Introduction: Difference and Division in Music Education

Abstract

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book focuses on the ways in which music education is reliant upon, reinforces, or challenges processes of social identification, recognition, and categorisation. It examines the processes by which musical meaning is assigned, controlled, or contested in relation to three very different musical idioms. The book then considers the ways in which the self-congratulatory benevolence of inclusive music education policy and practices risks dehumanising and excluding immigrant students and teachers, obligating them to express gratitude for the opportunities bestowed upon them. It then explores the transformative potentials of music education, through a narrative of violence, trauma, and recovery in Colombia. The book explores the role of hate in socialising musicians into the genre and gaining membership into the black metal milieu, as part of a broader political economy that invests in meaning and value construction.