Bradley (2012)

Good for What, Good for Whom?
: Decolonizing Music Education Philoso

phies
Good for What, Good for Whom?: Decolonizing Music

Education Philosophies
Deborah Bradley
The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy in Music Education
Edited by Wayne Bowman and Ana Lucía Frega
Print Publication Date: May 2012 Subject: Music, Music Education

Online Publication Date: Sep 2012 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195394733.013.0022
Abstract and Keywords
This article examines philosophy's role in epistemological colonialism in music education.

Western philosophy as a system of reasoning was one of the factors justifying European
colonialism; the discursive traces of these supporting Enlightenment philosophies remain
in today's educational thinking. Following World War II, the last groups of people living
under colonial domination fought for and eventually won political independence, yet the
complex relationships that developed under the colonial system remain in social struc
tures and discourses. The article concludes with an effort to imagine philosophy as a tool
for questioning and challenging the epistemological colonialism that too often lingers
within music education's philosophical discourses.
Keywords: European colonialism, colonial domination, Western philosophy, colonial music, epistemological colo
nialism
Who writes? For whom is the writing being done? In what circumstances?
These, it seems to me, are the questions whose answers provide us with the ingre
dients making for a politics of interpretation.
–Edward Said
This chapter interrogates philosophy’s role in what I characterize as epistemological colo

nialism in music education. Western philosophy as a system of reasoning was one of the
factors justifying European colonialism; the discursive traces of these supporting Enlight
enment philosophies remain in today’s educational thinking. Following World War II, the
last groups of people living under colonial domination fought for and eventually won polit
ical independence,1 yet the historically, (p. 410) geographically, and psychologically com
plex relationships that developed under the colonial system remain in social structures
and discourses, including the stated and unstated goals of formal education, and in mar
ket forces, communication methods, and information networks as sites of informal educa
tion (Dei and Kempf, 2006, 7). In North America, the resulting damage to students mar
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Good for What, Good for Whom?: Decolonizing Music Education Philoso
phies
ginalized by this vestigial, epistemological colonialism may be seen in the overrepresenta
tion of students of color among those identified as requiring special education, in higher
school dropout rates among black and Latino students, and in the economic stratification
of societies along racial lines. In formal education, colonial residue continues to define
how knowledge is produced and what forms of knowledge are considered legitimate.
Indigenous forms of knowledge and knowledge production, including the diverse musical
practices of most of the world’s people, have long been dismissed, even denigrated, as a
result of lingering colonial attitudes. The recent trend toward greater inclusion of “world
music” in education often takes colonialist form through unauthorized appropriation and
publication, through multiple forms of misrepresentation, and through language suggest
ing such music, as indigenous knowledge, is marginal or inferior to the Western musical
canon.
The historical relations of colonialism and its effects, including its psychological imprints,
are rife with contradictions (Asher, 2009). The colonizers brought with them not only for
mal education but also new forms of work and production that continue to emerge under
globalization, with differentially distributed benefits and consequences. There is an imme
diate need to understand the complex ways in which people were brought within this sys
tem, because its impact is still being felt (Smith, 1999, 23). For example, India’s rapid
economic growth has made it an emerging global power but has also deepened stark in
equalities in its society (Yardley, 2009). While the landscape of opportunity has widened in
choice, “the colonial shadow falls across the successes of globalization” (Bhabha, 2004,
xii). Although the colonial system produced complex, symbiotic relationships between col
onizers and colonized from which both sides benefited, the benefits remain greatly un
equal. The negative effects manifest as inferred feelings of inferiority or deficiency, and in
measurably inequitable outcomes.
My goal for this chapter is to illustrate some ways in which philosophy (as a Western dis
cipline) and philosophies of music education, influenced by colonialist thinking, repro
duce epistemological colonialism. Decolonizing texts typically reflect “both histories of
colonization/oppression and efforts of resistance, that engage both our similarities and
our differences across race, class, gender, culture, region, and nation” (Asher,2009, 4). As
Asher writes, decolonizing projects must negotiate the challenges of implied binary con
structions: colonizer/colonized, colonizing/decolonizing, the “West and the rest,” and so
forth. Such binaries obscure the ways the postcolonial world operates: through continu
ing entangled, hybrid, and symbiotic relationships. This chapter focuses on colonialism’s
negative influences on thinking in music education, but the issues are complex, often con
tradictory, and difficult to parse.
Although it has the potential to decolonize and liberate (to release us from limited
(p. 411)
ways of thinking), philosophy has more often played a role supportive of epistemological
colonialism—by advancing or imposing Eurocentric ideologies of knowledge production
(Dei and Kempf, 2006, 2). This chapter seeks to decolonize some of the dominant philoso
phies of music education by promoting critical insight into the underlying assumptions,
motivations, and values that inform epistemological practices, and by interrogating “the
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age old dilemmas about authenticity, originality, indigeneity and autonomy of cultural, sci
entific, literary values and aesthetic creations” (11). While performance-based disciplines
like music education have unique capacities to “contribute to radical social change, to
economic justice, to a utopian cultural politics” (Denzin, Lincoln, and Smith, 2008, xi),
music education philosophy often hinders these possibilities by presenting answers in
ways that foreclose dialogue rather than exploring questions. Viewed as a set of answers
rather than as a process of continually emerging questions, philosophy may lead to dog
matic adherence to pedagogical beliefs and methodological approaches. Philosophy colo
nizes when it intimidates those who might otherwise engage in critical thinking. Where
philosophy is conceptualized and presented as a product, it is often assumed that only
some people can think philosophically: that the majority requires philosophy to be done
for them.
Throughout the chapter I speak of decolonizing philosophy, a phrase that can be taken at
least two ways. It may suggest a system of reasoning devoted to reversing colonialist in
fluences in society and education; or it may imply the act of exposing and addressing the
problematic aspirations of traditional philosophical practice—to do other people’s think
ing for them, to provide answers rather than provoke thinking, and to dispense universal
truths. This potential for dual meaning is part of the term’s appeal. Philosophy is both
noun and verb, an action in which everyone concerned with music education—academics,
community musicians, students and teachers in classrooms and community settings at all
levels—can and should engage, and to the benefit of all. Conceived of as a verb, as
process rather than product, philosophy has the capacity to revitalize and decolonize both
thought and practice in music education.
I begin by examining the hegemony of Western concepts of philosophy. I then focus on the
presentation of philosophies as products for consumption, as fixed sets of ideas transmit
ted to practitioners in ways that direct, even dictate, pedagogical action. I argue that phi
losophy should be conceptualized not as a product for use by music educators, but as the
“sustained, systematic, and critical examination of belief” (Alperson, 1991, 217). I take
Alperson’s statement as a reasonable starting point for music education philosophy in
today’s diverse world, since it allows for self-interrogation and reflection, key elements in
decolonizing efforts. Reflexivity and critical examination of belief are essential if philoso
phy is to escape its colonialist roots—and allegations of colonialism have been directed
both at philosophy (Ikuenobe, 1997) and sociological research methods (Zuberi and Bonil
la-Silva, 2008). To avoid the trap of epistemological colonialism, philosophies should con
tinually interrogate the assumptions upon which they are built. Philosophy so (p. 412)
conceived benefits not only those who engage in critical examination of belief but ulti
mately music education’s most important stakeholders: music students at all levels. Phi
losophy as a way of thinking and being in the world ought not to claim the academic ivory
tower as its sole domain.
In what follows I address what is commonly known as aesthetic education, since this par
ticular philosophy of education continues to operate as the sensible given (Lyotard, 1988)
in many sites of music education worldwide. However, other philosophical approaches, in
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cluding praxial music education, critical pedagogy, and multiculturalism may also evince
epistemological colonialism and must also be interrogated. The chapter concludes with an
effort to imagine philosophy as a tool for questioning and challenging the epistemological
colonialism that too often lingers within music education’s philosophical discourses.
What Does It Mean to be Educated?

