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to Philosophy of Music Education Review
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WHAT IS RIGHT? WHAT IS WRONG?
MUSIC EDUCATION IN A WORLD OF
PLURALISM AND DIVERSITY
Christian Rolle
rebro University/ University of Cologne
christian.rolle@oru.se
Abstract
We are living in a time of social and cultural changes. As in other disciplines,
the foundations of music education are being increasingly challenged. Thus,
it is no longer possible to specify reliably the aims and contents of music edu-
cation and their implementation in school by simply basing them on lasting
musical traditions and changeless forms of life. It has been said that such an
assessment leads us to a pluralisticif not relativisticview of music educa-
tion. But it does not help us when we have to make a decision on What is to be
done? How can we orientate ourselves in our actions and whereupon should
we base our judgements when negotiating decisions and trying to convince oth-
ers? If we are not ready to accept that the decision-making process in the field
of music education is just a matter of power, we have to be content with the
arguments we can offer. We need to have the courage of independent critical
thinking in terms of Didaktik involving all concerned. The situation is similar
to that of aesthetic arguing: there is no sure footing; our criteria for evaluation
are always up for discussion.
Philosophy of Music Education Review 25, no. 1 (Spring 2017), pp. 8799
Copyright 2017, The Trustees of Indiana University doi: 10.2979/philmusieducrevi.25.1.07
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88 philosophy of music education review 25:1
Challenges
What is to be done in music education? What is right? What is wrong? How
should music be taught? These questions are as old as music education itself. Yet,
in times of social and cultural transformations such as those we experience today,
it is becoming increasingly difficult to answer them. At stake is not the legitimacy
of music education as a school subject (itself a difficult issue) but the question
of how we makehave to makeeverday choices as music educators. These
choices are not only but mainly about the aims and contents of music education.
Which issues are to be taught? What music should be performed? What are the
musical experiences that we want to enable the students to have?
In 2005, at the International Symposium on Philosophy of Music Education
in Hamburg, Germany, I had the honor of responding to a presentation by a
Swedish colleague, Jonas Gustafsson from Stockholm University, entitled
Anything goes?1 Gustafsson spoke about the Swedish curriculum, the content
of music education in Swedish schools, and about the challenges of how to define
educational content. I agreed with him on many aspects but, at the same time, I
saw some fundamental communication problems because we appeared to have
quite different approaches to the topic. The problem was not that we disagreed
on specific aims or contents of music education. That was not the point. Rather,
there were differences in the ways of our thinking due to a different history of
music education. Germany and Sweden are not far away from each other; both
are part of Europe, separated by just a few hundred kilometers across the Baltic
Sea. Nevertheless, we must expect cultural differences not only concerning pos-
sible answers, but also how the question under consideration here is approached
(if not rejected).
What is right? What is wrong? Although in most cases it may be very difficult
to answer this question, presumably impossible, although we can never be sure,
I am convinced that we have to keep on asking. I will argue that even though it
is a difficult question, that does not mean it is the wrong question. We could, of
course, simply rely on what others suggestthis is right, that is wrong. But even
then, we make a decision without knowing for sure whether it is the decision we
should be making. This is not a new problem. It is a challenge that faces modern
societies: certainties are questioned. It is as if we were sailing on the high sea or
getting lost in trackless terrain with no signs nor Google Maps available. We are
thrown back on our own orientation capabilities. More than two centuries ago,
Immanuel Kant recommended critical thinking and asked, Was heit: Sich im
Denken orientieren? [What is Orientation in Thinking?]2 This is the title of a
short text in which he confronts us with the still challenging question: How can
we orient ourselves in thought and action when there are no guidelines or if we
are unsure whether they guide us in the right direction? On what should we base
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christian rolle 89
our arguments when it is no longer possible to reliably specify the aims and con-
tent of music education or their implementation in schools by simply basing our
decisions on lasting musical traditions and changeless forms of life?
The functions provide the criteria to which its value is judged: music(s) and
music education are evaluated as good depending on how well they serve
their particular function in different contexts in current multicultural and
pluralist societies.3
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90 philosophy of music education review 25:1
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92 philosophy of music education review 25:1
educational aims, contents, and methods that should take place locally. Joint
reasoning in terms of Didaktik is part of participatory decision-making processes
that might lack a sound basis but can at least refer to some principles by which
we are able to navigate plurality and diversity.
