We will soon be giving a presentation about recent developments in Northern Europe for the world conference of the
International Society for Music Education, in Baku, Azerbaijan. We are happy to report that the book on which this presentation is based has now entered the production stage and will be published by Routledge within about six months. The manuscript received positive reviews, and we are currently contemplating cover designs and awaiting the "proof" results of the layout process.
Below is the abstract for our presentation,
Advancing Music Education in Northern Europe: Authorship in a State-Sponsored International Network.
This session will report on the findings and outcomes from a new multi-authored book entitled Advancing Music Education in Northern Europe, under contract by Routledge, with publication expected in mid-2018. We chronicle how the Nordplus-sponsored Nordic Network for Music Education was founded and developed across a 20-year period, document the network’s impact on Master programs and professional development in the field of music education, 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. 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. Our 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. At a time when international partnerships appear to be threatened by a recent resurgence in protectionism and nationalism, our book (and the discussion at ISME) also more generally demonstrates the value of formalized international cooperation in the sphere of higher education. Our panel for the ISME conference in Baku includes authors from several different Nordic and Baltic countries (including Norway, Sweden, Estonia, and Iceland), each of whom contributed chapters to the forthcoming book. The co-editors of the book will chair the one-hour session in which we discuss the concept of the book, as well as key points developed through our international collaboration, and share reflections on the process of collective authorship.
Participants:
Chair: David Hebert, Western Norway University of Applied Sciences
Kristi Kiilu, Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre
Geir Johansen, Norwegian Academy of Music
Cecilia Ferm-Almqvist, Lulea University of Technology, Sweden
Adriana Di Lorenzo Tillborg and Eva Saether, Malmo Academy of Music, Lund University, Sweden
Helga-Rut Gudmundsdottir, University of Iceland
Here are links to
earlier posts with more information about NNME and the book project:
UPDATE (July 23, 2018): Below are a few photos from the presentation, which was very well attended and positively received by delegates from several different countries, including leading professors from China, Russia, Japan, Switzerland, Canada, etc.
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