The purpose of this article is to achieve greater clarification of the meaning of the word ‘intercultural’ when used in Nordic music education research, by means of a literature review. The findings suggest that ‘intercultural’ is used in different ways, sometimes without definition. A central theme that emerges is developing student teachers’ intercultural competence through disturbance. There is little research into pupils’ intercultural competence, or intercultural music education at primary level. The findings are merged with international scholarship to envisage how different understandings of ‘intercultural’ might affect music in schools. We suggest placing intercultural music education along a continuum from intercultural approaches to music education to intercultural education through inclusive music pedagogy.

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This article explores ‘community music’ in Norway, where the term is currently being introduced into higher education. The Norwegian context is outlined, and community music practices are traced back to inclusive music education practices in the 1990s. The authors discuss whether community music is a useful concept in a Norwegian setting. Three case studies are presented, exemplifying musicmaking activities with paramusical aims beyond teaching, rehearsing and performance. Conceptualizing community music as open-access musical participation with paramusical objectives represents a contribution to a pluralistic understanding of community music in the Nordic region. As the term community music becomes an educational subject in Norway, based on local practice, the need for a common theoretical basis uniting a diversity of practices becomes salient. The authors argue that, as awareness of community music as a distinct musical discourse grows, benefits might emerge if practitioners and institutions worked to develop a common professional identity, adopting the common label ‘community music’.

This ethnographic case study investigates how teachers and leaders in a Norwegian primary school perceive and promote an inclusive school environment for newly arrived migrant children through music. The analysis draws on two aspects of inclusion. The first is on whose terms inclusion takes place and whether newcomers have the opportunity to transform the existing social order. The second is the boundaries of inclusive practices: inclusion and exclusion are seen as processes separated by a boundary that, once crossed, can result in exclusion despite good intentions. The case is a primary school with a dedicated introductory class for newly arrived migrant children. The data collection instruments were participant observation, interviews and field conversations over a period of 10 months. There was a participatory element to the fieldwork in connection with the school’s ongoing development work to create an inclusive environment. Three socio-musical spaces were identified. The findings suggest that inclusive music practices face obstacles at individual, organisational and discursive levels. Fields of tension are identified relating to boundaries around what cultural expressions are welcomed and represented in the school; visibility and performance of home cultures; and exclusion and self-exclusion through musical markers of belonging.