can be filled by a variety of entities, from people and birds to rivers and trees. A political ecology of music education can thereby help flatten current hierarchies, human or otherwise, and extend justice beyond the anthropocentric. Because this leveling envelops human hierarchies (Fox and Alldred 2017), it can also help music educators recognize "intersections between ... ecological crises, racial injustice, patriarchy, and economic stratification" (Shevock 2017, p. 110). This shift in thinking, difficult as it might seem for those of us socialized within anthropocentric Western paradigms, has important implications for how we perceive and the values we place upon cultural and natural diversity and, hence, music education. We will discuss four of these implications.

First, musical practices are integral elements in ecodiversity (Allen and Dawe 2016; Shevock 2017). They emerge in diverse landscapes alive with acoustic properties within which people and other organisms act and interact (Elsey 2013; Sercombe 2009). Within an ecological framing, people, along with other entities, affect rather than make music. In other words, musicking is a rich acoustic interaction or collaboration among living organisms and their environments. This necessarily situates human actions, including musical and educational actions, within geographical places—shared ecosystems abundant with plant and animal life, weather patterns, water cycles, and landforms (Titon 2016).

Second, ecodiversity develops within distinct geographical places and ecosystems. 250 million years ago, all land on earth existed in a single mass: Pangea. The separation of Pangea into continents led to increased species diversity (Jordan et al. 2016), the proliferation of which continued as organisms evolved to fit well within particular places (Ehrlich and Wilson 1991). This growing and evolving diversity eventually included humans and our cultural practices. Diverse musics evolved to reflect the ecosystems to which they were inextricably bound. Such rootedness is noted by Helena Simonett (2016) in her description of Indigenous Yoreme music making in Northwestern Mexico. In the fiesta, the performers merge with the world around them: musicking, singing, and dancing obscure the boundaries between humans, nonhumans, and environment. Musicians and dancers transform into the animals with whom they co-inhabit juiya annia, the "enchanted world" (p. 106).

Third, ecodiversity has both inherent and instrumental value. A core tenet of ecomusicology (see Allen and Dawe 2016) is that musical practices, as with all other ecological elements, have value within the ecosystems in which they are situated, growing as they do from various acoustic affordances. Furthermore, diversity is integral to overall well-being within ecosystems. Titon (2016) puts this in musical terms: "The healthier the habitat, the more 'musical' the polyphony of the creatures that occupy it" (p. 78). Due to this dynamic interconnectedness, to harm any aspect within an ecosystem, musical or otherwise, inflicts harm on diverse others.

Fourth, globalization can diminish ecodiversity, including cultural diversity. Globalization has been referred to as a New Pangea, recombining the continents through international travel and trade and thereby threatening ecological diversity (Lewis and Maslin 2018). This diminishment includes the loss of cultural diversity, as values, languages, and musics of a global culture replace the values, languages, and musics of diverse local cultures (see Snyder et al. 2003). The extractive forces of global multiculturalism can be especially harmful; when diverse species are separated from an already diverse ecosystem—a "web of interwoven lives" (Carson 2002, p. 56; Shevock 2017)—and are put in artificial isolation, they are apt to wither and die. Schippers (2016) raises this concern about the work of making audio recordings and otherwise attempting to preserve, through extraction, diverse musical practices: "these efforts do not always provide sufficient basis for the actual survival of music practices as part of an unbroken, living tradition, which many will argue is a key condition for maintaining the essence (explicit and tacit, tangible and intangible) of specific styles and genres" (p. 3).

An ecocentric outlook recognizes ample diversity within ecosystems and situates music first and foremost within that diversity. Complex musical practices emanating from a vast array of geological/biological forces have just as many or more points of diversity when compared with human cultural diversity. We agree with those who argue that diversity can be integral to developing empathy (e.g., Clarke et al. 2015) and suggest that diversity within an ecosystem serves that purpose at least as well as diversity across cultures. Kymlicka and Walker (2012) go so far as to suggest: "People must first be successfully socialized into the habits of moral particularism before they are epistemologically or psychologically capable of morally engaging with the claims of distant others" (p. 4). We argue that respect for diversity relies on respect for localism on its own terms, or in other words, a grassroots "pluriverse" (Esteva and Prakash 2014). Diversity, put simply, is enhanced when local communities nurture distinct, dynamic, evolving practices.

#### 3 Indigenous North American Philosophies

Indigenous cultural practices on Turtle Island (an original name for North America used by multiple Indigenous groups) reflect the situatedness of culture within ecological diversity and illustrate nonhierarchical forms of expression in which sound, song, stories, spirituality, and sentient beings are bound up and intertwined with conceptions of place. The examples we offer below reflect conceptions of music that highlight the importance of relationships among all beings, past and present, who exist in a place. Although the Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars we cite here have focused on the cultural practices that they have experienced, each reflecting unique worldviews, we emphasize that the living cultural practices they describe are not static, do not exist in isolation, and change over time. Among Indigenous groups on Turtle Island, cultural diversity is the rule—there are approximately 70 Indigenous languages spoken in Canada, 150 in the USA, and 89 in Mexico. We also wish to acknowledge our positions as non-Indigenous music education scholars who are engaged in learning Indigenous ways of knowing and their relation to cultural practices and the possibilities they afford to think about diversity and sustainability in music education.

The Dane-Zaa are a northern Athapaskan hunting people in northeastern British Columbia who "are profoundly egalitarian ... [and] deeply committed to communal responsibility, extending beyond relations between humans to include relations with the non-human persons who make up the natural environment" (Ridington and Ridington 2006, p. 217). For the Dane-Zaa, nonhuman persons include animals and ancestors. Dane-Zaa songs (naachene-yina), stories, and dances manifest this worldview, as they "honor the ancestors and spiritual places of the Dane-Zaa land" (Ridington and Ridington 2006, p. 27). Songs are conceived as hunting trails; their melodic lines represent the twists and turns, ups and downs of an animal's trail that hunters follow, and the drumbeat accompanying the songs evokes hunters' footsteps. Dances are physical manifestations of the trails and relationships between humans, their ancestors, and the animals they hunt. Dreamers—people in the community whose job is to communicate with ancestors through out-of-body experiences bring these songs back to the community. The mental trails that people create as they sing and dance to naachene-yina are pathways back to their ancestors, facilitating ongoing relationships with them. Likewise, the metaphor of a trail also evokes the reciprocal relationship between people and animals, as the Dane-Zaa traditionally relied on animals for sustenance and consciously acted in ways that showed respect for the life-forms that shared their environment.

Further south, in the central interior of British Columbia and along the Fraser River, Stó:lō and Secwépemc peoples also note the ways in which people, other organisms, and land interact, giving rise to poetic expressions (Elsey 2013; Ignace and Ignace 2018). It is through these expressions that "the land gets encoded into a territorial system of meaning, on an epic or folkloric scale, and is a primary aspect of collective selfhood and identity of the people" (Elsey 2013, p. 50). Elsey suggests that, for the Stó:lō (and others), songs—in addition to their role in expressing identity to a specific territory—convey the meaning of the land and the possibilities it affords. Community members' relationships to the land are embodied through stories, artwork, songs, and dances, representations of their individual and collective experiences over time. For the Secwépemc, "toponyms [or place names derived from topographical features] imply an entire system of references and relationships in the landscape" (Ignace and Ignace 2018, p. 234), invoking information on the "kind of animals, plants, sources of water, and shelter can be found at or near a place that is mentioned" (p. 235). Such place-names are oral "deeds to the land" (p. 254) because they articulate reciprocal relationships among people, ecological knowledge, and ancestral experiences on that territory. The following Welcome Song attests to the importance of relationships in Secwépemc tradition:

Tsecwmíntlmen ren kwséltkten. I greet all my relatives. Te kekéw re stet7ék-ep! You have come from far away! Penhénes-enke ne setétkwe k stet7ék-ep. Whenever you come to the river, te stsqwemqwúm, te seksekéwt, from the mountains, from the gullies, le7 re swíktelmen ey xwexwéyt-ep! it is good to see you all! Yerí7 me7 sucwentwécw-kt! Let us acknowledge one another! Nels Mitchell, "Secwépemc Welcome Song". (Ignace and Ignace 2018, p. 318).1

Yet further south in the place currently known as Arizona, Basso (1996) shines a light on "the significance of place in Apache thought and practice" (p. xv). His longterm study on behalf of the White Mountain Western Apache consisted of mapping approximately 300 places they identified as important to them, the names and stories associated with those places, and the ways in which place-names and respective teachings are bound up in everyday conversations. Similar to the Secwépemc and other Indigenous peoples, the Western Apache have developed relationships to specific and visually unique places through the historical events that they or others have experienced in those places. The evocative names given to these places constantly stimulate consideration of those historical events, the lessons learned from them, and the relationships that they bring to mind, also reaching "deeply into other cultural spheres, including conceptions of wisdom, notions of morality, politeness and tact in forms of spoken discourse, and certain conventional ways of imagining and interpreting the Apache tribal past" (Basso 1996, p. xv). Western Apache "relationships to places ... find expression through the agencies of myth, prayer, music, dance, art, architecture, and ... forms of religious and political ritual" (Basso 1996, p. 109); thus, music and other cultural practices are expressions and repositories of Western Apache collective wisdom (igoyá'í) required for survival. Self-reflexive individuals who journey on the trail of wisdom cultivate mental smoothness, resilience, and steadiness (p. 133) by developing "keen and unhurried reasoning, resistance to fear and anxiety, and suppression of emotion born of hostility and pride ... through extended reflection on symbolic dimensions of the physical environment" (p. 146). Place, musical expression, wisdom, and the capacity to survive are inextricably bound together.

