Advancing Music Education in Northern Europe

Advancing Music Education in Northern Europe tells the story of a unique organization that has contributed in profound ways to the professional development of music teachers in the Nordic and Baltic nations. At the same time, the book offers reflections on how music education, and approaches to the training of music teachers, have changed across recent decades, a period of significant innovations. In a time where international partnerships appear to be threatened by a recent resurgence in protectionism and nationalism, this book also more generally demonstrates the value of formalized international cooperation in the sphere of higher education. The setting for the discussion, Northern Europe, is a region arguably of great importance to music education for a number of reasons, seen for instance in Norway’s ranking as the ‘happiest nation on earth’; the well-known success of Finland’s schools in international-comparative measures of student achievement; how Sweden has grappled with its recent experience as ‘Europe’s top recipient of asylum seekers per capita’ and Estonia’s national identity as a country born from a ‘Singing Revolution’, to name but a few examples. The contributors chronicle how the Nordic Network for Music Education was founded and developed, document its impact, and demonstrate how the eight nations involved in this network – Norway, Iceland, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania – are making unique contributions of global significance to the field of music education.

David G. Hebert is a Professor of Music with Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, and in 2018 became manager of the Nordic Network for Music Education. A widely published and cited researcher, he has also held positions with universities in the USA, Finland, Japan, China, Russia, Brazil, and New Zealand, and has directed research projects on six continents. Dr. Hebert is a frequent Keynote Speaker for conferences, and an Editorial Board member with such scholarly journals as Arts Education Policy Review, Journal of Music and Meaning, Research and Issues in Music Education, and Journal of Research in Music Performance. His writings appear in over 30 different professional journals, and his recent books include Wind Bands and Cultural Identity in Japanese Schools (Springer, 2012), Theory and Method in Historical Ethnomusicology (Lexington, 2014, co-edited with Jonathan McCollum), Patriotism in Nationalism in Music Education (Routledge, 2016, co-edited with Alexandra Kertz-Welzel), International Perspectives on Translation, Education and Innovation in Japanese and Korean Societies (Springer, 2018), and Music Glocalization: Heritage and Innovation in a Digital Age (co-edited with Mikolaj Rykowski, Cambridge Scholars, 2018). He has also published chapters in Oxford Handbook of Music Education, Routledge Research Companion to Popular Music Education, Music Education for Changing Times, Sociology and Music Education, Multicultural Perspectives in Music Education (vols.1&2), and other books.

Torunn Bakken Hauge is a Professor of Music Education with Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, where she has taught for more than four decades. She is founder and managing coordinator of the Nordic Network for Music Education, which has government funding for cooperative projects across all Nordic and Baltic countries, and celebrated its 20-year history in 2017. Since 1990, she has also managed the Nordplus-funded Teacher Education Network (TEN). A Nordic pioneer in the field of rhythmic music pedagogy, she is producer of the video Rytmisk musikkpedagogikk i grundskolen (1999), first author of the book Rytmisk musikkpedagogikk i grundskolen (2000) and executive producer of the pedagogical CD Kotokaka rytmisk musikkpedagogikk (2002). She has also published research articles in English in such journals as Signum Temporis, International Journal of Education and the Arts, and a chapter in the book Musikk - Mulighetenes fag (2007). Additionally, she is a singer in a professional early music vocal quartet.