The term education has developed commonsense meanings that vary historically and re
gionally (Said, 1994, 1978). To construe education as a universal notion thus reinforces
colonizing tendencies this chapter seeks to address, since both the question and its
answer(s) are culturally situated.
While, for many, education and schooling have become nearly synonymous terms, the
concept of education I put forth does not necessarily depend upon credentials gained
through formal schooling. Some of life’s most important lessons are learned not in
schools but through the process of living. Dewey (2004) describes a primary goal of edu
cation as “the recreation of beliefs, ideals, hopes, happiness, misery, and practices” (2)
that serve to renew the social group. As he explains, schools are an important method for
transmission of what members of a society need to know, but in fact are a “relatively su
perficial means” (4) compared with other agencies. Because the perpetuation of social life
itself is dependent upon teaching and learning, the process of living together, with other
people, educates (6). Thus education’s significance, as human association, “lies in the
contribution which it makes to the improvement of the quality of experience” (9). Anti-
colonial scholars argue that education is for the entire community: parents, children,
guardians, caregivers, young, and old. This view of education encompasses the options,
strategies, processes, and structures through which individuals and groups come to know
and understand the world and how they act within it (Dei et al., 2000, 7).
The foregoing blurs the distinction between formal and informal education. Acknowledg
ing the importance of knowledge acquired through cultural immersion(s) creates a space
for what are sometimes referred to as indigenous knowledges (Dei, Hall, and Rosenberg,
2000), which, under colonialist systems of education, are viewed as incongruent with for
mal education. Dei and colleagues (p. 413) assert, “all knowledges exist in relation to spe
cific times and places. Consequently, indigenous knowledges speak to questions about lo
cation, politics, identity, and culture, and about the history of peoples and their lands” (4).
When indigenous beliefs conflicted with Western knowledge, colonial education attempt
ed to eradicate those beliefs in a misguided attempt to forge common understandings.
Such education functions imperialistically, allowing little room for anything but official,
institutionally sanctioned knowledge. For example, Kincheloe and Steinberg (2008) de
scribe Andean knowledge as an epistemological and ontological dynamic—a way of know
ing that is relational, a spiritual process. Andean beliefs hold that rivers, mountains, land,
soil, lakes, rocks, and animals are sentient, raising the question, At what point are oxy
gen, water, and food separate from human organisms? Grande (2008) suggests that in
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digenous epistemologies are characteristically comfortable “with a lack of certainty about
the social world and the world of nature” (151).
What Does It Mean to Be Musically Educated?
Like education, the concept of musical education is culturally situated. In North America,
for example, the notion of a musically educated individual typically describes a person
who has studied formally for years to learn to play an instrument or to sing. In Ghanaian
Ewe culture, learning to become a master drummer involves both childhood encultura
tion (informal education) and years of practice with a master drummer (formal study).
Many Ghanaians learn a wealth of traditional music and dances entirely through encultur
ation and community participation. Similarly, Native American flute players, singers, and
drummers tend to be immersed in their cultural practices from an early age through com
munity events and ceremonies, eventually feeling called to be a flute player, singer, or
drummer. Although these individuals devote significant time and effort to the develop
ment of their musicianship, the concept of musical education as something acquired
through schooling does not apply.
In North America, a more narrow understanding of music education has grown up around
school-based choirs, bands, and orchestras. In such circumstances this idea of music edu
cation is more or less synonymous with large ensemble experience, and Western classical
music is privileged as the knowledge worth having. Indeed, it is the only recognized form
of musical knowledge considered valid for entry into many North American university mu
sic schools. Residual colonial attitudes thus determine the cultural capital required for
entry to university music programs, through a process Koza (2008) calls “listening for
Whiteness.” Within this system, aural musical traditions, popular music, and even the
venerated classical traditions of, for instance, India or China have little currency.
While the repertoire of K–12 school music programs has become more diverse in recent
decades, prevailing Eurocentric values and assumptions often result in the imposition of
Western analytical concepts onto musical practices better understood (p. 414) from in
digenous perspectives. Like the Andean concept of sentience described previously, Feld’s
work with the Kaluli people in Papua, New Guinea, points to the inseparability of music
makers and their “musicking” (Small, 1998) from their environment (Feld, 1994). From
the perspective of traditional Western philosophical practice, however, Kaluli music and
epistemology may appear naïve, even primitive. And on a practical level, emphasis on tra
ditional large performing groups makes such broad concepts of musicking an awkward fit
for most music education programs. This limits students’ opportunities to discover their
unique relationships with music (Kelly, 2009, 64).
Discovering one’s unique relationship with music can develop in many ways outside for
mal education. I think of the countless numbers of competent, self-taught guitarists, per
cussionists, singers, and so forth, for whom music is an important part of who they are.
There are millions of discerning listeners who are deeply knowledgeable about diverse
musical practices—classical, jazz, popular, Javanese gamelan, Chinese opera, Indian car
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natic music—whose understandings go far beyond what they may have been taught and
learned in formal instructional settings, and far beyond the educational outcome called
“music appreciation.” Individuals often knowingly use music as a resource to regulate
feeling, thinking, and acting in their daily lives—as a resource for construction of identity
(DeNora, 2000, p. 62). Developing students’ unique relationships with music ought to be
a fundamental goal of musical education. Unfortunately, this goal is frequently neglected,
even ignored in favor of developing performing groups that by their nature exclude those
students whose musical interests lie elsewhere.
Encouraging students to develop their unique relationships with music takes as a starting
point what Ladson-Billings (1995) calls culturally relevant pedagogy, or the inclusion of
“student culture in the classroom as authorized or official knowledge” (483). Others have
echoed Ladson-Billings’ call for cultural relevance in their arguments for the inclusion of
indigenous knowledges (Dei, Hall, and Rosenberg, 2000; Dei et al., 2000; Dei and Kempf,
2006; Le Grange, 2004), here taken to be “students’ own music.” Yet popular and world
beat musics bring into play the messy terrain of capitalism and cultural imperialism, influ
encing students’ identities in ways that are not necessarily desirable. In order for stu
dents to avoid the colonizing thought and practice of these discourses, music education
philosophy must help students and their teachers understand the power structures they
involve.
If the role of education, whether formal or informal, is to prepare people to function as