1 This song, like all other Secwepemc cultural property, represents the Indigenous intellectual property of the Secwepemc people, as stated in Ignace and Ignace 2017, p. xi.

The Nuu-chah-nulth people, who live on Vancouver Island, also view ecosystems, musical expression, personal and communal integrity, and survival as interconnected. Songs link the physical realm to the spiritual realm and all sentient beings within physical existence to each other (Atleo/Umeek 2004). Songs are expressions of the Nuu-chah-nulth constitutional principles of recognition, consent, continuity, and respect. For example, the Nuu-chah-nulth enact the principle of recognition at feasts where those who have been invited receive gifts (including songs), which "promote balance and harmony between beings" (p. 80). The principle of recognition extends "to include both people and the living environment" (p. 84). Likewise, the notion of consent, "a kind of consensus that reality is characterized by purposeful diversity" (p. 93), acknowledges both the importance of individual self-expression and the need for "balance and harmony within the diversity of community" (p. 95). In this view, community is understood broadly to include the entire ecosystem and the beings that inhabit it; therefore, individual selfexpression enhances both individual and ecological well-being. Consent leads to the continuity of and respect for all living things because "all life forms have value and all are to be allowed to continue to live sustainably because of this value" (Atleo/ Umeek 2011, p. 117).

Crucially, Atleo/Umeek (2011) states that these principles provide humans with a means to solve our global problems, a framework for "working to transform the inherent contradictions of reality into a sustainable balance and harmony so that all life forms can continue to live" (p. 58). Atleo/Umeek (2011) uses the metaphor of music to illustrate diversity:

A piece of music can have many variations and interpretations. Yet, in spite of variations in the way specific notes are played, the musical theme remains the same ... in spite of the multiple interpretations of each piece of music or dance, the original musical score or dance routine can be identified. (Atleo/Umeek 2011, p. 121)

He uses this metaphor to suggest one way to arrive at consensus when attempting to resolve our global crises; he encourages us to focus on those musical themes or shared attributes that we hold in common despite our different interpretations so that we might arrive at consensus regarding those we all hold most dear. In learning to "co-manage our common reality," we, as multiple species, survive. For Atleo/ Umeek (2011), "survival... is, metaphorically speaking, like harmonious music" (p. 122). Thus, across North America, for Indigenous peoples, diversity in musical expression is representative of and dependent on rich and diverse ecologies, geographies, and histories, which have cultivated unique insights that might offer humanity pathways to ecological sustainability.

#### 4 Music Education for Ecological Sustainability

In October 2018 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC 2018) released a report giving a dire warning about "the impacts of global warming of 1.5 C above pre-industrial levels" and calling for an urgent "global response to the threat of climate change, sustainable development, and efforts to eradicate poverty." We believe that music educators can and should play a role—through their professional responsibilities as music educators—in addressing ecological crises and their impacts. Many schools have environmental education programs aimed at connecting students with and increasing their understandings of nature. However, as Fletcher (2017) postulates, these programs can end up reifying perceived divisions between culture and nature: "The idea that one could be disconnected from 'nature' ... is fundamentally grounded in a culturally specific nature-culture dichotomy, for without this sense of strict separation between the human and nonhuman realms this particular perception of alienation would not be possible" (pp. 228–229). When people recognize that they are part of rather than separate from or above the "morethan-human world" (p. 232), on the other hand, they may be more likely to recognize and care about the readily apparent environmental destruction around them.

Ecologically diverse approaches to music and musicking, such as the Indigenous perspectives outlined in this chapter, can engage students in experiences that embrace the inseparability of planetary diversity and see themselves as part of the whole. We do recognize the dynamic and evolving nature of Indigenous cultural practices and caution against romanticizing or essentializing cultural ecologies. In this light, Yeh and Bryan (2015) propose a political ecology that understands "Indigenous peoples as living [within] modern forms of economy and power—states and capital—in ways that [recognize] their embeddedness within colonialism, slavery, war, and capitalist exploitation" (p. 533). Nonetheless, we believe that music educators can draw insight from Indigenous and other ecocentric perspectives on music, teaching, and learning to shape curriculum and instruction in ways that further the goals of education for environmental sustainability.

The International Convention on Biodiversity, in 1992, "acknowledged the role of traditional lifestyles of Indigenous people related to the conservation of biodiversity, and recognized their property rights to biodiversity and associated knowledge" (Blanc and Soini 2015, p. 77). Music educators in Indigenous communities or in schools with any percentage of Indigenous students have a responsibility to help maintain these traditions as dynamic adaptive processes based in holistic conceptualizations of ecodiversity. Music educators in both rural and metropolitan settings can also introduce Indigenous cultural traditions appropriately to non-Indigenous music students; these traditions can potentially teach all students something about their own places in the world and responsibilities to care for the natural environment. Indigenous philosophies, as outlined in this chapter, provide an alternative to the Western anthropocentrism that has precipitated current climate crises. Henderson and Zarger (2017) write: "Acknowledging the profound inseparability among humans, non-human species, and the environment is paramount to understanding links between education and behavior, or learning and doing, and how these relationships are produced in pedagogical spaces" (Henderson and Zarger 2017, p. 286). Thus, rather than breadth, pedagogical approaches involving Indigenous music should emphasize enough depth to get at ecological understandings integral to Indigenous practices.

Ecodiversity can be fostered as each local community works, through schooling as well as through other means, to preserve its distinct practices and ways of living well in place. Too often, particularly for White and majority students, multicultural music education (in which Indigenous musics traditionally play a part) is focused on "exposing" students to a diversity of distant cultures, drawing minds and hearts away from local places. We believe that students have a right to initially experience musical heritages in school that reflect the places where they live. Too often, educational discourses elide local ecosystems, even to the extent of promising "social mobility" intended to "liberate" children from local places, culturally and physically; in the words of Prakash and Esteva (2008), "children learn to leave home, not to stay home" (p. 3). On the other hand, conceptions that enculturate students to honor geographical, ecological places can serve to perpetuate diverse local cultures and preserve natural environments. Redirecting the scholarly gaze beyond the anthropocentric, in this way, is a necessary antecedent in forging sustainable alternatives to currently destructive trajectories.

Music educators can be influential in foregrounding local musical traditions and emphasizing musicking within local contexts of community and family, especially with the guidance of local human and nonhuman musickers. Where possible, music educators can have students of all backgrounds research their own placed histories and try to uncover musics and stories connected to the ways their ancestors related to the natural world. Thus, children may begin to find alternative ways to live regeneratively in place. This rerooting praxis (Shevock 2017) is in line with Weil's (2002/1949) "need for roots," which stands at odds with uprooted global, technological ways that can make flourishing difficult, to say the least, considering the previously mentioned threats human "progress" poses to Earth's ecosystems. For Weil, rooted collectivities preserve the past as "the sole agency for preserving the spiritual treasures accumulated by the dead, the sole transmitting agency by means of which the dead can speak to the living" (p. 8). The protection and rehabilitation of diverse natural ecosystems can further bolster efforts to preserve and revitalize cultural diversity and, reciprocally, strategies that foster cultural diversity can encourage and stimulate ecodiversity. If the diminishment of one kind of diversity can adversely affect the other, then this threat represents a powerful advocacy argument for the need to promote each, and both (Grant 2012).

#### 5 Conclusion

Indigenous knowledge, in combination with new materialism and political ecology discourses, can help us come back down to earth in ways of being and becoming that are ecologically sustainable, preserving the ecodiversity that exists and grows in place, forging egalitarian relationships and a sense of communal responsibility, fostering reverence for ancestors along with nonhuman lives and topographies, and cultivating musical practices that are one with our respective ecosystems. Music educators, who recognize that such actions bring to light and push back against unquestioned hierarchies and social bias, discover that contributing to diversity in music education is inherently political. In foregrounding their students' musical traditions and emphasizing musicking within local contexts of community, family, and soundscape, with the guidance of local music makers, these music educators actively support ecodiversity in music education. Indigenous traditions and actions are proving especially vital in this work because they—along with other ecomusicological experiences and forms of local musicking—can facilitate our return to ecodiversity and sustainability, not in the sense of further appropriating or enclosing cultural traditions but in concert with communities as they nurture their musical roots, attuned to their respective geographical locations.

#### References

Vincent C. Bates is an Associate Professor of Teacher Education at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah, where he teaches arts integration and educational foundations. Vincent's research interests include intersections between music education, place, and social class. Prior to WSU, he was a member of the music faculty at Northwest Missouri State University for 6 years and taught K-12 music and art in Eureka, Utah for 12 years.

Daniel J. Shevock is a music education philosopher and author of the monograph, Eco-Literate Music Pedagogy, published by Routledge, and a blog at eco-literate.com. He teaches at Penn State Altoona and plays jazz vibraphone. Dan's scholarship blends creativity, ecology, and critique.

Anita Prest is Assistant Professor of Music Education in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Victoria (British Columbia, Canada). Her current research, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Council of Canada (SSHRC), examines the ways in which public school music educators in rural British Columbia, together with First Nations community members, facilitate the appropriate embedding of local Indigenous knowledge, pedagogy, and cultural practices in music classes. Prior to her appointment, Anita taught K-12 music for 20 years in rural and metropolitan settings.

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter's Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.

## Part IV Reconsidering the Politics of Music Education Leadership

## From a Different Place to a Third Space: Rethinking International Student Pedagogy in the Western Conservatoire

#### Biranda Ford

Abstract Conservatoires in the West are now made up of a significant body of international students who come to study the Western canon of classical music. With the canon arising in the same milieu as Enlightenment notions of shared humanity, historically, many have argued that this music has a wide, cross-cultural appeal. Though such tropes of classical music still exist, they also have the potential today to act as awkward anachronisms, markers of elitism, whiteness and cultural hegemony. This chapter starts from the perspective that the considerable economic contribution of international students to host institutions risks reproducing colonial relations if their pedagogical experiences are not thought through carefully. Looking to postcolonial theory to make sense of the dynamics at play, key concepts from Homi Bhabha are used as a lens to view the conservatoire. It is argued that international students are marginalized through stereotyping and positioned 'in need' of a Western education, even with attempts to bring their cultural experience of learning into account. I advocate that the conservatoire must move beyond its attempts to contain the effects of cultural diversity and instead harness the potential for self-renewal that comes from embracing cultural difference in a third space.

