Research Roundups: Music Education Research in 2024, Part 1

Last year was a packed year for music education research journals, books and edited collections. Settle in, over the next two weeks we’ll be going on a whistle-stop tour of some of the key themes and ideas emerging from the year. This week we’ll be looking at research that responds to music education and the climate crisis, and global and decolonial perspectives. 

I’ve tried to focus on open access research (you’ll see a ✅ alongside those articles) though there are a few key exceptions (in which case you’ll see a 🔐 for paywalled). In some spots you might see both, as I’ve found an author’s copy for you in an institutional repository. One really great thing I found doing this round-up is how much research is now being published open access and can be read by everyone. 

Climate Crisis – This Is Not A Rehearsal! 

Research responding to the climate crisis is a key theme of the year (learn more about Music Mark’s own campaign, ‘This Is Not A Rehearsal’). Raisa Foster & Katja Sutela’s article addresses an ‘ecosocial approach to music education’ which presents practical ideas for educators, like considering ‘Co-composing with the more-than-human world’ (✅). Elsewhere, Ross Purves and Evangelos Himonides’s chapter on environmentally sustainable teaching with technology, work which aims to ‘provide music educators not only with relevant ideas and tools for teaching but also for advocacy’ (link, ✅).

Linus Eusterbrock (a previous guest of Research Shorts) writes about ‘Eco Hip-Hop Education’ in the open access book It’s How You Flip It: Multiple Perspectives on Hip-Hop and Music Education (link, ✅). In an Australian context, the methodology of students as partners is considered in including environmentalism in popular music education (Weston and Coutts, 🔐). 

Global and decolonial perspectives 

Firstly, what is decolonial research? It’s work which challenges traditional ways of thinking about what we study and why, and aims to understand the impact of colonialism in our thinking and approaches. Te Oti Rakena, Clare Hall, Anita Prest and David Johnson’s Decolonising and Indigenising Music Education: First Peoples Leading Research and Practice (Routledge) is a landmark collection of articles.  

Elsewhere, read John Ajewole’s work in revealing the tensions in music education in Nigeria and undoing erasures of Nigerian indigenous music (link, ✅) or learn about the value of music education in Uzbekistan (Kabdurakhmanova, ✅). Rami Chahin’s study of music education at primary level in Syria, before and after the crisis that has led to the very recent overthrow of power there. (✅)  

The Oxford Handbook of Asian Philosophies in Music Education also brings an extraordinary depth and breadth of historical perspectives as well as contemporary practice and influences, and a consideration of boundary-crossing. 

AI and technology 

As you would expect, there has been a range of research on AI usage and its growth in music education. Some researchers have looked at how it ‘can reshape music education to enable students to learn musical instruments and compose music in a fun and easy way’ (Ping-ping Li and Bin Wang, 🔐). Others have proposed using ChatGPT as a tool in music education research itself, while still recognising the importance of human researchers (Rohwer, 🔐)! Some work has considered specific instruments like this article on virtual reality technology in clarinet teaching (Gao and Li, ✅). There have also been calls for both caution and reflection in digital musicianship in music education (Cheng, Moir et al., ✅) 

Carol Johnson and Andrew King’s recent edited collection Music, Technology, Innovation, Industry and Educational Perspective (Routledge) considers everything from technology enhanced practice to ethics, generative AI and composition. On data collection, this article considers working with community music school data (Salvador, Knapp and Mayo, ✅) 

Next week we’ll look at work around curriculum and engagement, and Higher Education perspectives. 

Article by Dr Sarah K. Whitfield – Research Manager at Music Mark