productive members of society (Dewey, 2004), to be effective it must be “life-long, com
munity-based, and oriented to the real-life experiences of the students” (Day, 1998, 51).
Day’s statement implies that education is obliged not only to transmit officially sanc
tioned forms of knowledge but also to work with the knowledge students bring to the
classroom from their lives outside school. This is crucial if pedagogy is to be culturally
relevant, and if students are to make meaningful, important, and durable connections be
tween and among school knowledge, family life, community relationships, cultural prac
tices, and personal interests.
Within music education, Regelski (1981, 1994, 2002b, 2002c, 2004) has written
(p. 415)
extensively and critically about the discipline’s failure to nurture lifelong engagement
with music, a failure attributable to narrow curricular foci, unconnected to students’ mu
sical lives outside of school. The restrictive framework of “school music” not only fails to
connect with many students but it implies through omission that music existing outside of
school is unworthy of study and therefore inferior. Similarly, the skills and understandings
essential to enjoyment of musics excluded from the curriculum are undervalued, their
practitioners’ musicianship deemed of lesser quality. Where music education fails to help
students make musical connections to their lives outside school, many infer that they are
simply “not musical,” or that their areas of musical interest lack value. This psychological
imprint of musical inferiority mirrors the internalized sense of inferiority that results
when indigenous cultures are denigrated in colonialist systems of education. The mes
sage of musical inferiority goes hand in glove with emphasis on developing “talent”
through performing ensembles and the attendant need to “weed out the untalented” in
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the pursuit of “musical excellence.” These practices often scar students’ psyches, requir
ing in effect that they “submit to the process of colonization, and participate in the real
ization of the colonial relationship” (Asher, 2009, 3). For those excluded from school per
formance groups, for those who struggle to find relevance in school music curricula, and
for those unable to hear “their” music in school, music education operates as a colonizing
discourse. The systems of reasoning supporting these exclusionary practices function as
“epistemological tyranny” (Kincheloe and Steinberg, 2008, 145), far too often resulting in
students’ internalization of messages, both implicit and overt, of musical inferiority.
The Role of Philosophy in Music Education
Alperson’s description of philosophy as a “sustained, systematic, and critical examination

of belief” suggests an ongoing reflexivity about what one thinks and what one does as a
result of the reflection. In teacher education, significant efforts are often devoted to help
ing students become “reflective practitioners.” Helping preservice teachers develop re
flective practice implies learning to think philosophically, to understand how beliefs influ
ence musical decision making, choices, and actions.
Students usually begin their journey toward becoming music educators without any back
ground in philosophical inquiry. Some think philosophy is beyond their ability to under
stand; others believe it is merely “ivory-tower conjecture on the far side of an unbridge
able gulf from classroom practice” (Elliott, 1995, 9). Both of these perspectives point to
epistemological colonialism within music teacher education. Developing the ability to ex
amine critically one’s own beliefs and actions directly influences the nature of the en
counters and relationships that emerge within teaching-learning contexts, and, ultimate
ly, determines one’s ability to enact culturally relevant, decolonizing music education
practice.
Philosophy as a Colonizing System of Rea

(p. 416)
soning
Smith (1999, 65) argues that academic knowledges, particularly the traditional disci
plines including philosophy, are grounded in cultural worldviews antagonistic to other be
lief systems. While Smith acknowledges that some disciplines are more extensively impli
cated in colonialism than others, she reminds us that during colonial expansion, theories
generated from the exploration and exploitation of colonies developed a philosophical
structure that appropriated the other as a form of knowledge: “The construction of knowl
edges which all operate through forms of expropriation and incorporation of the other
mimics at a conceptual level the geographical and economic absorption of the non-Euro
pean world by the West” (65–66). In other words, the theories that emerged during colo
nial expansion took as a given Europe’s right to appropriate and/or expropriate land and
resources, absorbing these as European possessions, and to speak for “the other”
through universalist perspectives. Music education reproduces this epistemological tyran
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ny through the absorption of indigenous musical forms and the imposition of Western mu
sical concepts onto other musicking practices.
Ikuenobe’s (1997) examination of the differences between “philosophy” and “African phi
losophy” illustrates concern about the incorporation of the “other,” while showing the dif
ficulties inherent in the idea of philosophy as the systematic, critical examination of be
lief. He writes that efforts to articulate an “African philosophy” often construe philosophi
cal discourse as taking one of two forms: “universal” or parochial (“folk”). From a univer
salist perspective, African philosophies are deemed “folk philosophies” and are therefore
parochial, regardless of how well considered, logical, or consistent they may be within
their particular contexts. Implicit in this analytical system are beliefs that equate valid
philosophy with Western rational thinking; such thought presumes to speak for all other
forms of reasoning by appropriation and incorporation.
Ikuenobe’s argument concludes provocatively: “To deny a people a philosophy is to deny

them any kind of intellectual activity, a system of thought, culture, and civilization” (196).
In accepting the philosophy/folk dichotomy, it appears he may have inadvertently bought
into the attendant notion that nonessentialist and nonuniversal forms of philosophy are
not truly philosophical. But the point I wish to emphasize emerges from his argument that
both universalist and parochial philosophies are “culture-relevant in various, subtle
ways” (201). He asserts, in effect, that if folk philosophies are parochial, the same must
hold for universalist philosophies grounded in Western systems of reasoning; these, too,
are framed by their own culturally bound, and to that extent parochial, worldviews.
Both Ikuenobe and Smith suggest that Western concepts of rational thought have had
deleterious effects on knowledge production for all people. Ikuenobe suggests that to
function as a truly universal, metadiscipline, philosophy would need to be capable of syn
thesizing “features of the thoughts” and ideas of people from all (p. 417) over the world,
and from different historical periods and epochs. Thus, philosophy should be seen “first
as an activity, and second as a system of beliefs, ideas, ways of seeing and thoughts that
have been structured by culture, different experiences, time, and history” (203–4).
Ikuenobe’s proposal seeks to reframe commonly held notions of what philosophy is, what
it is good for, and who might benefit from “doing” it. At the same time, however,
Ikuenobe’s proposal risks reproducing what Agawu (2003) calls the tendencies of dialogic
representation: unless it results in concrete political action, Agawu argues, the dialogic
impulse validates “what is essentially a monologue by incorporating an image of ‘native
discourse’ into the monologuer’s theory and on his or her own terms. . . . It actually sub
stitutes a particularly virulent form of political violence for ‘mere’ epistemic vio
lence” (69).
The preceding quotation points to a tension that is evident as I write this chapter. My in
clusion of the perspectives of postcolonial and anti-colonial scholars seeks to bring into
the discussion voices uncommon in music education discourse. However, given my posi
tion of privilege in the North American academy, this strategy may simply incorporate
“native discourse” into a monologue that reproduces colonialist power. As the sole author
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of this piece, I decide what is quoted, who is quoted, and how those quotes are utilized.
This points to a difficulty in writing decolonizing texts and reiterates the necessity for
those of us so engaged to interrogate our own implication in and responsibility “for resist
ing and transforming oppressive structures and practices” (Asher 2009, 6).
Music Education Philosophies as Colonizing