Keywords Western classical music · Music higher education · Conservatoires · Music pedagogy · International students · Cultural difference · Music education research · Intercultural education · Postcolonial theory · Third space

© The Author(s) 2021 A. A. Kallio et al. (eds.), The Politics of Diversity in Music Education, Landscapes: the Arts, Aesthetics, and Education 29, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-65617-1\_13

B. Ford (\*)

Guildhall School of Music & Drama, London, UK e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
#### 1 Introduction

Conservatoires in the West, within the contemporary context of a globalized market for higher education, are now made up of a significant body of international students.1 Though the increased mobility of students worldwide is a relatively new phenomenon, conservatoires have long supported an international body of faculty and students who come together to learn and teach the Western canon of classical music. With the canon arising in the same milieu as Enlightenment notions of shared humanity – for instance, Kantian cosmopolitanism – historically, many have argued that this music has a wide cross-cultural appeal. In the nineteenth century, the century of the founding of many of Europe's prestigious conservatoires (Ford 2010), much was written about music's ability to transcend language barriers or to function as a fundamental pre-language speaking to universal emotions and direct human experience (for instance, Schopenhauer 1818). Though such tropes of classical music still have currency – witness Daniel Barenboim's references to classical music as 'international language' (2016) – they also have the potential to be read as awkward anachronisms, markers of elitism, whiteness and cultural hegemony as today's identity politics negate any appeal to universal experience. So how might we understand what happens when Western classical music is taught to international students in the contemporary conservatoire?

This chapter starts from the perspective that the considerable economic contribution of international students to host institutions risks reproducing colonial relations if their pedagogical experiences are not thought through carefully. Looking to postcolonial theory to make sense of the dynamics at play, I use key concepts from Homi Bhabha (1994) as a lens to view the conservatoire. Concepts such as Bhabha's 'hybridity' – that peoples and cultures no matter where they seem to originate are always irreducibly hybrid – and 'the third space', a notional site that enables students to negotiate and reimagine different hybrid identities, are considered in terms of current and suggested future conservatoire practices. More specifically, I argue that international students are marginalized through stereotyping and positioned 'in need' of a Western education, even with attempts to bring their cultural experience of learning into account. I advocate that the conservatoire must move beyond its attempts to contain the effects of cultural diversity and instead harness the potential for self-renewal that comes from embracing cultural difference in a third space. Though I speak primarily from my UK location, I bring in literature also from Australia and the USA, in the hope that my observations will be applicable to other settings.

1 Here, 'West' or 'Western' denotes Europe and Northern America and also countries that are English speaking and draw substantially on Europe for political, social, cultural and educational traditions, for example, Australia. I use the word 'conservatoire' here to mean schools of music in higher education, either independent institutions or within university music departments, that focus on the tuition of Western classical music performance.

#### 2 The Economic Imperative of Internationalism in Higher Education

The higher education market in the UK is increasingly reliant on international students. By 2017 the contribution to the overall economy by international students was in excess of £25 billion (Universities UK 2017). Though the need to recruit internationally to the UK has existed since cuts were made to government funding in the 1980s, where once a significant number of students came from the European Union, repeated financial crises in the Eurozone from 2008 onwards have resulted in an increased dependence on non-Western students. Reporting in 2017, the Higher Education Statistics Agency noted that students from China had outnumbered students from all EU countries since 2012, amounting to one fifth of the entire international student population. Though non-EU students have always paid a premium in fees over their EU counterparts, the now uncertain future of Britain in the EU is predicted to further increase higher education's reliance on overseas markets.

For British conservatoires, 'overseas markets' primarily means East Asia. Staff embark on annual recruitment circuits in cities across China, Taiwan, Japan, Singapore and neighbouring countries, and conservatoire website information can be found translated into Mandarin and Japanese. Whilst this geographical concentration builds upon the historic popularity of classical music in the region, where once Japanese and Korean students came to study in British conservatoires, they are joined by Chinese students who are now a dominant force in classical music studies across the world.

Based on press reports in the UK and the USA that cite up to 40 million children across China playing the piano and 50 million the violin, Huang (2012) has presented numerous commentators' predictions that China could overtake Western countries in their expertise in classical music. This is perhaps evidence of the success of the Chinese government's endorsement of classical music at the highest political levels, an endorsement which has also triggered the mass building of concert halls and opera houses in recent years. In stark contrast to the banning of classical music under Mao at the time of the Cultural Revolution for exemplifying Western bourgeois values, it would seem that classical music in China has been officially realigned with traditional Confucian values such as discipline and hard work (Huang 2012). This points to another distinguishing feature of the classical music boom in China, namely, that it has not required the suppression of its own traditional music or cultural values. Whilst the Japanese favoured Western classical music over its own musical traditions (Schippers 2010), the Chinese interest in Western music has taken place alongside a proud promotion of its own. For instance, Chinese traditional song is used in school education to inculcate a strong sense of national heritage and identity (Ho 2018). Huang (2012) does suggest that Western classical music taps into a contemporary Chinese need to demonstrate its superiority and modernity to the rest of the world by excelling at Western cultural traditions. However, that this takes place alongside the championing of its own music could suggest also an embracing of plurality rather than an overriding impulse to respond to past Western colonial domination.

In this light, the decision to study in Britain and other Western conservatoires by Chinese students would seem to involve the matching of existing teaching expertise with a growing demand for tuition. Those who justify internationalism in higher education as an efficient way of providing skills for students around the world to become workers in a global economy would perhaps see this as a happy meeting of consumer and provider. The teaching of a common repertoire and musical values to all students, home and international, who have enrolled by choice and who might notionally compete for the same orchestral positions across the world, might appear to be a reasonable approach to take. However, is this education as neutral an endeavour as this argument would suggest? Can the discourse of a global workforce prepared by an international education dispel a modern distrust of universalizing explanations?

A formative experience in my own journey into this topic was the informal conversations with students and teachers that alerted me to the fact that international student education – so common in the conservatoire world as to be invisible – might not be as unproblematic as it might seem. In tertiary music education institutions in the UK, Belgium and USA, I have heard strikingly similar accounts of how Chinese and other East Asian students as musicians are seen through the eyes and ears of those brought up through the Western classical music system. Stories of 'excellent technique' and 'amazing sound' but a lack of 'true' musical understanding, or 'shallow' readings, have been voiced, along with assertions that European composers base their instrumental music on their mother tongue, therefore rendering those that come from other language traditions unable to access the full implications of 'the composer's intentions' (see Wang 2019). These comments would suggest that classical music's universal status in its performance, reception and teaching is not as straightforward as it might at first seem. In addition, if students who do not match up to Western norms might be placed at a disadvantage, then we ought to take a closer look to untangle the complexity at play.

#### 3 Conservatoires: Evading Four Decades of Debate on Cultural Diversity

Despite their history of internationalism, conservatoires, whether independent institutions or embedded in university music departments, have not normally been known as sites of cultural diversity. In terms of their core curriculum offerings of a music education based on the Western European canon of classical music, many have successfully resisted a fundamental change in the repertoire they teach and the master-apprentice pedagogy by which it is taught. Long-standing challenges to the authority of the canon, through showing the sociocultural construction of the standard repertory (for instance, Goehr 1992; Citron 1993) or through raising awareness of the variety of musical practices that take place across every human culture, have made little change to contemporary mainstream conservatoire practice. For instance, in Britain, whilst contemporary music, jazz, music theatre and national folk musics have made it onto selected courses either as elective choices or as degree programmes in their own right, these additions are notable for staying within familiar Western genres.2

That Western musics have been the focus of Western curricula has been problematized extensively in the field of music education. Over four decades, multiple calls for more diverse curricula roughly fit into two categories: (1) the musical, that there are a host of benefits to musicianship from studying a range of musical traditions, and (2) the social – that social justice through cultural representation or that understanding and tolerance of people from other cultures arises from learning other musics (Drummond 2005). These debates have effected a profound change in school music curricula which now include different world musics and varied genres from popular culture as part of their mainstream offering. Though all of these debates are directly applicable to specialist higher education, with a few notable exceptions (for instance, Sydney Conservatorium's Balinese gamelan and Chinese orchestra programmes or the Glomas network's support of intercultural projects across partner institutions), conservatoires have remained largely unaware of the need to engage with these direct critiques either in theory or in practice (Lind and McKoy 2016).

However, at the level of policy, the most recent calls for radical change in the tertiary sector have put cultural diversity as a central pillar of a new vision for music education. Sarath, Myers and Campbell's Manifesto for Progressive Change (2017), targeted at undergraduate music courses in the USA, draws both musical and social arguments for diversity together into a vision of ambitious scope. It is argued that a thorough knowledge of different musics of the world would give students the ability to grapple with sameness and difference by, on the one hand, experiencing music at a common perceptual level of 'sonic structures' (Sarath et al. 2017, p. 425) whilst also learning about specific cultural contexts. The purpose of diversity here is both transformative and compensatory, for instance, in drawing upon improvisation traditions to bring about a shift from interpretation to creation as the basis for musical engagement and at the same time to increase access of minorities to music higher education.