Sustainability
Because we live in a period of rapid social, technological, and economic
transformation, sustainability has become a key concern. A culture of sustain-
ability is called for to help us address, for example, the global environmental
problems that face us. If we relate this concern to our own field of expertise, we
can say with some pride that music education has long been concerned with the
sustainable use of cultural resources; one could even argue that it has done so
both in synchronic and diachronic terms. The synchronic perspective of music
education explores the different musical cultures of the world, thinking music
globally. Here, the sustainable use of cultural resources might be understood to
imply the effort to maintain and protect musical diversity in an increasingly glo-
balized world. The diachronic perspective looks at the history of music, at what
has been. (While many people, at least in Europe, unfortunately only think of
Western classical music, the diachronic perspective can be extended to include
other musical traditions). Here, sustainable use of cultural resources can be
understood as a cultivation of musical traditions. Both perspectives lead us to
an essentially conservative position, a commitment primarily to the protection
of music as it is and has been. Over and against the de facto normative privilege
enjoyed both by the musical past and present, the new and the experimental
New Music, a bold cross-over projecthas yet to prove not only its educational
relevance, but its relevance generally.
Transformations
However, how far does the principle of sustainability reach? As already sug-
gested, we live in times of social and cultural transformation. Many societies are
not only characterized by a diversity of coexisting musical cultures, but above all
by the ongoing development and mixing of these cultures. It is not just that very
different Lebensformen [life forms, ways of life] co-exist in close proximity, but
that they change and influence each other. This is known to have various causes,
including migration, globalization, andof particular relevance to our profes-
sionthe digitization of music, which has fundamentally altered how music is
made available, accessed, and used. Music education, it seems, can no longer
be understood in conservative terms. It is no longer possible to reliably specify
the aims and contents of music education and their implementation in school
by simply basing them on lasting musical traditions and changeless forms of life.
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christian rolle 93
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94 philosophy of music education review 25:1
not know the future but have differing opinions on how the future might (should)
look like. What is more, our perceptions of the future depend on how we look
back to the past. To comprehend from the perspective of cultural education how
past, present, and future relate to each other, we have to approach culture as a
practice. According to the Munich comedian Karl Valentin, The future also
used to be better.16 The statement makes clear how much future is contained in
the past and how we make judgments about the present when we remember.17
As the German sociologist Harald Welzer puts it: In functional terms, remem-
brance has little to do with the past. When we remember, we find orientation in
the present to prepare ourselves for the future.18
This affirms the importance of historical thought and historical references for
musikalische Bildung. But historical facts do not themselves determine their rel-
evance to the present. Music history is a social practice, which constantly creates
new interpretations. This also applies to music classes in school that address the
music of previous periods and other cultures. Teaching and learning do not obey
the logic of linear time. Music education was, is, and will be the current attempt
to construct the musical past in order to develop perceptions of possible musical
futures. However, the desired future should not lead us to forget the present.19
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christian rolle 95
at curricula in the various federal states of Germany from the last two decades
(often referred to simply as frameworks), you will find that many of them no
longer determine educational content in any detail. Instead, we find statements
such as the following: In the selection of content . . . , a relationship must be
established between student experiences and educational concerns.23
Curricula define the thematic areas to be covered but offer only suggestions
when it comes to specific educational content. Many curricula explicitly call
for student participation in decision-making processes related to themes and
content.24
Most curricula start by identifying the tasks and objectives of music educa-
tion. What we find there is so general that no specific content can be derived
from it. In Baden-Wuerttemberg, for example, we find the following introductory
statement:
Courageous Freedom
In and for every music lesson, far-reaching decisions have to be made regard-
ing educational content as alternatives always exist. No curriculum and no list of
works could relieve educators of the need to make decisions locally. Certainly,
a few general criteria or principles can be identified for the selection of content
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96 philosophy of music education review 25:1
and for the justification of and critical reflection on the choices made. One cri-
terion could be the diversity of educational opportunities. Different analytical
perspectives on music could, for example, be named and become mandatory.30
However, such catalogs of criteria will not completely determine the selection of
educational content, large freedoms remain to make choices of ones own.
The question remains: What is to be done? Which issues are to be taught?
