Environmentalism in popular music education: A critical pedagogy and Students as Partners approach

Abstract

In the face of looming environmental catastrophe, music educators have an obligation to support students in finding ways to navigate and respond to environmental change through their practice. Data from a survey of popular music students in an Australian higher music education institution showed that while students held serious concerns about environmental threats, they did not feel empowered to address these through their music and could not envisage a role for music education to support them to do so. It is proposed that a praxial pedagogical framework informed by critical pedagogy, and supported through the Students as Partners approach, would help popular music students to develop their musician activist identities and empower them to respond to the challenges of a changing climate through their art.