Further recent developments in the debates over diversity have sought to shift the centre of debate away from curriculum. Fears have been voiced that additive approaches to curriculum can result in tokenism, with poorly understood or integrated new content acting as a smoke screen for a more politically ambivalent praxis (Sharma 2004). In addition, this approach has been open to hijack from multiculturalists insistent on entrenching a rigid identity politics through curriculum

2 Examples taken from a selection of UK conservatoires: Royal Conservatoire of Scotland's BA and MA courses in Scottish traditional and folk music; Royal Academy of Music's MA in Musical Theatre performance.

(Karlsen et al. 2016). Looking instead at the efficacy of pedagogical processes through 'culturally responsive teaching' (Gay 2018), Lind and McKoy (2016) make the case that music's close connection to culture and personal identity requires teachers to be aware of the elements of cultural socialization that most directly concern learning in the classroom. However, they also acknowledge that 'the path to greater understanding is challenging; remedies are not readily apparent and the topic is sensitive in nature' (McKoy et al. 2009, p. 52).

This account of existing debates in the music education literature has shown that school music has received more attention in the literature and made more changes in practice than conservatoires in both curriculum content and pedagogy in response to the need to engage with cultural diversity. To open up a rationale to problematize the teaching of international students in the conservatoire, I now turn to the literature on higher education that critiques internationalization at the level of institutional policy and, in turn, how these critiques affect international students in teaching.

#### 4 Internationalization in Higher Education: Policy and Pedagogy

International students are coming to study at Western institutions in increasing numbers; however, there is a growing disquiet with the shortcomings of the perceived dominance of an economic discourse. Critiques have existed for a number of years now that argue that in policy internationalization has only been crudely enacted as a drive to bring more people into campuses (Robson 2011). More recently, Haapakoski and Pashby's inquiry into policies behind the increase of international student numbers in Western higher education found that economic factors were cited most often in policy directives. When civic benefits were mentioned, these too were with recourse to discourses of economic benefit for host countries (2017). This has fuelled fears that higher education is being reduced to a predominantly commercial enterprise that could also work to reproduce global inequalities in the absence of questioning 'the assumptions behind who benefits from [higher education] and internationalisation and how' (Haapakoski and Pashby 2017, p. 361).

These concerns might seem exaggerated given that diversity is often overtly celebrated in the discourse of higher education. Even beyond this generalized approval, research shows tangible benefits are made available to all students in ethnically diverse education communities. Gurin et al. (2002) show that higher education coincides with a sensitive period in young people's identity formation and that peer influence forms a major part of how individuals construct themselves in relation to the socio-political world. A diverse student body therefore gives rise to tolerant and worldly graduates. Via Piaget, Gurin et al. argue that diverse communities bring with them discontinuity and discrepancy that 'spur cognitive growth' (2002, p. 335) across the wider student population. However, whilst there is broad agreement that engaging with 'cross-cultural ignorance' (Singh 2009, p. 185) can enable intellectual development, in practice this does not happen. Expressions of diversity are usually limited to the general environment of an institution, whilst the stuff of teaching and learning remains unaltered.

This suggests that host institutions are failing to maximize the benefits of internationalization. What, however, might be the effects of this restricted vision on international students themselves? The emergence of a sizeable literature on specific pedagogies for international students would perhaps suggest that when asked to learn solely within the frames of reference of the host institution, problems do arise. For instance, one such popular resource for teachers that coincided with the rise of internationalism in higher education (Biggs 2003) described three phases that teachers would go through in attempting to negotiate cultural divides in the classroom. The first two phases were described in terms of a deficit; by holding up host countries' often tacitly expressed educational values as a norm, international students were seen as lacking. Whilst phase one hoped that students would assimilate themselves into the new way of doing things, phase two typically involved the teacher accommodating difference by adopting new and creative teaching techniques to 'plug gaps' in perceived holes in student knowledge or behaviour. The third stage was called 'education', where the focus returned to the students but this time within the larger context of the student's educational experiences and cultural frames of reference in which prior learning had taken place (Biggs 2003, p. 133).

The desired conceptual shift for teachers is that once the wider context of learning was taken into account, differences that were once attributed to a characteristic of race, for instance, being passive and uncritical, unwilling to participate in class discussions and relying on rote learning (Biggs 2003) would now come to be located somewhere different, as part of another cultural perspective rather than a fixed attitude or property of cognition. Akin to culturally responsive teaching (Gay 2018), Biggs (2003) revealed these stereotypes as myths that dissolved once the teacher worked out which cultural understandings underpinned the behaviour and then skilfully directed students to reach the intended goal. Thus, once a wider context was taken into account, good teaching could give a level playing field to all students.

#### 5 Constructing Diversity in the Conservatoire

To what extent are attempts made to negotiate the wider context of learning of international students in Western classical music? I will now look at two examples from the research literature that articulate teachers' points of view, coming from a Western perspective, of teaching Chinese students. Esslin-Peard and Shorrocks (2017) write of a university music programme in the UK with a high number of international students from China, whilst Huang and Thibodeaux (2016) come from faculties of music in the USA and write of the masterclasses they give to Chinese students in summer programmes in China. Both accounts give the wider cultural context of music students in China, explaining that the study of classical music is often chosen as an accomplishment that can be seen to improve status in society and to advance through to prestigious schools and higher education. As such, visible markers of success such as competitions, and the need for the technical brilliance that goes with them, play an important role in students' aspirations.

In terms of taking into account the wider cultural context, both articles describe effort and rote learning, along with deference to instrumental teachers as originating in students' enculturated values of Confucianism. In their accounts, both sets of teachers are in accordance with Biggs' advice to look at what students might do to achieve desired results. Esslin-Peard and Shorrocks use reflective writing, an often advocated tool in Western teaching (Boud 2010), and ask whether Chinese students approach these with the critical outlook needed to provoke the necessary change in learning. Huang and Thibodeaux try a range of interventions, including educating about European music history and composers. Further strategies are aimed at prompting Chinese students to break free of performing 'woodenly by rote' and instead direct them to 'thoughtful engagement with the music' and 'depiction of detailed emotional content' (2016, p. 30).

What is notable here is that these results are always discussed within implicit frames of Western values, from expectations around being critical to what counts as emotional engagement, musical understanding and, perhaps more fundamentally, being musical. Thus, even when attempting to teach in a culturally sensitive manner as per Biggs, whilst the goal is a fixed notion of what counts as right by Western standards, teaching can only ever be enacted as transmitting a set of norms of the host culture. Students who do not assimilate are understood as stereotypes, fixed by explanations to common culture (on both sides), so that Chinese students are always positioned as being 'in need' of a Western education.

With this bleak reading, Haapakoski and Pashby's plea that we look at 'the assumptions behind who benefits from [higher education] and internationalisation and how' (2017, p. 361) would seem timely. Undoubtedly, there is general approval on the ground for a culturally diverse student body, but does this go beyond surface expressions of a politically correct multiculturalism, the hubris of publicizing a conservatoire's 'world-class' status, or, taking steps to manage practical difficulties that arise by, for instance, providing extra language support? It would seem that without a clear sense of articulating what international students can bring beyond fulfilling admissions quotas and fees targets, conservatoires can suffer from the same charge of economic exploitation that Haapakoski and Pashby bring to the rest of higher education.

#### 6 From (Containing) Cultural Diversity to (Playing with) Cultural Difference

I would like to suggest that Bhabha (1994), by merging colonial theory's concerns with how colonizers subjugate the colonized with post-structuralism's focus on the contextual and mutable nature of meaning, offers some useful ways for mapping out a space in which to make sense of and move through these observations. Like theorists such as Said (1978) before him, Bhabha looks at how stereotypes and identities are constructed within colonizer-colonized roles and how they enforce cultural supremacy. However, a key difference to his predecessors is that for Bhabha the mechanisms of cultural superiority, rather than working to produce clear-cut and fixed categories, are constantly relational, with colonizer and colonized implicated and imbricated within each other through a co-existing process of attraction and repulsion. This produces an ambivalence that works against conceptions of identity that are essentialist and explanations which are consistent and whole (Andreotti 2011).

In terms of thinking through China's relation with Western classical music – admiring but also with a motivation to demonstrate strength through engaging and perhaps even outdoing Western performance standards of classical music (see Huang 2012) – Bhabha's concept of ambivalence, suspending both attraction and repulsion simultaneously, has resonance. This is also seen in the rationale behind conservatoire recruitment strategies; after all, the decision to recruit heavily from China, as well as fulfilling economic need, is also made by way of arguing that Chinese students meet or exceed a certain standard. By possessing attributes, e.g. technical accomplishment and exemplary work ethic, they are chosen by audition panels in preference to their Western counterparts. This approval in recruitment also gives an endorsing sense of Western classical music's universal appeal and significance to those doing the recruiting. However, it can seem contradictory when seen to co-exist with the propensity to invoke marginalizing stereotypes once students have arrived.

As tools of understanding this uneasy relationship, two more concepts from Bhabha may be helpful: mimicry and stereotypes. The urge on the part of the colonizer to make the colonized reproduce its own culture, assumptions and values leads to what Bhabha calls mimicry. As something that is 'almost the same, but not quite', mimicry is always met with fear that to recognize the colonized as the same as the colonizer would erode the colonizers' sense of superiority which justifies domination. Thus 'it is at once resemblance and menace' (Bhabha 1994, p. 86). To cope with the fear of mimicry, colonizers resort to creating stereotypes, constructions of Otherness with fixed identities that characterize the colonized as 'knowable, unchangeable, and predictable' (Andreotti 2011, p. 26). The approval shown at recruitment stage as culture, assumptions and values are (nearly) replicated, later turns to the need to contain rather than engage with the Other, and this is done by recourse to stock Asian stereotypes.