Probing the ideologies of practice makes us aware of the darker side of knowledge
ordering.
Agawu 2003
A decolonizing text from the field of ethnomusicology provides an entry point for explor
ing some of the ways philosophy may have colonized the thinking of music educators. In
Representing African Music, Agawu (2003) interrogates the categorizations and descrip
tions of African musical characteristics found in ethnomusicology that contribute to the
othering of Africans and their music. Agawu argues against analyzing African musics
from the perspective of “difference,” challenging scholars to “remain vigilant in ensuring
that no perceived hierarchy is facilely interpreted as corresponding to a fixed reali
ty” (22). A similar challenge exists for music education philosophies when perceived hier
archies operate as fixed realities through restrictive accounts of “good music,” framed,
for instance, in questions like, What music is appropriate to teach? What constitutes good
repertoire? Whose musical cultures should be represented?
In the chapter “African Music as Text,” Agawu’s argument resonates with

(p. 418)
Ikuenobe’s concern about folk philosophies. He pleads for ethnomusicologists to dispense

with the “facile distribution of insights” in categories designated variously as Western or
African because they uphold a divisive approach to music understanding (115). Such acts
of categorization create monolithic concepts of African musics that ignore the musical di
versity of the continent. While acknowledging the import of Western ethnomusicological
contributions to knowledge about African musics, Agawu makes it clear that Africans
have yet to benefit from the knowledge so produced: “Their aim is not to empower
African scholars and musicians but to reinforce certain metropolitan privileges” (196).
Within music education, the benefits of philosophical inquiry tend to rebound to the acad
emy, even when the intention is to empower music teachers and students.
Aesthetic Music Education and Epistemological Colonialism
Aesthetic education, a system of reasoning that remains influential within the discipline
of music education, draws extensively upon the philosophy of aesthetics whose roots ex
tend to Kant’s Critique of Judgment (1790). Like all philosophers, Kant was influenced by
his social and political surroundings. His writings sought to flesh out how it is that we
know what we know, in part to subvert the Church as the sole source of moral authority.
By positioning aesthetic judgment as a common sense and beauty as a “symbol of the
morally good” (Zuidervaart, 2004, 55), Kant held up European art works as exemplars of
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the good and moral in the world—simultaneously devaluing the artistic expressions of
(among others) the world’s indigenous people. This argument served (however inadver
tently) the colonial agenda by implying that indigenous expressions could not be consid
ered “art,” thus rendering its producers less than fully human. This bias eventually found
its way into music education philosophy to the detriment of most forms of popular and
folk music, which, to the extent they were incapable of sustaining the sophisticated kind
of experience regarded as purely or genuinely aesthetic, were considered inferior forms
of musical expression.
Aesthetic philosophy as a system of reasoning emerged in music education as aesthetic

education. One particular text, A Philosophy of Music Education (Reimer, 1970, 1989,
2003), gained widespread acceptance as an authoritative guide to “music education as
aesthetic education.” Written to provide answers rather than raise questions about the
nature and value of music and music education, A Philosophy, however unwittingly, served
as a colonizing influence on the thought and actions of many music educators.
As postmodern philosophies and related concerns for pluralities flourished in the social
sciences and education, the 1989 edition of A Philosophy of Music Education became the
object of vigorous critique (Bowman, 1991; Elliott, 1991, 1995; Koza, 1994) to which the
first edition had not been subjected. I will address the 2003 edition shortly but would like
first to revisit a few key criticisms raised about the 1989 edition by way of background for
a discussion of the residual colonizing effects of this philosophy decades after its initial
publication.
In 1991, the Quarterly Journal of Music Teaching and Learning published critical
(p. 419)
reviews (Bowman, 1991; Elliott, 1991) of the 1989 version of A Philosophy of Music Edu
cation. Both critiques focused on logical flaws in the arguments about music education as
aesthetic education. Details of those arguments warrant exploration and consideration
that exceed the scope of this chapter, but above the various arguments advanced, a com
mon note sounds: the philosophy of aesthetic education reads as the only valid way to
view music and music education—a “truth” to be accepted rather than a starting point for
discussion or reflection. Bowman (1991, 82) suggests that the arguments are constructed
so as to require “acquiescence” from students or those unfamiliar with (Western) philoso
phy and its style of logical argument. Similarly, Elliott (1991, 51) states that A Philosophy
could “give music educators the false impression that there are no philosophical alterna
tives to the aesthetic view.” Another way of expressing these concerns might be to say
that the book’s arguments appeared designed to proselytize (a tactic reminiscent of
Christian missionaries under historical colonialism)—proffering aesthetic education as
the only legitimate way to think about music and music education.
In her review, Koza (1994) writes, “when we buy into traditional philosophical discourse,
we get its shortcomings in the bargain” (89), including the search for universal truths and
essentialisms. Her critique of A Philosophy provides a detailed analysis of the ways the
text serves, in her view, to perpetuate the oppression of women and marginalized groups
through “evasion of history, politics, and context” (75). Koza describes the text as a tradi
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tional philosophical argument exhibiting a “relentless search for universal, essential in
gredients in people, art, and education” (76), and relying extensively on “inside/outside
dichotomies to which good/bad valuations often have been assigned” (79). Falling on the
“bad side” of the virgule is most popular music, evincing a latent elitism that insists only
some music has educational value (83).
Rather out of sync with other educational discourses of the time in their explorations of
multiculturalism, the 1989 version of A Philosophy made only fleeting reference to “the
music of various cultures” and in language often based on a spices-in-the-stew analogy
that exoticizes and marginalizes: “the joy of sharing the world’s multitudinous
flavors” (Reimer, 1989, 145). Moreover, its overarching argument called for a centering of
Euro-American music in the curriculum: “But at the other extreme the program can get
so ethnically focused as to forget that the United States is part of a larger culture—the
culture of Western music” (145). As Kincheloe and Steinberg (2008, 135) suggest, asser
tions like these imply, however subtly, that multiculturalism is “a threat to Euro/Americen
trism.”
Perhaps as a result of the concerns raised by Bowman, Elliott, Jorgensen (1997), Koza,
and others, a revision of A Philosophy was published in 2003—with the subtitle, Advanc
ing the Vision.2 There is evidence that this edition attempts to address criticisms of the
1989 version and to introduce contemporary changes in aesthetic (p. 420) theory. Howev
er, the arguments in Advancing the Vision remain grounded in binary constructions de
signed to dismiss perspectives that trouble the conceptual waters of aesthetic education.
For example, in a section acknowledging tensions between aesthetic theory and postmod
ernism, a discussion of the “postmodern mind-set” (16) implicitly denies postmodernism’s
status as philosophy. Indeed, the term mind-set appears to imply that postmodern thought
is rigid, resistant to new perspectives or arguments, and thus unsuited to music educa
tion philosophy. Arguments favoring pluralistic approaches are countered with rhetorical
questions: “Should music education abandon its emphasis on the classical music of the
Western tradition? Are all musics equally good just because each music has its own char
acteristics? If all music is equally valuable, how do we choose what is most worth teach
ing?” (20). As in the 1989 version, the questions suggest that multiculturalism represents
a threat to music education.
The proposed alternative to postmodern thinking—a “synergistic” approach—seeks to “re

solve” issues framed (ironically) as binaries: for example, contextualism/universalism.
These “synergistic resolutions” prescribe actions designed to unify the thinking of music
educators everywhere. The strategy of coercing perspectival pluralities into synergistic
resolution seems to foreclose debate, negating the possibility that genuine differences of
perspective may coexist. This, too, is a strategy of traditional philosophical approaches
that frequently discourages others, particularly students, from engaging in further discus
sion.
Advancing the Vision functions as a philosophical product (a text) whose proposed

