Inclusive pedagogies in music education: a comparative study of music teachers' perspectives from four countries

Abstract

Recognizing the increasing importance of developing inclusive pedagogies in music education, this article offers diverse ways of promoting positive learning experiences and reaching learners who are most at risk of exclusion. The findings reported in this article arise out of a wider comparative research project investigating the pedagogies of music teachers working in challenging contexts. This article highlights one strand of the study involving teacher perspectives from accounts of pedagogy documented through interviews and observations. The complex ways in which teachers achieve `inclusion' (a term that refers to all children achieving and participating despite challenges stemming from poverty, class, race, religion, linguistic and cultural heritage or gender) in their music classrooms is best understood in connection with the interplay of policies, structures, culture and values specific to schools. This qualitative case study of four teachers from four different countries, Spain, Australia, Sweden and the UK, provides insight on ways of working with young people on the margins of society and ways of creating a learning environment in which students can succeed musically. Accounts offered by these four exceptional music teachers range from particular teacher and school strategies to management practices that promote pupil—pupil relations in and outside the classroom, to the way the school connects with its musical community. The authors ask the challenging question of how inclusive our music pedagogies are and conclude with what we can learn, as practitioners and researchers, from comparative accounts of pedagogy.