How do we navigate away from this impasse? Bhabha suggests that the problem lies with our tendency to conceptualize cultural diversity as something fixed and knowable (2006). Hidden inside the notion of cultural diversity is an assumption that identities are stable according to ethnicity and that cultural concepts and customs are pregiven because of race (e.g. because of Confucian beliefs, all Chinese students will approach Western classical music in a given way/ people who come from the West will engage on an emotional level with music in a certain way). Bhabha argues that cultural diversity (2006) is conceptualized so that stories of common history, background and traditions all rely on verifying and proving links to origins to maintain their credibility. Perhaps unexpectedly, Bhabha also critiques universalism as flawed by the same logic, so that certain characteristics occur because we are all supposedly members of 'mankind'.

Stories of origins and 'fixity' (Andreotti 2011, p. 26) are problematic for Bhabha as they conceal the fact that peoples have always intermingled and there is no such thing as racial purity. By extension culture has been, and remains as a result of this intermingling, perpetually hybrid. This notion is crucial in reversing claims of dominance, as seeing hybridity in all cultural forms and meanings enables us to reject narratives which cast certain peoples as legitimate inheritors or sole carriers of traditions.

But, to Bhabha, culture is also fluid and unknowable in a further more basic sense as he sees language as necessarily ambivalent, even at its point of enunciation, 'it is only when we understand that all cultural statements and systems are constructed in this contradictory and ambivalent space of enunciation, that we begin to understand why hierarchical claims to the inherent originality or 'purity' of cultures are untenable, even before we resort to empirical historical instances that demonstrate their hybridity' (Bhabha 2006, pp. 156–157). By moving from cultural diversity to cultural difference, Bhabha exploits this lack of common ground by suggesting that a truly international meaning can emerge in a third space of, 'the 'inter'-..., the in-between... that carries the burden of the meaning of culture.... It is in this space that we will find those words with which we can speak of Ourselves and Others. And by exploring this hybridity, this 'Third Space,' we may elude the politics of polarity and emerge as the others of our selves' (2006, p. 157).

How might these concepts be used to imagine and bring about alternative futures for international students in conservatoires, futures that 'elude the politics of polarity'? A key move would be to use the concept of hybridity as the basis to disrupt the authority by which those in conservatoires fix meaning, standards and norms, exposing the fabrication upon which Western classical music is said to belong to one group of people and not another. That would put the onus on teachers to move from being inheritors/guardians of traditions that can draw lineage back through generations of previous teachers to a supposedly identifiable origin. Instead teaching would become an act of facilitating the decolonization of knowledge and culture in a 'third space'.

In contrast to concepts of cultural exchange which all too easily can reduce to discussions of 'norm and Other' ('We do things here like this; oh, you do things over there like that...?'), the third space offers a neutral forum where discourses can be mediated, navigated between or imagined anew. Students can be given the chance to rewrite their narratives rather than be forced to live by the ones imposed upon them, negotiate local and global contexts and compare disciplinary knowledge and lived experience. Such an education would also give students a chance to make relevant a Western curriculum to their own personal and geographical contexts and, by refusing to marginalize in the face of difference, would be more ethically just.

Though this might seem fanciful when viewed through the lens of conservatoire realpolitik, it is of note that precedent already exists in graduate professional training to explicitly set up third spaces for students to navigate different and potentially contradictory domains, for instance, disciplinary and professional knowledge (e.g. Tremonte 2011). Music, arguably prone to more ambivalence in meaning than language, would be ripe for experiment and discussion in a third space that could bring the identity of the performer into dialogue with performance traditions. Furthermore, in Bhabha's definition of mimicry, based around the colonized's ultimately failed attempt to mimic the colonizer, there seems to be an additional resonance with classical music; to what extent are all attempts of interpretation acts of mimicry, more so in classical music than in other performance arts because of the dictum that through our performance we aim to 'recreate the composer's' intentions'? Could all performance students explore their relationship to mimicry through entering into a third space that would allow them to bring their personal identities, histories, qualities and neurodivergences into collision with the traditions and performance lineages of the works they perform? This example diffuses the unhelpful perpetuation of groups of colonizer and colonized and also takes up Bhahba's invitation to 'emerge as the others of our selves' (2006, p. 157). Stated thus more broadly, this is potentially liberating for all conservatoire students and promises a renewal of classical music that many contemporary commentators point to as a necessary condition of avoiding its obsolescence (e.g. Leech-Wilkinson 2016).

Ultimately, each institution would have to find its own platform for students to engage with learning in a third space. Though the relinquishing of traditional lines of authority in the conservatoire might seem unlikely, enabling cultural difference to be at the centre of teaching and learning would avoid the troubling prophecy that internationalization can only ever lead to economic exploitation via a marginalization of the very students it seeks to recruit. By actively engaging with difference, conservatoires could fully deliver on their duty of care to international students. At the same time, they would transform themselves from sites of cultural reproduction based on a Western norm to a more student-centred education – a move that would surely benefit all conservatoire students.

#### References

Biranda Ford is Graduate Research Training and Development Leader at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, where she teaches on the doctoral programme. She studied music at Oxford University, violin at San Francisco Conservatory of Music and completed her PhD at the Institute of Education, London. Her research interests centre around music education, including pedagogy, intercultural learning and decolonizing higher education.

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter's Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.

## Internationalization, Hegemony, and Diversity: In Search of a New Vision for the Global Music Education Community

Alexandra Kertz-Welzel

The work of internationalization is complex, multifaceted and fraught with power relations. (Aw 2017, xxiii).

Abstract In higher education, internationalization is often seen as an exclusively positive development, even though there has been increased critique. This critique concerns a superficial understanding of internationalization as copying what globally successful universities do, thus ignoring local or national needs. But it is also related to the danger of confusing internationalization with Anglo-Americanization, in general and in various fields such as music education. Therefore, an investigation of what internationalization is with regard to music education and how it could look differently is much needed. This chapter critically analyzes internationalization in music education. At the core is the question of how internationalizing music education can be shaped in a way that overcomes hidden structures of hegemony. This chapter envisions a culturally sensitive internationalization of music education which acknowledges various teaching and research cultures. A framework, suggesting conceptual categories such as educational transfer or global knowledge production, can facilitate the formation of a united, yet diverse, global music education community. Additionally, selected concepts of community are presented that can be models for what a culturally sensitive international music education community could look like.

Keywords Internationalization · Diversity · Educational transfer · Global music education community · Hegemony · Higher education · Global mindset

© The Author(s) 2021 A. A. Kallio et al. (eds.), The Politics of Diversity in Music Education, Landscapes: the Arts, Aesthetics, and Education 29, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-65617-1\_14

A. Kertz-Welzel (\*)

Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet, Munich, Germany e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
#### 1 Introduction

Internationalization, particularly in higher education, is often seen as an exclusively positive development. It offers universities opportunities for research collaborations and for proving their achievements in global rankings. Internationalization seems connected to endless possibilities for academic and financial success. But internationalization also has its downsides. By focusing on global dimensions, national, regional, or local aspects of universities are often neglected. Additionally, one teaching or research culture can dominate global discourses.

This chapter critically analyzes internationalization in music education, particularly in higher education. At the core is the question of how internationalizing music education can be realized in a way that overcomes hidden structures of hegemony. It envisions a culturally sensitive internationalization of music education which acknowledges various teaching and research cultures. A framework is presented, based on research findings from different fields. It suggests conceptual categories such as educational transfer or global knowledge production that need to be considered when aiming at the formation of a united, yet diverse, global music education community (Kertz-Welzel 2018). Furthermore, selected sociological concepts of community are presented to illustrate what such a community could look like.

The chapter starts with considerations about what internationalization is and what critical perspectives on it could mean, in general and regarding music education. The second part presents a framework with selected categories which concern music education especially in higher education.1 The following section develops the notion of a culturally sensitive global music education community. The final part offers perspectives for the future.2

#### 2 What Is Internationalization?

Even though internationalization is an omnipresent term, there is a lack of general research about this topic. Therefore, it is often not clear what it entails.3 Basically, internationalization has three different meanings. It stands for initiatives which go beyond national borders. It is connected to transnational political relationships. The term has likewise been used concerning a product which has been developed in one

1 While the ideas presented are focused on higher education, they can easily be adapted to music education in schools, for instance, regarding the global mindset.

2 This chapter is based on research results presented in the publication "Globalizing music education" (Kertz-Welzel 2018) but also going beyond the scope of this book. It further develops the notion of community and is more closely related to recent research in higher education studies (Aw 2017).

3 There rarely is a comprehensive analysis of what internationalization means. Most studies investigate it as related to specific areas such as law (Varella 2014) or higher education (Knight 2012).

country and is adapted for the use in other countries (Kertz-Welzel 2018, pp. 3–5). Generally, internationalization is based on the notion of nation states.

Regarding higher education, internationalization describes initiatives going beyond national borders. It represents "the intentional process of integrating an international, intercultural, and global dimension into the purpose, functions, and delivery of post-secondary education ... to make a meaningful contribution to society" (De Wit and Hunter 2015, p. 3). This indicates that internationalization is a goal-oriented process which deeply affects the very nature of universities. It can concern research and teaching partnerships or a global exchange of ideas. But it might likewise be about adopting new learning styles, thereby addressing the concerns of global students. It is also connected to universities' mere general goals in terms of making meaningful contributions to society. Usually, there are four rationales for internationalization in terms of political, economic, social, and cultural as well as academic reasons, supporting the success of a university (De Wit 2011). They indicate internationalization's multifaceted nature.