process (synergistic resolution) may inadvertently colonize those who seek advice from
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its pages. While Reimer’s intentions are undoubtedly altruistic, his discursive strategies
implicitly deny music educators active, creative roles in the development of their own
philosophical ideas about the nature and value of music or music education. Although
synergistic resolution (“this-with-that” arguments) acknowledges the complex nature of
issues in music education, it extends to music educators few if any alternative choices
and actually reduces the binary to a single option. Static resolution rather than critical re
flection appears its ideal.
Read as a source of answers, the unintended effect of Advancing the Vision may be to
foreclose inquiry rather than to encourage and nurture it. By presenting philosophy as a
(finished) product—a closed book if you will—elitist attitudes are encouraged, attitudes
reminiscent of modernist aesthetic philosophy, attitudes that were part and parcel of colo
nial conquests and occupations. Such attitudes and arguments, even reframed for today’s
world, continue to colonize unless teachers and students engage them critically and re
flectively, determining for themselves whether and how philosophical inquiry informs mu
sical and educational problems.
Praxial Music Education: Performance, Pedagogy, and Power
As interests in multicultural education gained momentum in the late 1980s, disenchant

ment with the discourse of aesthetic education also began to emerge publicly. Drawing
from sociology and other disciplines, some music educators (p. 421) began exploring
“praxial” philosophies of music education. Although they approached the concept of prax
is with individual nuances, they shared concerns that philosophies of music and music ed
ucation be grounded in musical action rather than aesthetic reception. Alperson, for in
stance, urged that we “understand [music] in terms of the variety of meaning and values
evidenced in actual practice in particular cultures” (Alperson, 1991, 233), while Bowman
sought to make apparent “the crucial facts of music’s social situatedness and practical
nature” (Bowman, 2002a, 28; also see Bowman, 1994a, 1994b). Regelski (1981, 1986,
2004) wrote of “action learning” to reinforce the concept that music is best learned by do
ing within particular contexts, not through analysis of abstract concepts or passive “mu
sic appreciation.”
An examination of the philosophical work of these authors reveals significant variations in

interpretations of praxial music education. My remarks here focus predominantly on Mu
sic Matters (Elliott, 1995), whose subtitle, A New Philosophy of Music Education, sug
gests an alternative to aesthetic music education philosophy. Music Matters argues stren
uously against many of the assumptions of aesthetic music education, and in that sense it
represents an effort to decolonize music education philosophy by deposing a long domi
nant ideology. Even so, traces of epistemological colonialism are evident in its pages. It,
too, proffers philosophy as product rather than process.
Music Matters argues that music is not merely a collection of works to be studied, ana
lyzed, or “appreciated.” It is, rather, a mode of action that can only be understood by ac
tive involvement in making and listening to music. Describing music as a diverse human
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practice and a shared human endeavor, the text acknowledges the various ways that hu
mans engage in music as social phenomenon. Drawing on the understanding that all hu
mans are musical, Elliott argues that all children deserve opportunities to come to know
music by making music, a viewpoint that differs significantly from the aesthetic rationale.
“Who writes? For whom is the writing being done? In what circumstances? These, it
seems to me, are the questions whose answers provide us with the ingredients making for
a politics of interpretation” (Said, 1998, 155). Said’s questions are important to consider
with respect to Music Matters, which, in addition to arguing against aesthetic education,
also sought to push back against the de-skilling (Apple, 1995) of teachers that had oc
curred since the 1970s.3 As Elliott argued, the de-skilling of music teachers resulted in
part from the uncritical acceptance of aesthetic education and associated “teacher-proof”
texts that, in Elliott’s view, encouraged students to be passive consumers of music rather
than active participants (Elliott, 1995, 32). However, in the attempt to return decision-
making responsibility to music teachers, Music Matters may have placed too much power
in their hands—power that undermined its promise for decolonizing teacher-student rela
tionships.
(p. 422) Music Matters calls for each music education site to be a reflective musical
practicum, arguing that music education, even in school settings, should be more like mu
sical practices outside the classroom. The argument for reflective musical practica draws
upon the model of apprenticeship, which assumes that the teacher knows most if not all
of what students need to learn. Indeed, the expertise required by teachers to conduct
such reflective musical practica is among the book’s recurring themes. This focus on
teacher expertise neglects student knowledge, implying (if through omission) that stu
dents lack the potential to contribute to collective knowledge production. Combined with
what has been criticized as a bias toward performance (Lamb, 1994; Reimer, 1995) and
characterized as a masculinist presentation (Lamb, 1994), the role of teacher within this
philosophical orientation resembles that of a conductor who controls decision making
within an ensemble.
Considering the importance granted to large ensembles in North America and

elsewhere,4 this should not surprise. Although Elliott makes a strong case for other forms
of music-making in education—including listening, composing, and improvising—Music
Matters may have provided advocates of large ensembles with a renewed sense of pur
pose at a time when many were beginning to question their relevance. Thus, while
Elliott’s version of praxial philosophy for music education potentially decolonizes (some)
teachers by resisting de-skilling, for those teachers comfortable being regarded as ex
perts in their respective educational settings, the book provides little incentive to share
power with students, who remain colonized within traditional authoritarian musical en
sembles or classrooms.
This particular approach to praxial music education may be potentially decolonizing in

that it values the diversity of human musical practices and resists the de-skilling of teach
ers. However, Music Matters’ style of argument also suggests an epistemological colonial
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ism: it reproduces the discursive patterns of the aesthetic education texts against which it
argues. The approach does little to discourage continued authoritarian, colonialist ap
proaches to teaching; neither does it encourage teachers and students to question its un
derlying premises and philosophical assumptions.
It deserves mention that in Music Matters, Elliott discusses the role of reflection at
length. These discussions, however, tend to focus on reflection in the moment of teaching.
Missing is the ethical element of praxis for which both Regelski (2002c, 1994) and Bow
man (2002b, 2002a) have argued, the concern for phronesis, or “right action.” “Phronesis
enables one to discern what is significant and how to act rightly in diverse and fluid situa
tions, fields of action for whose demands one can never be fully prepared” (Bowman,
2002b, 70–71). Phronesis potentially steers action and reflection toward ethical concerns
about students—the development of their unique relationships with music and their con
struction of identities. It features centrally in the practical knowledge music educators
seek to develop in students alongside musicianship. Phronesis suggests the type of reflec
tive practice through which (p. 423) decolonizing approaches to both music teaching and
music education philosophy may emerge. Without this important perspective, however,
praxial approaches fall short of their full potential to decolonize music educators’ think
ing and action.
Can Critical Theory and Pedagogy “Save” Music Education Philoso

