3rd IMC WORLD FORUM ON MUSIC
Tunis, October 17-22, 2009

Session IV: MUSIC EDUCATION FROM ADVOCACY TO PRACTICE
The challenge of creating and managing a global network and partnership system

Convenor and chairperson of this session: Professor Liane Hentschke

In recent years, there has been a weakening of policies supporting music education around the world which, in a sense, resulted into a significant shift on the arguments used by music educators to convince governments and policy makers of the value of music education. If in the past, music seemed to be taught for its own sake, for its intrinsic values, nowadays advocacy statements are mostly directed to convince governments, parents, policy makers who need to have a clear rationale on why to spend time and money for music education provision in schools. Thus, statements such as music education helps to reduce violence among adolescents, music is an important tool for cultural diplomacy, music education fosters brain development, helps to stop the spreading of aids, among others, have been used in many parts of the world. With education becoming a international commodity, and education institutions seen as knowledge delivers, music is not always seen as a subject that can help students to build a professional career and/or to have good jobs opportunities in the future. In a majority of countries, music is not part of the official curriculum, and in many cases forming either a small part of the arts education subject, or as a cross-disciplinary subject, acquiring a subservient role in relation to other school subjects. There has been a number of national and international conferences and seminars where professionals are discussing issues related to global advocacy, policy development for music education and the establishment of local and international partnerships. Most of them seem to be working within their geographical area. Internationally speaking, little discussion has taken place on the need to find out more about how different parts of the world deal with all those issues in a true global perspective, through cross national or cultural gathering of data that could support our claims of the value of music education. Further there seems to be a need to construct networks that would enable professionals and institutions to work on knowledge transference and cross feritlization between the economically poor and the rich regions around the world. As a way to address the above issues, this session aims to set up a discussion forum on how to think music education globally in relation to the main themes: advocacy, policy development, and network and partnerships and changing paradigms in music education practice.
ADVOCACY: How to build advocacy cases that take into consideration the role and status of musical phenomena within specific contexts? How can it be communicated to generate actions towards improving music education provision?
POLICY DEVELOPMENT: What are the new educational priorities after the global economical crisis. How can international organizations (ISME, IMC, UNESCO) work closely with governments and educational policy developers.
NETWORK AND PARTNERSHIPS: What is the role of private and public partnerships on global delivering of music education? Is it possible to build a global network of partnerships with different sectors such as, national governments, supra-national organizations, Universities, national and regional music education associations, the third sector, and the industry?
PARADIGMS OF MUSIC EDUCATION: Global communication has enabled music educators to rethink their educational standpoint under the light of a myriad of musical and pedagogical practices. Issues of formal and informal music learning, identity and autenticity are becoming some of the issues which music educators have to face when devising a curriculum. Some related questions would be: Can a specific music education experience travel across culture? What are the contextual implications of importing a specific project of examplary of good practices from other countries and/or cultures?
ADVOCACY AND POLICY DEVELOPMENT CASES:Exemplary of succesful advocacy and policy development in music education in different parts of the world It is desirable that each speaker addresses the above themes having in mind ways in which the international community of music educators can work towards securring music education opportunities for children and adolescents in school age across the world.

Liane Hentschke

PROGRAMME OF THE SESSION

Introduction: Dr. Liane Hentschke (Brazil)

Music education advocacy on an international perspective
Dr. Wayne Bowman (Canada) (paper)

Advocacy for policy development for music education
Dr. Richard Letts (Australia) (paper)

Global network partnerships in music and arts education
Dr. Samuel Lee (South Korea) (paper)

New Paradigms in Music Education
David Price (UK) (paper)

Advocacy and policy development cases
Dr. Emily Akuno (Kenya) (paper)

Discussion Project presentations
Dr Wouter Turkenburg (International Association of Schools of Jazz) (paper)
Conductor Alejandro Iglesias Rossi (Argentinean Music Council-CAMU) (presentation)