But there has also been critique regarding a superficial understanding. Knight (2011, 2012) and De Wit (2011) underline especially four problems of internationalization. First, internationalization should not be an end in itself; rather, it is supposed to aim toward fostering developing intercultural competencies and help preparing students for life and work in a global world. Second, internationalization concerns more than global rankings and partnerships; it affects the very nature of universities and should lead to changes regarding, for example, the teaching and research culture. Third, national differences and characteristics in higher education worldwide are important and meaningful in respective contexts. Therefore, internationalization should build on the local context and common ways of knowledge production, and not ignore them in favor of global standards; this includes implementing intercultural and global dimensions into the policies and programs of universities. Finally, on institutional and individual levels, the development of intercultural competencies is much needed. In general, successful internationalization addresses the specific needs of a respective university and connects it with universities in other countries. But the significance of local context means that there is no one-fits-all solution. Rather, internationalization might look different in each country and is certainly no easy process. The term glocalization has been applied to various processes in attending to some of these aspects, however has not been uncontroversial (Roudometof 2016).

Higher education and specific fields of research such as music education are thus in need of a positive, yet critical, vision of internationalization (Turner and Robson 2008). Brandenburg and De Wit (2011) even call for a "postinternationalization age." It might be time to address the challenges internationalization poses. First, it is crucial to realize that internationalization is not a neutral term but is rather connected to specific cultures and knowledges. Aw (2017, p. xxii) states that "dominant paradigms in the conception of internationalization traditionally come from the English-speaking world and Western Europe." She notes that internationalization is most often a one-sided process, for instance, from the Global North to the Global South, and not mutual. She states:

Internationalization involves knowledge exchange and transfer. However, the current practice is to privilege a form of knowledge originating from the North and flowing to the South. It is important that knowledge flows be multidirectional. Knowledge generation and dissemination need to be decolonized. (2017, p. xxii)

This demand could help redefining what internationalization in higher education is. Addressing issues of hegemony and marginalization is crucial, for example, regarding which knowledge is privileged. Aw (2017, p. xxii) suggests transforming what internationalization means toward having more "equitable policies and practices," also more sustainable concepts of cooperation. A first step would be uncovering hidden hegemonic structures such as the dominance of the North (Aw 2017, p. xxii). This concerns higher education in general but also specific subject areas such as music education where the hegemony of Anglo-American music education has rarely been questioned.

Although internationalizing music education has been a topic addressed in music education research, it has hardly been investigated comprehensively. There also is seldom a distinction of internationalization in higher education and in schools (e.g., McCarthy 2012; Kertz-Welzel 2008). It would be interesting to identify commonalities and differences concerning internationalization in these two areas, particularly with regard to how they address diversity. McCarthy (2012, p. 57) generally argues for understanding music education from a global perspective, realizing its common purpose, but also acknowledging its national characteristics. She uses the metaphor of "global tapestry of music education," illustrating the shared responsibility and challenges of music education worldwide. McCarthy identifies six challenges in global music education, related to music education as part of the public school curriculum: (1) the status of music education, (2) music education advocacy, (3) curriculum development and reform, (4) whose music is school music, (5) renewing the culture of pedagogy, (6) professional networks and forums for research. Most often, there have also been similar rationales for music education as part of the public school curriculum, for instance, nationalism and patriotism (Hebert and Kertz-Welzel 2012). Furthermore, educational transfer in terms of copying successful policies, strategies, or methods from other countries has been a well-known process in music education worldwide (Kertz-Welzel 2015). Methodologies such as Suzuki or Dalcroze are successful examples. While educational transfer is certainly not unproblematic, particularly regarding issues of hegemony when imperial powers force their models of schooling or teaching methods upon colonies (Philipps 2005), educational transfer is necessary to improve the quality of (music) education. But globally, it needs to be shaped in a more reflective way, taking issues of power into account. McCarthy (2012, p. 55) warns that "international perspectives in music education are founded on and dominated by narratives from Western countries and those influenced by the colonial presence of European countries." There is indeed a need for raising awareness for geographical, geopolitical, and geolinguistic aspects of internationalization in music education. Acknowledging the diversity of music education and research cultures worldwide is therefore crucial for a culturally sensitive internationalization of music education in both universities and schools. A framework can facilitate this process.

#### 3 The Framework

A framework functions like a researcher's map of the area investigated, providing a specific lens or perspective for scrutinizing a topic. It offers "a theoretical structure of categories and conceptual elements which can facilitate becoming a united and diverse global music education community" (Kertz-Welzel 2018, p. 10). A framework suggests various analytical categories and conceptual elements which arise from research findings in a respective field and can lead to new insights. Regarding music education, it can facilitate a culturally sensitive internationalization, for instance, concerning university programs preparing students for a global music education world or concerning international encounters (e.g., cooperation, conferences). It should not be something static but rather be expanded or revised through new research findings. The framework suggested here aims at overcoming the dominance of one music education tradition such as the Anglo-American one toward acknowledging the diversity of music education and research cultures worldwide. The notion of community regarding global community plays a crucial role in this process.

What could a culturally sensitive internationalization of music education look like? First, more knowledge about music education in various countries and internationalization will be paramount. This includes understanding what music education looks like worldwide and the impact internationalization had on it so far, e.g., regarding global exchange processes. This also includes how music education globally could be improved and internationalization shaped in a way supporting music education worldwide. Therefore, the framework offers selected categories addressing specific aspects of international music education such as educational transfer, international or comparative music education, and global knowledge production or the global mindset. They can be important points of reference and help shape internationalization in a culturally sensitive way.

Since music education is not a national field anymore, international and comparative music education can function as foundational research areas. Understanding music education as a global field of research means acknowledging the significance of educational transfer. This exchange of ideas has been going on at least since the eighteenth century when travelers from various countries came, for instance, to Switzerland or Germany, looking for the best instructional methods (Kertz-Welzel 2015). Since then, educational transfer in terms of copying successful strategies, methods, or policies from other countries has been most common. It has in recent years even been encouraged by international student assessments such as PISA (Program for International Student Assessment).4 Methodologies, for instance, the Orff-Schulwerk, represent global success stories of educational transfer. Even though they originated in a specific country such as Germany, they have been transferred to various countries worldwide, being adapted to new circumstances and respective musical traditions. The crucial issue, which educational transfer raises

4 For more information, see: http://www.oecd.org/pisa/.

in view of comparative music education, is the fact that music education in various countries has already been globally connected and international for a long time. This relativizes the validity of comparative music education as a field and comparison as a method. Therefore, mapping the global flow of ideas might be more important for international music education than just being focused on comparing music education systems in different countries. Connecting comparative and international music education with analyzing the global flow of ideas in terms of educational transfer supports understanding music education as a global research area.

Furthermore, global knowledge production is a significant part of a framework facilitating a culturally sensitive internationalization of music education. No matter if the research is undertaken in a classroom or a concert hall, utilizes interviews or questionnaires, it contributes to the global knowledge in music education. However, even though research is going on worldwide, there is a significant impact of geographical, geopolitical, and geolinguistic factors. It matters where somebody conducts research, whether in a remote part of South America or in a well-known city of the United States. While knowledge is always generated in a specific context, it also needs to be generalizable and applicable to various circumstances in music education. Due to the international dominance of Anglo-American music education, it often seems to reviewers of journals, that knowledge which is not part of the Anglo-American music education world does not qualify to become global knowledge because it seems to be too locally bound (Kertz-Welzel 2018, pp. 64–73). Therefore, raising awareness of the politics of global knowledge production and critically analyzing them are important aspects of a culturally sensitive internationalization of music education.

Additionally, language is a crucial issue since English as lingua franca dominates international music education. Standards of good writing in English have long been accepted as international standards in music education. Not exactly following them, particularly regarding rhetorical choices, can mislead reviewers to conclude that authors do not only have a deficit in English but also in scientific thinking and research methods. Sociolinguistic research has frequently pointed out these issues (e.g., Mauranen 1993). There are, however, still problems with discriminating non-English native speakers in peer-reviewed journals as Lillis and Curry (2012) point out.5 The inability to make the most common rhetorical choices often leads reviewers to the conclusion that the scholarly competencies of authors whose native language is not English are limited. While it is necessary to have a sufficient language proficiency in English to be active in global music education research, more sensitivity regarding the problems of non-native English speakers is needed. Addressing the problems of research and publishing in a global world is a vital part of a culturally sensitive internationalization of music education.

A culturally sensitive global music education community is in need of culturally responsive music educators and scholars. Therefore, the global mindset is a useful

5 For more information about this topic regarding music education, see: Kertz-Welzel 2018, pp. 70–73.

concept. It summarizes the knowledge and abilities culturally sensitive people possess, for instance, regarding being open toward cultural diversity and to effectively communicate across cultures. It includes learning how to address cultural misunderstandings and conflicts, constantly learning and revising individual positions. The global mindset encompasses three different forms of capital in terms of psychological, intellectual, and social (Clapp-Smith et al. 2007). Regarding psychological capital, attributes such as curiosity, openness to new experiences, and cognitive flexibility are important. This likewise concerns being able to have a variety of perspectives on a situation, finding creative solutions that respect the values of different cultural contexts. Intellectual capital concerns having knowledge of different cultures, of globalization, of respective fields such as music education from an international perspective. The social capital of the global mindset describes the significance of relationships and networks for success in the global music education community. Gaining the different forms of capital the global mindset encompasses requires personal transformations which might not be easily accomplished. The global mindset is, however, an indispensable part of a culturally sensitive internationalization of music education.

The framework described above concerns different levels of internationalization in music education. By utilizing questions to investigate its current state in a specific country or region or regarding a respective topic, the framework can support the formation of a united, yet diverse, global music education community. Inquiring, for instance, which language or terminology is used in which circumstances, if there would be alternatives, or what terms are paramount can significantly facilitate internationalization and global encounters. This can include talking about the limits of translations, for instance, where we can easily understand each other and where not. Raising such issues opens up spaces for transformation and developing intercultural competence.

