While ‘participation’, ‘wellbeing’, and ‘active learning’ are central to contemporary discourses on democracy in music education practice and research, the notion of beauty is often remarkably absent. Notwithstanding the welcome historical shift from predominantly aestheticist to praxialist accounts of music education, this absence could be considered problematic. Do music-educational practices and discourses not risk being limited to mere fun and conviviality, if they not also continue valuing musical beauty and aesthetic quality?

In this session, we explore how striving for beauty in music education can be understood today, beyond risks of conservatism and nostalgia, in a more democratic sense that reappraises the power of music itself as pedagogical actor in the classroom. The presenters introduce several perspectives using examples from their research in general schooling, music schools, and amateur ensembles. How are norms of musical beauty already collectively shaped, negotiated, and even created, by educators and educands alike, in such diverse practices as, e.g., music theory and instrumental learning, participative score arrangement, or a school trip to a musical instruments museum? And how might these practices' engagement with musical beauty bring about modes of experiencing, thinking, and living that strengthen democratic society?

We further relate these questions around the table to the methodological issue of researching and discussing beauty in music education. This seems notoriously difficult, as assessment of beauty is easily branded subjective and culturally diverse, but also socially imposed, exclusive, and/or intellectualist. Together with discussants, we hope to explore which new practices and methodologies could help capturing and mapping beauty as quality of democratic and inclusive music classrooms.

Watts, R. (2018). A Place for Beauty in Art Education. The International Journal of Art & Design Education, 37(1), 149–162. https://doi.org/10.1111/jade.12185 Westerlund, H. (2003). Reconsidering Aesthetic Experience in Praxial Music Education. Philosophy of Music Education Review, 11(1), 45–62. https://doi.org/10.2979/PME.2003.11.1.45