International Journal of Education & the Arts

Citation: Ballantyne, J. & Kallio, A.A. (2024). Engaging emerging Diversities: Navigating complex and dynamic intersections in music teacher education. International Journal of Education & the Arts, 25(15). http://doi.org/10.26209/ijea25n15

Teaching in contemporary schools raises complex questions about how to engage meaningfully with diversity. Working within already politicized and fast-changing sociocultural landscapes, the diversity that teachers are required to navigate can no longer be accounted for by pre-existing categorizations. New qualities of difference are continually emerging through students’ and teachers’ own identity development and the continually evolving relationships that are part of everyday classroom work. As such, teaching also involves a dynamic approach to decision-making as to what is right and good in and through music, indeed, the very axiological premises of music education are constantly called into question. In this paper, we heuristically engage with the theoretical writings of Bauman, Greene, and Hare to formulate invitations through which music teacher education might approach these complex, dynamic, and intersecting diversities. By assuming complexity, approaching learning as an adventure, alternating between the personal and the professional, assuming a researcher disposition, fostering artistic play, and (co-)imagining possible futures, we suggest that future teachers might be equipped to resist the passive acceptance of the status quo and explore how we might practice the art of living with difference, together.