phy?
Decolonizing texts often draw upon critical theory for guidance. In education, the related
concept “critical pedagogy” often provides an approach to decolonizing educational theo
ries and practices. Although these are the theoretical perspectives with which I usually
associate, it is important to acknowledge that critical perspectives, like aesthetic and
praxial music education philosophies, may also involve problematic assumptions.
Critical theory typically perceives society as dysfunctional and problematic. Critical theo
rists engage in ideology critique by which false consciousness can be analyzed and valid
knowledge rationally debated, justified, and communicated (Regelski, 2002a, 4). Such cri
tiques typically reject economic determinism, directing attention to concerns like “media,
culture, language, power, desire, critical enlightenment and critical
emancipation” (Denzin and Lincoln, 2000, 160). Educators’ concerns about the effects of
false consciousness on marginalized peoples have led them to develop critical pedago
gies. The work of Paolo Freire (1970, 1994; Freire 1998) has been especially influential
here, emerging from his efforts to improve literacy among peasants in Brazil. A signifi
cant feature of Freire’s work is his concern that education bring to consciousness the
conditions that create and perpetuate oppression. “Conscientization” enables individuals
to understand the nature of oppression and actively seeks to provide the skills to improve
life conditions. Within education, there are many variants or strains of critical pedagogy,
including critical multiculturalism, anti-racism education, feminist pedagogies, and oth
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ers, each devoted to the development of more effective forms of resistance to processes
of oppression.
Critical theory and pedagogy have found their way into music education discourses rather
belatedly, largely through the work of the MayDay Group (see Regelski and Gates, 2009).
However, these perspectives do appear to be gaining greater acceptance among music
educators, many of whom struggle with aesthetic education’s notions of music as an au
tonomous entity disconnected from sociopolitical concerns, or with the neglect within
performance-driven music education of students’ engagement in their own learning. Criti
cal pedagogues view learners as active agents in their learning, and seek to redress the
differential power relationships between teachers and learners so widely reproduced by
traditional instructional practices.
As music educators incorporate critical perspectives into their teaching, the need for
awareness of critical pedagogy’s potential to colonize becomes “critical.” Critical peda
gogy can easily lapse into a condescending stance whose response to patterns of domina
tion paradoxically replicates those patterns. Ellsworth (1989) (p. 424) argues that the key
assumptions, goals, and pedagogical practices in the literature of critical pedagogy—em
powerment, student voice, dialogue, and even the term critical— “are repressive myths
that perpetuate relations of domination” (298). She and others argue that critical
pedagogy’s concepts of empowerment and liberation uphold the power and privilege of
those seeking to empower and liberate, reproducing colonialist relationships between
critical pedagogues and their students.
While the deep desire to help others often motivates those who teach, there are impor
tant differences between helping and rescuing. Dei argues against salvific motivations:
“Teachers who regard themselves as on a mission to ‘save’ the underclass or disadvan
taged only serve to reproduce the perception of inherent privilege accorded to those from
the dominant culture who must ‘tend to the less fortunate’” (Dei et al., 2000, 246). He ar
gues instead for emancipatory pedagogy as an approach that divests power and acknowl
edges students’ contributions to knowledge production.
Other concepts within critical pedagogy warrant interrogation as well. Recently, the dis
course has incorporated terms from the fields of cultural studies and postcolonialism: flu
idity, hybridity, mobility, and transgression, ideas that have begun to make their way into
critical approaches of music education. At first gloss they appear to counter the implied
binaries of colonization/decolonization or colonialism/anti-colonialism, adding complexity
that tends to elude dichotomous constructions. Such notions may be especially attractive
for philosophers in music education, since they seem to resonate with ways new musical
forms emerge from cross-cultural contact. However, like the language of empowerment,
many indigenous people and anti-colonial scholars see the purportedly “liberatory” con
structs of fluidity, mobility, and transgression as part of the fundamental lexicon of West
ern imperialism (Grande,2008, 240). As Grande writes, such concepts often ignore the
historic, economic, and material conditions of difference and divert attention away from
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issues of differential power (242). For example, where is the line separating hybridity
from appropriation in world beat musics?5
The foregoing criticisms point to some of the difficulties that may attend the use of criti
cal theory and pedagogy as decolonizing perspectives for music education philosophy.
The language of critical theory, despite good intentions of theorists and pedagogues, may
paradoxically reproduce the epistemological colonialism it seeks to disrupt, while its
practitioners inadvertently assume roles as colonizers.
The Politics of Inclusion: Multicultural Music Education’s Potential

to Colonize
The fall of colonialism ushered in an era of heightened global migration. People of the for
mer European colonies, who had been taught through their colonial education that they
were subjects of the “motherland” (Hesse, 2000), emigrated to those (p. 425) European
“homes” in search of better jobs and living conditions, and improved education for their
children. One response to the changing demographics of schools, both in North America
and globally, has been multicultural education. Multicultural education involves diverse
paradigms ranging from liberal democratic to critical perspectives. While well intended,
most if not all such approaches have served to maintain cultural separation instead of
creating the kind of inclusion that lets students keep “their cultural differences
intact” (Szecsy, 2010, 2).
While multicultural education continues to wrestle with unintended consequences of

many of its practices, such concerns have reached music education belatedly and slowly.
While many music educators have urged the inclusion of cultural context when teaching
music (Koza, 2001; Bradley, 2006b, 2009b, 2008, 2009a; Morton, 1994; Campbell, 1994,
1996, 2002, 1995, 2004), too many of multicultural music education’s resources and prac
tices simply continue to follow aesthetic education’s lead, utilizing “common elements”
approaches to instruction. By providing scant sociocultural contextualization, these ap
proaches inadvertently portray music as stand-alone works, as pieces to be learned for
their own sake. Such approaches can be profoundly reductive, resulting in the treatment
of music as repertoire. This often leads in turn to musical exoticism that leaves the Euro
pean canon centered in the curriculum (Morton, 1994; Koza, 2001; Bradley, 2006a, 2006b,
2008; Bradley, Golner, and Hanson, 2007; Campbell, 1994). Unfortunately, exoticism does
little to promote cross-cultural understanding—the goal Campbell (1994, 1995, 1996,
2002, 2004) sees as primary, both in multicultural and world music education.
Making resources available to music educators worldwide is a great service to the disci
pline, but too many of them serve to reproduce colonial issues of representation, appro
priation, and commodification. Campbell’s Global Music Series (Oxford) provides greater
cultural contextualization of regional musics and cultural groups, perhaps indicating her
personal dissatisfaction with the reductive approaches of many earlier publications. How
ever, many of these early publications remain staple resources for K–12 multicultural mu
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sical curricula, continuing to trivialize and tokenize cultures, and reproducing colonial at
titudes through inadequate or distorted representations.
Since the first Tanglewood symposium in 1967, many music education scholars have
urged greater inclusion and musical diversity in music curricula. However, the continued
emphasis on the European canon (and the continued application of its values to music of
other cultures) suggests lingering colonial attitudes. Music outside the canon has been
appropriated and subsumed within existing curricula, leaving Western cultural hegemony
intact. Agawu (2003) writes, “It is easy to be enamored of diversity—indeed to promote
and celebrate it—if you are not required to yield a square inch of intellectual or cognitive
territory” (223).
Kazmi (1997) cautions, similarly, that while multicultural education has the potential to
subvert dominant discourses, this rarely happens. As he explains, the refusal to recognize
multiculturalism’s subversive possibilities prevents its emergence as an alternative to the
dominant culture and acknowledgment of its (p. 426) legitimacy (331). He argues further
that “alien cultures . . . are allocated a space and a role in ‘the truth’ of the dominant cul
ture . . . their meaning controlled by the commentaries on them” (340). This criticism res
onates deeply with current circumstances in multicultural music education: European and
North American music educators have generated the vast majority of the discipline’s
scholarship, to the exclusion of those who might speak more knowledgeably about their
music and culture.
Smith observes that colonialism “opened up new materials for exploitation” and that, “at
a cultural level, ideas, images, and experiences about the Other helped to shape and rein
force notions of essential differences between the western world and the rest” (Smith,
1999, 60). Interest in presumed “essential” differences grew as indigenous Asian, Ameri
can, Pacific, and African forms of knowledge assumed the status of “new discoveries” by
Western scientists and scholars. Some scholars are therefore quite concerned about the
ways indigenous knowledge has been appropriated and incorporated into multicultural
curricula, where it is treated variously as “a threat to Euro/Americentrism6 and-or as a
commodity to be exploited” (Kincheloe and Steinberg, 2008, 135).
May (2009) claims that multicultural education “has been plagued by a naïve preoccupa
tion with culture at the expense of broader material and structural concerns” (34)—the
differential material benefits, for example, that result when musical materials are appro
priated for publication. This preoccupation with culture is particularly evident in efforts
to locate new and ever more “exotic” music for the curriculum. Under such circum
stances, multicultural music education becomes, in effect, its own “aesthetic”: pursued
for its own sake rather than as a means for promoting cross-cultural understanding. In or
der for multicultural music education to fulfill its decolonizing potential, such concerns
must remain central both to philosophy and pedagogy.
Within discourses supporting globalization, material and structural concerns sometimes

