This book asks how nation and gender shapes higher classical music education in Europe today. Building on transnational research in three European higher music education institutions, Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre, the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music, and the Sibelius Academy, University of the Arts Helsinki, the book analyses policy, interviews, teaching situations and concerts in classical music performance programs. With a starting point in feminist intersectional and postcolonial theory the book focuses on how nationalised and gendered ideas and materialities influence higher classical music education in the borderlands of Eastern and Western Europe. The analysis of the intersection of nation and gender has never been studied closely in higher classical music education before. The book’s unique contribution includes theorising musical families as place-based ideas of both musical and musician ideals, and how these ideas benefit some students more than others. The six empirical chapters of the book analyses websites, policy documents, interviews and participant observations from fieldwork at three higher music education institutions in Estonia, Finland and Hungary. Drawing on feminist and cultural theory the similarities as well as differences between institutions and instrument departments are discussed. The book is suited for teachers and students working in higher classical music education and for researchers seeking to understand higher music education in political polarised times of Europe. Functioning as an introduction to how to critically analyse the practises of higher classical music education the book provides tools for theoretically oriented students in music education and musicology and for those students and teachers working within classical music performance programs.

In this article we highlight and discuss how norm-challenging pedagogy in music education can be encouraged and executed from three different angles. We primarily focus on activities such as democratic learning situations for pupils and teachers, to be explored as safe and brave spaces. With a starting point in norm-critical pedagogy, we explore the possibility of using norm-challenging pedagogy as, through and in music educational settings. Norm-challenging pedagogy as music education can challenge dominant ways of assimilating, processing, and expressing knowledge, whereas norm-challenging pedagogy through music education concerns how traditional views on, for example, gender, race, or disability identities can be challenged through music activities. Norm-challenging pedagogy in music education critically reflects on who has the right to learn and express themselves musically and in what ways, related to gender, race or disability. The article is based on a phenomenological view of aesthetic experience and music education as a life of equal value, where de Beauvoir's concepts of freedom, facticity, and ambiguity constitute crucial analytical concepts. The author's own experiences of ambiguous norm-challenging situations as, through and in music education will be used and discussed in relation to the philosophical framework. The results of the exploration will be critically reflected upon in relation to organisational, collegial, didactic and relational aspects of music education.

Previous research has reported a multitude of problems related to gender equality in higher music education and the professional field of Western classical music over the last decades. This study aimed to understand female conservatory piano students’ experiences of being and becoming musicians. Associative interviews with six students from three different European countries told their stories of studying the piano and their views of their futures as pianists and musicians in the male-dominated world of Western classical music. The interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed in a hermeneutical narrative manner using Frank's theory of bodily voices. The findings show how these students are situated towards and through conservatory studies, either cultivated towards control and body-relatedness or desire and other-relatedness, which seem to influence their views of possible futures. Finally, we offer suggestions for how conservatory education could enable and support students in responsibly developing their own musical futures.

Studies have shown that gender inequality in higher music education is maintained through unreflective actions. Efforts to address the issue have been made and genderequality programmes have been instigated in several European countries. This study takes a sociological approach to music education, with the goal of revealing constructions of gender inequality in four higher music education institutions in northern, eastern, and central Europe. The aim is to illuminate obstacles to gender-equal education within the field of higher music education. Data was collected through interviews with both students and teachers, with the analysis taking a two-stage structure. The analysis was first performed thematically, and then driven by Connell’s gender theory and Bourdieu’s field theory. The findings are presented as: The objectified body, A natural state of mind, Claming space and Changes in sight. The findings show that gender equality activities seem to increase awareness among both students and staff, but they also show that such awareness does not necessarily lead to changes in practice.

 This article is based on the four-year project Conservatory Cultures, and was written by all five researchers in the project, based in four different European countries. The aim of the article is to review higher music education (HME) institutions’ actions in handling power and taking responsibility regarding issues of bullying and harassment in Estonia, Finland, and Hungary. All of the institutions discussed in the article had procedures and organisational bodies for handling such cases.

The article presents and analyses four cases with experiences of incidents related to bullying and harassment and macro structures aimed at preventing such issues. The research questions asked are: What are the challenges for HME in becoming a genuinely supportive and safe environment? And how can these challenges be met?