What music should be performed? What are the musical experiences that we
want to enable the students to have? How can we arrive at a decision if it is not
possible to specify the aims and content of music education by simply referring to
lasting musical traditions and authoritative prescriptions? The question remains:
How can we encourage those who feel helpless when confronted with the need
to find orientation in a bewildering world of music, in which certainties of music
education and aesthetic order that were once believed to be eternally valid are
gone, in which all judgments and assessments are subject to doubt?
Didaktik is not only the task of philosophers and distant curricular commis-
sions but should become an integral element of educational practice. To achieve
this, Didaktik in the sense of critical thinking and joint decision-making about
aims, content of curricula, learning, and teaching practices must be given a cen-
tral place in (not only music) teacher education.31 Instead of teaching philoso-
phies of music education, we should perform philosophy of music education.
Doing philosophy of music education locally means doing philosphy of music
education dialogically, including students.32
If the call for student participation in reflection on music Didaktik is justified
and if joint critical thinking is rightly an essential part of all music (educational)
practices in schools and universities, aesthetic argument would be of particular
importance for the musical classroom. It suggests that we would have to exam-
ine the role of argumentative language in music as practice and as well in the
classroom where students and teachers are asked to give reasons when talking
about music. Research needs to be done on the specific claim to validity raised
by aesthetic judgements that request, rather than demand, acceptance.33 If we
want to free music education from instrumental reason, we should try to establish
a concept of aesthetic rationality in music (educational) matters showing that
it is inherent in musical communication respectively in communication about
music.
The call for student participation in decision-making processes is not simply
rooted in motivation psychology or the need for citizenship education in school.
What is even more fundamental in terms of music education is the reference to
intellectual independence and the capacity of judgment. It is the need to justify
the choice of educational content in the course of open debate that allows stu-
dents to acquire the competencies to find orientation in the world of music. Such
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christian rolle 97
music-cultural orientation is not acquired by being told what to listen to. Music
education needs to encourage freedom.
Notes
1
Jonas Gustafsson, Anything Goes? Content, Democracy and the Music Educators
Dilemma, paper at the Sixth International Symposium in Philosophy of Music
Education, Hamburg, 2005.
2
Immanuel Kant, What is Orientation in Thinking? in H. Reiss, ed., Kants Political
Writings (Cambridge: University Press, 1991), 237249. See also Geert-Lueke Lueken,
ber die Orientierungsleistung philosophischen Argumentierens, in Simone Dietz
et al., eds., Sich im Denken orientieren. Fr Herbert Schndelbach (Frankfurt a.M.:
Suhrkamp, 1996), 5270.
3
Marja Heimonen, Nurturing Towards Wisdom: Justifying Music in the Curriculum,
Philosophy of Music Education Review 16, no. 1 (2008): 65.
4
Ibid.
5
The topic is addressed in more detail by Eva Georgii-Hemming in her contribution
to this symposium.
6
Niklas Luhmann and Karl Eberhard Schorr, Das Technologiedefizit der Erziehung
und die Pdagogik, in Luhmann and Schorr, eds. Zwischen Technologie und Selbstreferenz.
Fragen an die Pdagogik (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1982), 1140. Also see Luhmann and
Schorr, Problems of Reflection in the System of Education (Mnster/ New York: Waxmann,
2008).
7
See ivind Varkys article in this symposium.
8
The much-quoted Mozart effect was begun by Frances H. Rauscher, Gordon L. Shaw,
and Katherine N. Ky, Music and Spatial Task Performance, in Nature 365 (1993): 611.
9
Jrg-Dieter Gauger, ed., Bildungsoffensive durch Neuorientierung des Musik
unterrichts. Initiative Bildung der Persnlichkeit, published on behalf of the Konrad-
Adenauer-Stiftung (Sankt-Augustin, 2004) [hereafter referred to as KAS 2004]. http://
www.kas.de/wf/de/33.5929/, 22-05-2015. See also Hermann J. Kaiser, et al., eds.,
Bildungsoffensive Musikunterricht? Das Grundsatzpapier der Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung in
der Diskussion (Regensburg: ConBrio, 2006), 1730.
10
Ibid. 3, translated by the author.