become secondary to the “postcolonial celebration of hybridity,” a discursive orientation
from which concerns about the politics of representation and cultural exchange are too
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often absent (Grande, 2008, 239). Such discourses invoke music’s natural hybridity to jus
tify their neglect of the power issues implicated in the appropriation of indigenous musics
for choral publications (Bradley, 2006a, 2009a) and instrumental arrangements of world
musics (Abramo, 2007). Rather than facilely embracing musical hybridity, a decolonizing
approach recognizes that “globalization theory . . . hides the fact that its ethics are those
of the marketplace and not the universal ethics of the human person” (Freire, 1998, 114).
A decolonizing education, therefore, enables students “to see that there is no pure west
and east, and that curricula, texts, and identities, including their own, are shaped by his
tory, geography, and economics” (Asher, 2009, 11). Decolonizing music education re
quires that (p. 427) multicultural philosophies and pedagogies explore musical hybridity
not simply as the natural outcome of contact between cultures, but as phenomena gener
ating questions such as, Who presents the music for study and how? Who receives credit
for doing so? Whose voices are marginalized or erased in the process?
The processes outlined here—exoticism through token inclusion; superficial celebration of

diversity; fear of diversity combined with its exploitation as commodity; and the celebra
tion of hybridity—all speak to the potential for multiculturalism to fall prey to epistemo
logical colonialism supporting a Eurocentric musical norm. This leads some scholars to
conclude that “the current multicultural paradigm is mired in liberal ideology that offers
no radical changes” (Ladson-Billings and Tate, 2009, 178). Multicultural music education
is not a mode of practice or curricular orientation to be pursued for its own sake, without
regard for its consequences. It has deep roots in philosophical assumptions about the na
ture and value of music, and about the aims and objectives of education. To neglect these
foundational philosophical concerns is to compromise the decolonizing potential of multi
cultural music education.
Where Do We Go from Here? Decolonizing Mu

sic Education Philosophy
The picture painted in this chapter may appear bleak. It has criticized aesthetic education
philosophy for its colonialist orientation, and has questioned certain renditions of praxial
music education, critical pedagogy, and multicultural education as potential forms of epis
temological colonialism; thus, the temptation may be to abandon philosophical inquiry al
together. This is not possible, however, since actions are inseparable from beliefs and val
ues. To embrace untheorized practice is to embrace philosophical nihilism—an irresponsi
ble perspective with damage far more severe than any we have surveyed here. The ques
tion is not whether to engage in philosophy, but how to make explicit the many subtle re
lationships among philosophical assumptions, pedagogical practice, and social justice.
Music educators have largely tended to accept philosophies articulated by prominent
scholars without much critical interrogation. Philosophy texts have become de facto rules
for what and how to think about music and pedagogy: substitutes for rather than incen
tives to thought. While music education philosophers do not necessarily intend that their
arguments foreclose debate, when these are constructed as definitive answers rather
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than resources for further inquiry, vital processes of thought are transformed into mere
commodities.
It is difficult to avoid this dilemma. Indeed, the philosophers and philosophies I discuss
here (what some may regard as my North American centricity) might be (p. 428) seen as
evidence of my own epistemic colonization. I offer this not to apologize but to highlight
the complexity of issues related to philosophy as colonizing. Were I to attempt a decolo
nization of philosophies popular outside North America and beyond my own experiences,
I would reiterate the academic colonial relationship by imposing the god’s-eye view. How
ever, it is imperative that we find ways to help music educators think more critically
about their own ideologies and philosophical positions: the processes by which they cre
ate and evaluate their pedagogical practices. Music education holds the potential to be
transformative, to create the conditions for social change that Dewey, DuBois, Denzin and
Lincoln, Freire and so many others have articulated. But to achieve such ends, music
teachers must engage with, rather than blindly accept, the philosophies of others, facili
tating counter narratives in an ongoing process of philosophical exploration (Stonebanks,
2008, 313). In this perspective, counter narratives (or personal “philosophies”) are not
merely textual accounts of beliefs or ideas. Counter narratives emerge at the level of
practice, in the actions of those who engage in philosophical thinking about their prac
tices and reflect on those actions both in the moment and afterward. The goal of counter
narrative is to improve practice both individually and throughout the discipline.
What might decolonizing counter narratives for music education entail? They begin, I be
lieve, with phronesis, an ethical orientation with questions at its core, one that construes
philosophy as a process that directly informs action, and action as a process that directly
informs theory. Phronesis—the ethical concern to engage in right action rather than ac
tion that is simply correct or expedient—is mindful of the wide range of influences in
structional actions may produce, and thus insists on an ongoing reflexivity regarding
those actions. Teachers and students are not just capable of this kind of action and reflec
tion; they are pursuits in which all responsible teachers and learners ought to engage.
Philosophy as reflective practice is not simply “ivory tower conjecture” (Elliott, 1995, 9).
Music educators and students at all levels need to engage in reflective processes that
problematize potentially colonizing actions, to discern what constitutes “right action” in a
given teaching and learning situation. Music education colonizes when it promotes un
equal power relations in the classroom; when it operates from presumptions that stu
dents are “empty vessels” to be filled; when it proceeds as if only some students are de
serving or truly capable of learning music; or when it implies, however inadvertently, that
only some musical genres have educative value.
A decolonizing perspective for music education philosophy considers power relations and
focuses concern for the ways music education is implicated in students’ identity construc
tion. For example, phronesis requires ethical deliberation in the use of indigenous knowl
edges in education. While Kincheloe and Steinberg (2008) acknowledge the potential for
these knowledges to be catalysts for political, epistemological, and ontological change,
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when brought into the curriculum for their own sakes rather than as ways to build cultur
al connections, appropriation and misrepresentation often follow. In music education,
moving beyond “add-and-stir” approaches to multiculturalism to robust inclusion of multi
ple musical genres that decenter (without eliminating) the Western canon, calls for a
(p. 429) reconstituted, more broadly conceived vision of what it means to be musically ed
ucated.
Decolonizing philosophy will not result in greater unity of practice, nor should it. It
should lead us to a stronger belief in the necessity for philosophical reflection on what we
do as music educators—a move away from philosophy as “epistemological
tyranny” (Kincheloe and Steinberg, 2008, 145) and toward an epistemology that accepts
its own fallibility: epistemology, that is comfortable with uncertainty. Such philosophy is
an ongoing, reflexive critique of beliefs, motives, and the outcomes of practice. Decoloniz
ing philosophies of music education should take into account questions of cultural identi
ty and music’s role in the construction of the self. As Freire (1998) writes, education
should make possible conditions in which learners interact with one another and their
teachers in a process of understanding themselves as “social, historical, thinking, commu
nicating, transformative, creative persons” (45).
In place of the epistemological tyranny implicit in some philosophical approaches, Freire