The article is based on a collaborative feminist method where the authors investigated their own experiences. Previous studies of bullying and harassment in music education, and Ahmed’s (2021) work on complaint, are the theoretical starting points. It concludes with providing recommendations to HME institutions on how to develop their work in handling bullying and harassment.

This paper is formatted as a letter from a piano student in a European conservatory educational program to Aleksandra Marjanovi? , an educational philosopher from former Yugoslavia. The student was one of 24 interviewed in a larger study concerning conservatory cultures in Eastern and Central Europe. A narrative analysis approach was taken, and the student’s expressed experiences were intertwined with Marjanovi?'s philosophical thoughts in the form of a letter. In the article the student turns to the philosopher, as she feels disoriented and had imaginatively read the philosopher’s thoughts regarding creating one’s own life plan through creativity and play (as in playful approach), as well as about education as an open system, where students’ actual social circumstances are taken into account, and transform institutional education to societal education. She feels that she has neither been encouraged nor able to create or follow any life plans through her education. Instead, she finds herself questioning the directions she was led in, if they existed at all. Her insights make her see higher music education, not least in the Western classical specialization, as a closed system, which makes her even more frustrated. Now, in her doctoral studies, she wants to discuss her experiences with Marjanovi?, whose writings recently became available in English. The philosophical exploration aims to shed light on and reflect upon how conservatory education could take Marjanovi?’s thoughts into account aiming to contribute to meaningful interrelations between conservatories and society from a democracy point of view. The specific aim of this paper is to present a view of higher music education as an open system, where students of classical music are invited to play and to create their “life plans” as becoming musicians. Throughout the paper the ambition has been to stay as close as possible to the original student interview transcription as possible.

Over the past decade, Swedish sloyd educators have grappled with the challenge of integrating aesthetic and cultural expressions into their teaching practice. As part of a larger research endeavor focusing on discourses surrounding sloyd pedagogy, this article examines the evolution of the concept aesthetical and cultural expressions in educational guidelines. The study’s aim is to show how ideas regarding teaching and learning in and about aesthetic and cultural expressions in sloyd emerge in steering documents from 1994 to 2022. Using a social constructionist approach, the material in focus for the investigation are syllabi, commentary materials, and support documents, which are analyzed through Iterative Curriculum Discourse Analysis. The results reveal that various interpretations coexist within and between the chosen policy documents. These differing views may impact opportunities for expressive acts in sloyd creation.

Musikerstudenter inom klassisk västerländsk musik utbildas i ett europeiskt perspektiv vid musikhögskolor, sprungna ur den konservatorietradition som uppstod under 1800-talet inom vilken hantverksmässiga färdigheter betonades. I och med Bologna-anpassningen av musikerutbildningarna fick reflektion ökad betydelse vilket har aktualiserat relationen och spänningen mellan praktik och teori i undervisningen. Dock har vare sig vilka aspekter av musikerprofessionen som dylik reflektion omfattar eller hur utbildningarna förbereder studenter för att kunna agera med gott omdöme i sin yrkespraktik hitintills beforskats i någon högre grad. Vår avsikt är att i denna resonerande artikel söka skissera och problematisera ett förslag på vad ett professionellt omdöme skulle kunna innebära för klassiska musiker och hur det kan kultiveras inom högre musikutbildning. Med utgångspunkt i ett exempel från en av författarnas konstnärliga praktik, Hannah Arendts omdömesfilosofi, samt författarnas tidigare och pågående forskning inom området resonerar vi om vad undervisning och lärande av ett professionellt omdöme bland klassiska musikerstudenter kan och skulle kunna innebära i en konstnärlig akademisk professionsutbildning.

Earlier research has stated the need for conservatory education to prepare aspiring musicians more thoroughly for a dynamic and changing society. A project that challenges the conservatory tradition is Sammankonst (TogetherArt) where students at a musical theatre program at folk high school level collaborate with intellectually disabled adults. Based on a phenomenological way of thinking, this article aims to describe and analyze the education of aspiring musicians for professional participation in society based on an analysis of experiences among conservatory students, music theater students and their teachers. Interviews were made with six conservatory students, 15 musical theatre students, and two teachers. The results show ambiguities when it comes to what voice students should be prepared for and how the choice of preparations influence the view of singing and musicians’ quality competence.