11
With the same aim in view, three central aspects of the concept of Bildung are dis-
cussed by ivind Varky, The Concept of Bildung, Philosophy of Music Eduction
Review18, no. 1 (2010): 8596, as well as in his article Bildung. Between Cultural
Heritage and the Unknown, Instrumentalism and Existence, in Mike Flemming, Liora
Bresler, and John OToole, eds., The Routledge International Handbook of the Arts and
Education (London: Routledge), 1929
12
See Wilhelm von Humboldt, Theorie der Bildung des Menschen. Bruchstuck. I.
Klassische Problemformulierungen, in Heinz-Elmar Tenorth, ed., Allgemeine Bildung:
Analysen zu ihrer Wirklichkeit. Versuche uber ihre Zukunft (Weinheim: Juventa, 1986).
See also von Humboldt, The Sphere and Duties of Government, trans. Joseph Coulthard
(London: John Chapman, 1854), 11.
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98 philosophy of music education review 25:1
13
Helmut Peukert, in Ottmar John and Norbert Mette, eds., Bildung in gesellschaft-
licher Transformation (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schningh, 2015). Hans-Christoph Koller,
The Research of Transformational Education Processes: Exemplary Considerations
on the Relation of the Philosophy of Education and Educational Research, European
Educational Research Journal 10, no. 3 (2011): 375382. More fully presented in Hans-
Christoph Koller, Bildung anders denken. Einfhrung in die Theorie transformatorischer
Bildungsprozesse (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2012). See also Clemens Menze, Bildung, in
Dieter Lenzen and Klaus Mollenhauer, eds., Theorien und Grundbegriffe der Erziehung
und Bildung. Enzyklopdie Erziehungswissenschaft Bd. 1 (Stuttgart: Klett, 1995), 350356.
14
Which may require transforming music education, see Estelle R. Jorgensen,
Transforming Music Education (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008). See
also Christian Rolle, Musikalisch-sthetische Bildung. ber die Bedeutung sthe-
tischer Erfahrung fr musikalische Bildungsprozesse (Kassel: Bosse, 1999). Jrgen Vogt,
Musikalische Bildung. Ein lexikalischer Versuch, in J. Vogt, ed., Zeitschrift fr Kritische
Musikpdagogik, 2012, http://www.zfkm.org/12-vogt.pdf), 125.
15
Also see Jorgensen, Western Classical Music and General Education, Philosophy
of Music Eduction Review 11, no. 2 (2003): 130140.
16
This thought has frequently been expressed, also by Paul Valry, Lavenir est comme
le reste: il nest plus ce quil tai in Paul Valry, Notre destin et les lettres (1937), in
Regards sur le mode actuel et autre essais (Paris: Gallimard, 1945), 159.
17
This issue has been addressed by Adrian Niegot, Die Zukunft war frher auch
besser: Anmerkungen zum musikpdagogischen Handlungs- und Geschichtsbegriff aus
gedchtnis- und erinnerungstheoretischer Perspektive [The Future Looked Brighter in
the Past: Remarks on the Perception of Activity and History in Music Education from
the Perspective of Memory Research Theory], in Jens Knigge and Anne Niessen, eds.,
Musikpdagogisches Handeln. Begriff, Erscheinungsformen, politische Dimensionen
(Essen: Die Blaue Eule, 2012), 4155.
18
Harald Welzer, Erinnerung und Gedchtnis. Desiderate und Perspektiven, in
Ariane Eichenberg, Christian Gudehus, Christian and Harald Welzer, eds., Gedchtnis
und Erinnerung. Ein interdisziplinres Handbuch, (Stuttgart: Metzler, 2010), 8, trans-
lated by the author, originally in German: Erinnerung hat funktional nichts mit
Vergangenheit zu tun. Sie dient der Orientierung in einer Gegenwart zu Zwecken kn-
ftigen Handelns.
19
See Vogt, Modale Zeiten. Temporale Perspektiven einer pdagogischen Introduktion
in Musikkultur, in Thomas Ott and Jrgen Vogt, eds., Unterricht in Musik. Rckblick und
aktuelle Aspekte, (Mnster: Lit, 2008), 1628.
20
Frede V. Nielsen, Almen musikdidaktik (Kbenhavn: Akademisk Forlag, 1997).