argues for an “epistemological curiosity” that leads teachers and students alike to ques
tion, know, act, ask again, and recognize that “open, curious questioning . . . is what
grounds them mutually” (81). As teachers, we recognize epistemological curiosity as
heightening our concerns for students: What do they learn, and how? How do their musi
cal doings over time help them produce themselves as coherent beings? Such epistemo
logical curiosity decolonizes through recognition of the importance of musical experi
ences “in the street, in the square, in the work place, in the classroom, in the
playground” (Freire, 1998, 47), all of which contribute substantially to development of the
self.
Decolonizing philosophy requires that we ask regularly, What aspects of the status quo do
our philosophical assumptions and actions in music education replicate? How instead
might those processes help students understand who they are in the world in ways that
break down barriers of race, gender, and class, and resist heterosexism and ableism?
How might we acknowledge, value, build upon, and challenge the varied knowledges stu
dents bring with them? A decolonizing philosophy of music education demands “perma
nent, critical vigilance in regard to the students” (Freire, 1998, 63)—not just to “the mu
sic”—to ensure the creation of just and inclusive educational practices. Philosophy so con
ceived will not only decolonize the practice of philosophy in music education but also the
practices of music education.
Reframing what it means to educate musically requires that we approach all music, and
all philosophies of music education, with an understanding of their contextually situated
nature. Such understanding raises epistemological questions about the production and
consumption of music as a form of knowledge. In reflecting on these questions, our goal
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should be to understand music’s importance to identity construction—individual; collec
tive; gender; racial; cultural; national; and indeed, in the case of music education philoso
phy, even academic identity—and the myriad other ways people understand themselves.
Such reflection will help us remain conscious of the subtle connections between culture,
philosophy, and what is considered successful music education.
A decolonizing philosophy avoids presenting itself as a source of answers, or a

(p. 430)
substitute for others’ philosophical engagements. Rather, it displays an ongoing and re
lentless curiosity about all forms of knowledge production, including those within music
education, and including its own.
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Notes:
(1) Edward Said argued that political colonialism is ongoing, since the Palestinian people
remain colonized under Israeli rule.
(2) This subtitle appears to imply that the aesthetic rationale for music education is both
adequate and worthy of further advancement.
(3) This, too, may be viewed as a decolonizing approach, or as resistance to perceived

colonialism in education.
(4) The trend toward large orchestral ensembles in China, Korea, and other areas in Asia
suggests that this form of music education continues to gain popularity.
(5) For an in-depth discussion of these issues and their complexity, see Feld, 2000.
(6) See the previous discussion on aesthetic music education, particularly Reimer, 1989,
145; 2003, 20.
Deborah Bradley
Deborah Bradley teaches in the Faculty of Music and Emmanuel College at the Uni
versity of Toronto, and has also taught in the Department of Curriculum and Instruc
tion at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research focuses on anti-racism, an
ti-colonialism, and social justice in music education. Dr. Bradley's work is published
in the Philosophy of Music Education Review; Action, Criticism, and Theory for Music
Education; Music Education Research; and Diverse Methodologies in Music Educa
tion.
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Good for What, Good for Whom?

: Decolonizing Music Education Philoso­

Good for What, Good for Whom?: Decolonizing Music

Print Publication Date: May 2012 Subject: Music, Music Education

Abstract and Keywords

This article examines philosophy's role in epistemological colonialism in music education.

This chapter interrogates philosophy’s role in what I characterize as epistemological colo­

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What Does It Mean to be Educated?

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What Does It Mean to Be Musically Educated?

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If the role of education, whether formal or informal, is to prepare people to function as

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The Role of Philosophy in Music Education

Alperson’s description of philosophy as a “sustained, systematic, and critical examination

Philosophy as a Colonizing System of Rea­

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Ikuenobe’s argument concludes provocatively: “To deny a people a philosophy is to deny

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Music Education Philosophies as Colonizing

In the chapter “African Music as Text,” Agawu’s argument resonates with

Ikuenobe’s concern about folk philosophies. He pleads for ethnomusicologists to dispense

Aesthetic Music Education and Epistemological Colonialism

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Aesthetic philosophy as a system of reasoning emerged in music education as aesthetic

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The proposed alternative to postmodern thinking—a “synergistic” approach—seeks to “re­

Advancing the Vision functions as a philosophical product (a text) whose proposed

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Praxial Music Education: Performance, Pedagogy, and Power

As interests in multicultural education gained momentum in the late 1980s, disenchant­

An examination of the philosophical work of these authors reveals significant variations in

Subscriber: University College London; date: 06 January 2022

Considering the importance granted to large ensembles in North America and

This particular approach to praxial music education may be potentially decolonizing in

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Can Critical Theory and Pedagogy “Save” Music Education Philoso­

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Subscriber: University College London; date: 06 January 2022

The Politics of Inclusion: Multicultural Music Education’s Potential

While multicultural education continues to wrestle with unintended consequences of

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Within discourses supporting globalization, material and structural concerns sometimes

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The processes outlined here—exoticism through token inclusion; superficial celebration of

Where Do We Go from Here? Decolonizing Mu­

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In place of the epistemological tyranny implicit in some philosophical approaches, Freire

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A decolonizing philosophy avoids presenting itself as a source of answers, or a

Subscriber: University College London; date: 06 January 2022

Subscriber: University College London; date: 06 January 2022

———. 1995. Music matters. New York: Oxford University Press.

Hesse, Barnor, ed. 2000. Un/Settled multiculturalisms: Diasporas, entanglements,

“transruptions.” London: Zed Books.

Subscriber: University College London; date: 06 January 2022

: Decolonizing Music Education Philoso

This chapter interrogates philosophy’s role in what I characterize as epistemological colo

Philosophy as a Colonizing System of Rea

The proposed alternative to postmodern thinking—a “synergistic” approach—seeks to “re

As interests in multicultural education gained momentum in the late 1980s, disenchant

Can Critical Theory and Pedagogy “Save” Music Education Philoso

Where Do We Go from Here? Decolonizing Mu

Kazmi, Yedullah. 1997. Foucault’s genealogy and teaching multiculturalism as a subver

———. 2001. Multicultural approaches to music education. In Making schooling multicul

Szecsy, Elsie M. 2010. Bank’s international companion to multicultural education: An es