Music Education and the Colonial Project: Stumbling Toward Anticolonial Music Education

• In Event: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Music Education

Abstract

Music education, historically and presently, has played an important role in the colonial project. Even in now-independent countries, colonial influences on music education linger. This paper examines how coloniality manifests in different music education contexts through curriculum and pedagogy. I explicate tenets of anti-colonialism as a theoretical framework and position it as a potential orientation to resist colonial practices in music education. Employing anti-colonialism theoretically and pedagogically may allow music educators to move toward anti-colonial music education. This submission is theoretical. I utilize anti-colonialism as a theoretical lens and a mode of inquiry to examine both the manifestations of colonialism in music education and what may become possible if the field were to employ anti-colonialism as an operating framework.

Author

• Juliet Hess, Michigan State University