What counts as music education? Who counts in music education? These questions are not merely pedagogical or aesthetic questions about musical quality, educational value, or institutional tradition. They are also political questions, because they concern power, voice, participation, inclusion, and exclusion: whose musical practices are legitimised, whose learning is recognised, and whose futures music education is imagined to serve.
Drawing on her earlier scholarly work, including the recent co-edited volume The Transformative Politics of Music Education, this keynote by Tuulikki Laes invites the professional community to reflect on how music education can respond to changing societal conditions without losing sight of its educational, artistic, and ethical responsibilities. Rather than treating inclusion, democracy, or sustainability as external themes to be added to existing practices, the presentation asks how these concerns might reshape the very systems, structures, and professional assumptions through which music education is organised.
The presentation connects these questions to democratisation processes, systems resilience, and professional responsibility in and through music education. It considers how institutions can become more responsive to diverse learners, communities, and musical ways of knowing, while also recognising the tensions involved in change. In this sense, the aim is not to offer a ready-made model, but to open a shared space for rethinking music education as a public, relational, and future-oriented practice.
Dr. Tuulikki Laes holds the position of University Researcher and is currently appointed as an Academy Research Fellow (Research Council of Finland, 2023-2027) at the Sibelius Academy, University of the Arts Helsinki, Finland. She also holds a title of Docent in Musicology at the University of Helsinki. Her research investigates educational democracy, inclusion, policy, and politics in music education, with a focus on e.g. dis/ability, aging population, and higher music education. Her latest publications include “The Transformative Politics of Music Education” (Routledge, 2025), co-edited with Gert Biesta and Heidi Westerlund.
EVENT DETAILS
Tuulikki Laes:
The Transformative Politics of Music Education
Live at the European Music School Conference
Saturday, 6 June 2026
9:00–12:45 CEST
Participation via zoom is free of charge and open to all EMU members and their member schools.
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