Music education in a time of austerity

Abstract

We have discussed in these editorials before the broad range of interests that music education encompasses (Fautley and Murphy, 2015a). The range that we described therein is a strength of our discipline. We are, however, now living in troubling times, and the global downturn in the economy is having effects in all sorts of ways on many aspects of our lives, both personal and professional. Music education is not immune from these changes. We are living through a time of austerity, and in many jurisdictions, the refrain has been ‘we're all in this together’ as a way of explaining away government decisions or unpopular economic strategies. But are we? It is in times of austerity that we often feel that we need to make the case for music education even louder than we have done before. Yet herein lies one of our problems. Many music educators feel in these times of austerity that music education is under threat, and that the proper course of action under such circumstances to take is to increase activities related to advocacy. This is problematic in a number of ways, as we shall now discuss.