Intercultural Game in Music Teacher Education: Exploring El Sistema in Sweden

Abstract

El Sistema, the originally Venezuelan music teaching movement is spreading worldwide, suggesting Western classical music as a tool for counteracting poverty and segregation. In Sweden, this represents an interesting and perhaps provoking twist, as the hegemony of classical music in music teacher education has since long been replaced by the hegemony of popular music. Based on fieldwork during the implementation of El Sistema in Malmö, the most multicultural town in Sweden, this chapter analyses El Sistema through the concept of habitus crises, an important ingredient in the development of intercultural pedagogic competencies. Through the understanding of El Sistema as a glocal phenomenon, the potential of the El Sistema intervention is discussed. The discussion is framed by a mapping of the tension fields that El Sistema teachers are navigating. The experiences of the El Sistema teachers in Malmö point towards a music teacher training that actively prepares for teaching in segregated, multi-cultural and socioeconomic vulnerable areas. The chapter concludes with suggestions for future music teacher training in interacting ethnospaces: stimulating habitus crises and promoting transformative learning.

Inclusive socio-musical spaces for newly arrived migrant children in a Norwegian primary school: Teacher and school leader perspectives

“…The focus in intercultural education is on dialogic aspects between groups and intersubjectivity without reference to ethnic categories or other such labels; a fluid understanding of culture; self-reflexivity and resource-oriented pedagogies (Portera, 2020; Rinde & Christophersen, 2021; Solbue, 2014). Much recent music education research on cultural diversity has centred around developing (inter)cultural competence 4 in music teacher education (for instance Culp & Salvador, 2021; Gunara & Sutanto, 2021; Miettinen, 2021; Sæther, 2020; Westerlund et al, 2022). Some scholars (for instance Dolloff, 2020; Yoo, 2021) prefer the term ‘cultural humility’ to cultural competence, since the latter suggests mastery of a finite body of specific knowledge or skills which is nigh impossible, as well as emphasising the Other in a way that could be said to reinforce the status of the dominant group.…”

Border Crossing in the Sociology of Music Education: Are We There Yet?

“…Similarly, Haak-Shulenburg and Laurence (2021) in Chapter 23 reveal the Barenboim-Said Center for Music in Palestine to be deeply flawed in its aims, Eurocentric approach, and claims to improve Palestinian lives. One cannot help but make immediate connections to the more contemporary work of Geoffrey Baker on El Sistema here, as well as others, who continue to point out uncomfortable truths about community and music education programmes that are often presented as unequivocally good (Baker 2014(Baker , 2019; see also Bradley 2009, Kertz-Welzel 2016, and Saether 2020.…”

Expanding professionalism in music and higher music education: A changing game

“…However, this inter-professional collaboration has not been painless, as teachers needed to radically rethink their own practices when trying to combine the artistic-educational objectives with the new social goals of their work. Studies with El Sistema leaders and teachers (Saether, 2020;Saether, 2016) reveal that challenges and sometimes difficult decisions have been a recurring theme in these discussions, and that working in culturally diverse settings has brought up unexpected situations. Equally, the leadership team of El Sistema, working within the municipal music school, had to find a balance between the need to stimulate change and how best to handle the dissonances that tend to occur when new strategies for widened participation are implemented.…”