Certainly, the framework has many more areas than the ones mentioned above. Various sets of questions could be developed regarding research,6 music education policy7 or music education in general.8 These and many more queries can support a critical and culturally sensitive internationalization of music education, on a theoretical level. But they can also foster it in a more practical way in terms of facilitating

6 What are important topics? What does the scholarly culture look like? Who are significant scholars? Is there research about internationalization and its problems in respective contexts? Is research conducted in one country more likely to be published than if it would have been conducted in another country?

7 What university model is implemented (e.g., British, German, American)? What role does educational transfer play, in higher education and regarding music education in schools? What is the role of music teacher education within the entire system of teacher education? What does internationalization mean in higher education? What opportunities and challenges are there? Who dominates international partnerships?

8 What are the goals of music education? What is the status of music education in schools? What are the most prominent teaching philosophies, methodologies or approaches? What challenges and opportunities does music education face in a respective country? What could we learn from each other?

collaborations between two or more countries. This helps to realize what unites and differentiates music education in various countries, in theory, practice, and research. Eventually, this process can lead to understanding international encounters as intercultural encounters. This means acknowledging similarities and differences between music education traditions but without eliminating them for the sake of oversimplification, because we are supposedly all the same, or overemphasizing dissimilarities, because we might not be alike at all. Saether and her colleagues (2012) describe this approach of intercultural encounters as "breaking the equilibrium and keeping the imbalance alive" (p. 367). It is about accepting diversity and not being too much focused on either similarities or differences in international music education. Understanding international encounters as intercultural encounters calls for intercultural understanding and a global mindset. This can facilitate the formation of a culturally sensitive global community.

#### 4 The Global Music Education Community Today

In the rhetorics on internationalization, the term "global community" is frequently used, even though it is not always clear what it entails (McCarthy 2012; Kertz-Welzel 2018). To support the formation of a united, yet diverse, global music education community, it is crucial to further investigate what the notion of community means in this context and to apply useful sociological concepts to music education.

"Community" generally describes a group of people who have something in common. They are united by specific values and ideas, sometimes even locality and language. Today, in view of globalization, communities are more flexible but also fragile, often not bound to a specific place or language anymore (Delanty 2018). Community has become a versatile concept which offers multifaceted perspectives for music education globally.

Music education worldwide might qualify as global community. Music educators share the same purpose regarding engaging people in music and supporting their musical learning. In some instances, they also face similar challenges regarding music education as a school subject (McCarthy 2012, p. 50). Often, they even have joint visions of what music education should accomplish, for example, regarding social change. Additionally, English is the common language in international music education. But what kind of community could the global music education community be?

Froehlich (2009, p. 92) characterizes the global music education community as a symbolic community. It has shared practices, values, and beliefs. They create a sense of belonging. To be a member in a symbolic community, identity formation is necessary which happens in different ways: at international conferences where the international presentation and discussion culture can be studied, including the rules of networking; by reading internationally important publications and getting to know significant researchers and discourses; in contact with individual scholars; and in seminars at universities where international students or professors discuss issues of global music education. Identity formation within the global music education community is an essential process and should be a topic in music education programs at universities worldwide. However, while music educators internationally might agree in many respects, for instance, regarding music education's significance for children's development, different opinions are welcome. Froehlich (2009, p. 94) states that "diversity can be shared and celebrated best if a sense of belonging has been established." Shared basic beliefs provide a strong foundation for the global music education community, while it is enriched by a multiplicity of opinions and perspectives. In view of this diversity, the task of music educators should be to "work toward a sense of belonging across various geographical locales and for diverse social networks and groups" (Froehlich 2009, p. 94). The notion of symbolic community clearly indicates that a basic set of beliefs is sufficient to connect a variety of opinions and perspectives.

Aside from being a symbolic community, the global music education community could also be characterized as a cosmopolitan community. This notion is a useful model for addressing issues of globalization and internationalization, with community members of various nationalities and different perspectives who are united by basic beliefs (Delanty 2018, p. 179). A cosmopolitan community connects local and global perspectives and is de-territorialized, not restricted by space or time, flexible, but also fragile. At its core is the idea of humanity or the global civil society which has joint concerns such as climate change, refugees, and political populism – or everyone's right to music and music education. Communication is crucial for cosmopolitan communities, facilitated by technology allowing members in various parts of the world to participate. Since cosmopolitan communities often represent something which concerns humanity at large, global music education certainly qualifies as a cosmopolitan community.

The notions of symbolic and cosmopolitan community provide useful visions for music education internationally. They help to understand how the global music education community can be shaped in a culturally sensitive way. While being united by basic beliefs, diversity is an integral part of successful communities. There is no need for the dominance of one music education or research culture. More intercultural dialogue might certainly be an important starting point to understand the current state of hegemony and diversity and to envision how the international music education community could look differently.

#### 5 Conclusion

Times of crises often highlight aspects which we usually overlook. Internationalization and the notion of global community might be such dimensions. The COVID-19 pandemic revealed that the world is closely connected and that some problems one country has are most likely to affect everyone. We are indeed a global community and more intensely linked than we ever thought. The global shutdown of universities and schools showed that we face similar challenges worldwide such as learning how to teach online. But the pandemic also led to a backlash of internationalization regarding an increased focus on national interests, for instance, resulting in closing borders. It exemplified that internationalization is still a work in progress and has so far not been accomplished in a sustainable way. There clearly is a need to critically reflect and refine what kind of global community we are and who we want to be, in general and in respective fields such as music education.

It will be the joint task of the global community to work on a culturally sensitive internationalization of music education. Only then can the challenges music education faces today and in the future be addressed. Developing a united, yet diverse, global music education community is the foundation for successful music education worldwide. This includes overcoming the hegemony of Anglo-American music education, particularly through investigations analyzing various music education and research cultures around the globe. This offers new ways of thinking and acting in music education, including new perspectives on global knowledge production. Canagarajah (2005) presents the following vision:

It is possible to develop a pluralistic mode of thinking where we celebrate different cultures and identities, and yet engage in projects common to our shared humanity. Breaking away from the history of constructing a globalized totality with uniform knowledge and hierarchical community, we should envision building a network of multiple centers that develop diversity as a universal project and encourage an actively negotiated epistemological tradition. (p. 20)

This is a call for embracing the diversity of music education and research cultures worldwide and to develop new ways of thinking and acting.9 It concerns creating a network of multiple research centers with groups of scholars conducting research on internationalization, developing ideas about how to implement diversity in international music education, while at the same time underlining what unites us globally. These groups could present what part of their own music education cultures might enrich international music education, including specific terminology unique to one tradition. They could investigate new ways of international exchange and cooperation, based on the vision of a united, yet diverse, global music education community. This might also concern critically investigating existing cooperation, their challenges, and opportunities. The Global Visions Project of the University of the Arts Helsinki (Johnson 2018) is an excellent starting point for such an endeavor, exemplifying how research and the practice of teacher education could be linked successfully in a culturally sensitive way. Additionally, more interdisciplinary research, readjusting the vision of diversity and music education to new global conditions, is much needed. The rise of nationalist and populist movements around the world, proclaiming their home country's priority, can be dangerous for all attempts of internationalization. Addressing the challenges new political developments present

9 The UNESCO document, Rethinking education: towards a global common good? (2015) also calls for embracing various kinds of knowledges and learning approaches.

to music education will be an important task. Therefore, internationalizing music education is also a political endeavor.

Another significant aspect is preparing students for being part of the global music education community. Thus, developing seminars on international and comparative music education, including educational transfer, is crucial, giving students the opportunity to learn more about music education theory and practice from a global perspective. This also concerns utilizing the international experiences many students bring to classes, not ignoring them in favor of Anglo-American standards. Internationalizing music education is a task for the global music education community. Each project and each scholar, student, or music teacher can be part of it supporting the vision of a united, yet diverse, global music education community.

#### References

Alexandra Kertz-Welzel is professor and chair of music education at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet in Munich (Germany). With research interests in international music education, philosophy of music education, and music education policy, she has regularly presented at international conferences. She is an author and editor of several books. She was co-chair of the ISME Commission on Policy (2016–2018) and chair of the International Society for the Philosophy of Music Education from 2017 to 2019.

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## The Politics of Intercultural Collaboration in Higher Music Education: Challenges Seen from a Leadership Point of View

Sidsel Karlsen

Abstract Internationally, various mandates and policy directives require higher music education institutions to engage in intercultural collaboration. These include fulfilling national policy demands for internationalization in higher education, providing students with experience of working internationally to increase their employability, and conducting proper diversity management so as to facilitate diversityconscious and responsible interaction with employees, students, and the broader educational community. In this chapter, the topic of intercultural collaboration in higher music education is approached from a different starting point, asking what, from a leadership point of view, creates obstacles to such collaboration and what makes it challenging or difficult either at the levels of individual participants, administrators, or the institution. Twelve leadership representatives from three different institutions of higher music education were interviewed about their experiences with intercultural collaboration and the benefits and challenges of engaging in such interactions. From the interviewees' experiences, their work of attempting to govern or manage situations of complex intercultural interaction while simultaneously negotiating between the different interests expressed within the frames of their respective institutions featured prominently in the empirical material. In this chapter, these negotiations and deliberations are theorized and discussed attending to perspectives borrowed from literature on intercultural competences, leadership in higher education, and new managerialism.