Nielsen, Didactology as a Field of Theory and Research in Music Education, Philosophy
of Music Education Review 13, no. 1 (2005): 519. Also see Werner Jank, Didaktik,
Bildung, Content: On the Writings of Frede V. Nielsen, Philosophy of Music Eduction
Review 22, no. 2 (2014): 113131. See furthermore Eva Georgii-Hemming and Jonathan
Lilliedahl Why What Matters, Philosophy of Music Eduction Review 22, no. 2 (2014):
132155. Nielsens concept of musikdidaktik is addressed in Frederik Pios article in this
symposium. However, my following considerations concerning Didaktik as a way of joint
critical thinking are based neither on phenomenology nor on existentialism.
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christian rolle 99
21
See Wolfgang Klafki, Didaktische Analyse als Kern der Unterrichtsvorbereitung
[Didaktik Analysis as the Core of Preparation of Instruction], in Klafki, Studien zur
Bildungstheorie und Didaktik (Weinheim: Beltz, 1963), 126 ff.
22
See Hermann-Josef Kaiser and Eckhard Nolte, Musikdidaktik. Sachverhalte
ArgumenteBegrndungen (Mainz: Schott, 1989).
23
Ministerium fr Bildung, Wissenschaft und Weiterbildung of Rhineland-Palatinate,
eds., Lehrplan Musik. Sekundarstufe 1. Klassen 59/10, http://lehrplaene.bildung-rp.de),
3, translated by the author.
24
See for example Ministerium fr Schule und Weiterbildung, Wissenschaft und
Forschung (MSWWF) of North Rhine-Westphalia, eds., Richtlinien und Lehrplne fr die
Sekundarstufe IIGymnasium/Gesamtschule. Musik (Frechen: Ritterbach, 1999), section
Themenfindung in der Lerngruppe, 14 ff.
25
Ministerium fr Kultus, Jugend und Sport of Baden-Wuerttemberg, eds., Bildungsplan
2004. Allgemein bildendes Gymnasium (available under http://www.bildung-staerkt
-menschen.de/service/downloads/Bildungsplaene/Gymnasium/Gymnasium
_Bildungsplan_Gesamt.pdf, 22-05-2015), 270, translated by the author.
26
Ministerium fr Bildung, Wissenschaft, Forschung und Kultur) of Schleswig-
Holstein, eds., Lehrplan fr die Sekundarstufe II. Gymnasium, Gesamtschule,
Fachgymnasium. Musik (Kiel, 2002, available under http://lehrplan.lernnetz.de, 22-05-
2015), 3235.
27
Ibid., p. 37ff.
28
MSWWF, Richtlinien und Lehrplne fr die Sekundarstufe IIGymnasium/
Gesamtschule. Musik, 23.
29
Ibid.
30
See Christopher Wallbaum, Was soll Gegenstand von Musik in der Schule sein?
in Kaiser et al., eds., Bildungsoffensive Musikunterricht? 141153. http://www.qucosa.de,
22-05-2015. See also, Jrgen Vogt, Kerncurriculum, nicht Kanon. Vorbereitende
berlegungen zu einem (auch) musikdidaktischen Schlsselbegriff, in Bildungsoffensive
Musikunterricht? 125140.
31
That is how I interpret Stanley Haskins advocacy for the development of criti-
cal thinking skills in the domain of teacher education. See Stanly Haskins, Gradually
Adaptive Frameworks: Reasonable Disagreement and the Evolution of Evaluative Systems
in Music Education, Philosophy of Music Eduction Review 21, no. 2 (2013): 197212.
32
That includes but goes beyond teaching philosophy (of music) as part of the school
music curriculum; see the contributions of Bennett Reimer, Sandra Stauffer, Randall
Allsup, and Mary Reichling, Symposium. Philosophy: Exploring the Potentials in the
School Curriculum, Philosophy of Music Eduction Review 13, no. 2 (2005): 131145.
33
In the words of Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgment (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1978). An empirical study concerning different ways of giving reasons for musi-
cal judgments has been carried out by Christian Rolle, Lisa Knrzer, and Robin Stark,
Music-related Aesthetic Argumentation. Theoretical Considerations and Qualitative
Research, in Eva Georgii-Hemming, Sven-Erik Holgersen, Lauri Vkev and ivind
Varky, eds., Nordic Research in Music Education, Yearbook 16 (Oslo: nmh-publikasjoner,
2015).
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