Keywords Challenges of leadership · Complex intercultural interaction · Higher music education · Intercultural collaboration · Leadership · Politics

S. Karlsen (\*)

Music Education and Music Therapy Department, Norwegian Academy of Music, Oslo, Norway e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
#### 1 Introduction

Internationally, various mandates and policy directives now require higher music education institutions to engage in intercultural collaboration. These include fulfilling national policy demands for internationalization in higher education (Kertz-Welzel 2018), providing students with experience of working internationally to increase their employability (Westerlund and Karlsen 2017), and conducting proper diversity management, understood as developing and enacting "an organizational strategy which emphasizes the need to recognize ethnic, cultural, gender and other differences" (Wrench 2015, p. 254) so as to facilitate diversity-conscious and responsible interaction with employees, students, and the broader educational community. In music education, matters of intercultural collaboration have been explored from the experiential point of view of music teacher educators and their students as well as in-service music teachers, with the emphasis often focusing on the advantages of such endeavors. For example, music teacher students' participation in intercultural immersion courses and projects has been found to increase their level of reflexivity related to what and how they teach (Burton et al. 2013), their ability to approach teaching situations from an improvisational point of view (Westerlund et al. 2015), and their understanding of their "role in the construction of Otherness" (Bartleet 2011, p. 20). Likewise, music teacher educators involved in cross-national collaboration have been seen to develop new and deepened perspectives on diversity and interculturality (Miettinen et al. 2018), and in-service music teachers have experienced positive musical and personal transformations (Robinson 2005). Even experiential and emotional hardships, following from music students being forced to step out of their individual and cultural comfort zones, have been framed as positive outcomes of intercultural collaboration, with researchers claiming that such experiences have evoked students' ability "to engage in a deep reflection on the nature of teaching and the purpose of music education" (Westerlund et al. 2015, p. 55) and strengthened "their professional identities" (Sæther 2013, p. 48).

In this chapter, however, I have chosen to approach the topic of intercultural collaboration in higher music education from a different starting point, asking what, from a leadership point of view, creates obstacles to such collaboration and what makes it challenging or difficult either at the levels of individual participants, administrators, or the institution. Twelve leadership representatives from three different institutions of higher music education were interviewed about their experiences with intercultural collaboration and the benefits and challenges of engaging in such interactions. From the interviewees' experiences, their work of attempting to govern or manage situations of complex intercultural interaction while simultaneously negotiating between the different interests expressed within the frames of their respective institutions featured prominently in the empirical material. The area of obstacles and challenges related to such negotiations and deliberations is the focus of this particular chapter.

#### 2 Contexts and Sampling of Participants

The three institutions involved in this research were the Sibelius Academy of the University of the Arts Helsinki in Finland; the Levinsky College of Education in Tel Aviv, Israel; and the Nepal Music Center in Kathmandu, Nepal. At the time of the interviews, these institutions were engaged in a large-scale transnational research project named Global Visions Through Mobilizing Networks: Co-developing Intercultural Music Teacher Education in Finland, Israel and Nepal (see Global Visions n.d.). Although belonging to the same network, the institutions were quite different with respect to the types of music education and programs offered, and they also represented vastly different cultural and social contexts as well as musical and pedagogical traditions. While the Sibelius Academy is a music conservatoire institution, educating musicians and music educators in Western classical music, folk music, and a variety of jazz and popular music styles, the Levinsky College of Education is a teacher training institution that includes a Faculty of Music Education which mainly educates music teachers to work within a variety of contexts. At this institution, Western classical music holds a dominant position, although other musics, such as Hebrew singing traditions, world music, and popular music are also taught to a certain extent (see Miettinen et al. 2018, p. 71). The Nepal Music Center is a music and culture nonprofit organization which offers courses in Western popular music, Nepali folk music of various kinds and traditions, and Eastern ragabased music. At the time of the research project, both the Sibelius Academy and the Levinsky College of Education were undeniably institutions for higher music education in the sense that they offered education at the university level (see Jørgensen 2009, p. 12), from bachelor's degree programs and above. The Nepal Music Center was in the process of becoming such an institution, waiting for approval of a bachelor's degree program to be launched in collaboration with the Tribhuvan University in Kathmandu.

As mentioned above, 12 leadership representatives were interviewed, among them 6 men and 6 women. The interviewees were selected because they all worked within music education institutions that were engaged in intercultural collaboration but experienced this phenomenon from different locations within the institutions and also from positions characterized by huge differences with respect to values, traditions, hierarchies, and sociocultural and economic conditions. Consequently, the sampling strategy used could be described as based both on a reputational case selection and a wish to achieve maximum variation (Miles and Huberman 1994), aiming to capture the specific experiences of a certain group of people, considered as key informants, as well as diverse variations within this particular sample, hoping to identify "important common patterns" (p. 28). With one exception, all the interviewees can be described as manager-academics (Deem et al. 2007) or managermusicians to some degree, in the sense that they were "academics [or musicians] who [had] become managers and leaders" (p. 102) in the institutions where they worked, either full time or as part of their workload. For reasons that have to do with protecting the anonymity of the interviewees, I choose not to give any further descriptions of their academic or administrative ranks or of how many interviews were conducted within each institution. For the same reason, when describing the results below, I also refrain from connecting contextual information to individual utterances.

#### 3 Procedures, Analysis, and Theoretical Points of Departure

The leadership representatives were interviewed in a place of their own choice, mostly in their own offices or in meeting rooms located within their workplaces. This was both a practical solution and a way of respecting the fact that the participants were interviewed in the capacity of their professional role and standing. The interviews were semi-structured, following an interview guide, and the interviewees gave their consent in accordance with the ethical guidelines provided by the Finnish National Board on Research Integrity (2012). All interviews were conducted in English, which was neither the mother tongue of the interviewer nor of any of the interviewees. This situation did of course complicate the conversations (see more on linguistic challenges below); on the other hand, none of us was privileged as the native English speaker. The interview transcriptions were analyzed using a qualitative content analysis approach, meaning that the texts were coded and categorized focusing on the factors that the interviewees saw as either beneficial or challenging in relation to intercultural collaboration. As mentioned above, in this chapter, I have chosen to concentrate on the part of the empirical material where obstacles, challenges, or difficulties were described. These aspects were divided into four main categories, namely, (1) common challenges connected to intercultural work; (2) the perils of university (or school) life; (3) the potential that intercultural collaboration could have for challenging the local culture and creating controversies; and (4) the phenomenon of institutionalized distrust. All four categories spanned utterances made by interviewees in all the three institutional contexts involved. The results are theorized attending to perspectives borrowed from literature on intercultural competences (MacPherson 2010), leadership in higher education (Whitchurch and Gordon 2017) and new managerialism (Deem et al. 2007).

#### 4 Challenges of Intercultural Collaboration

Instead of approaching the interviewees with a fixed understanding of what intercultural collaboration might imply, some of the initial questions in the interview guide were directed toward mapping their understandings of how this phenomenon appeared both within and beyond the borders of each institution, following the conviction that exploring intercultural encounters is not necessarily "a matter of defining assumed cultural boundaries" (Miettinen et al. 2018, p. 70) but rather of acknowledging "how we imagine and co-construct ourselves and the selves of others, across diverse contexts" (p. 70). Consequently, below the interviewees describe challenges that might occur in both internal and external intercultural collaborations, the former spanning, for example, handling ethnic, cultural, religious, or linguistic differences between diverse student and staff groups, but also tackling differences connected to various music traditions or to the divergences between researcher and musician cultures. The latter, external form, would typically involve encounters with other national bodies, such as higher education institutions or ministries or, as was most common, cross-national collaboration with international stakeholders.

#### 4.1 Common Challenges: Linguistic and Cultural Differences and Divergence of Expectations

Writing from the point of view of how decision-making is negotiated in intercultural teaching situations, MacPherson (2010) emphasizes mastering "[i]ntercultural communicative competences" (p. 273) as an important skill, including "cross-cultural listening" (p. 273), being aware of "power dynamics" (p. 273) and also being able to master more than one language and to code-switch whenever needed. A lack of such abilities was seen by the interviewees in the present study to be one of the more common sources of obstacles for intercultural collaboration, and it was evident both in internal and external encounters. Regarding linguistic differences, one interviewee explained:

English is not my [native] language, and it is not yours ... it sounds different [depending on who speaks], not intended, but ... how I understand [and] how you understand, there is this confusion. I am always, like, "OK, did you get what I tried to...?"

This quotation points both to the obstacles involved in speaking different versions of English but also, more implicitly, to the deeper layers of understanding that are connected to having different (cultural) frames of reference. Another interviewee emphasized the latter challenges, by saying:

First, [you have] to understand the culture well enough to allow you to cooperate. Because that is not easy. It is never easy, even if you work with [people from] somewhere very close ... the culture is always different. And you cannot go there and say, "Do it like this!" You have to listen.

Not fully mastering these layers of communication could have quite severe consequences, such as international partners withdrawing from collaboration, which had happened to some of the interviewees in previous projects. Lack of, or obstructed, communication could also enlarge a divergence of expectations among collaborators, which would potentially hamper the collaboration outcomes or at least the experienced usefulness of such outcomes for one or more of the partners involved. Describing such a discrepancy of outcomes from the point of view of her institution, and from her particular location within that institution, one of the interviewees expressed a certain disappointment with the way things had developed in one particular project:

In spite of [our] sincere efforts, desirable effects and outcomes have not been witnessed ... mainly because of not having enough funding or sufficient resources, I do not know ... the aspect of development [that was desired from our point of view], we have not seen.

While the interviewee in this quotation points to a lack of resources as one possible reason for the state of things, other parts of this particular conversation revealed a certain frustration with expressed expectations not being met by collaborators. Other points of frustration could occur when, for example, resources seemed to be shared unevenly among collaborators in cross-national projects: "Well, of course, very many of the benefits went to [the other institution]." While situations like these can be challenging enough among partners having similar cultural and linguistic frames of reference, the potential obstacles multiply when negotiations need to be filtered through linguistic and cultural differences.

#### 4.2 The Perils of University (or School) Life: Lack of Time, Resources, and Opportunities