Conference Agenda
Overview and details of the sessions of this conference. Please select a date or location to show only sessions at that day or location. Please select a single session for detailed view (with abstracts and downloads if available).
Please note that all times are shown in the time zone of the conference. The current conference time is: 19th Aug 2026, 21:29:40 EET
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29 SES 05 B: Music education (I)
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29. Research on Arts Education
Paper Ecosocial Music Education in Action: A Practice-Based Research Session 1: University of the Arts Helsinki; 2: University of Oulu Presenting Author:This proposal presents a conference session conceived not as a demonstration of completed research, but as the next empirical phase of an ecosocial music education framework. Building on published theoretical and practice-based work on attuning to sound, reconnecting with sound memories, and co-composing with the more-than-human world, the session serves as a live, practice-based test of this model with international conference participants as co-researchers. Earlier research proposes that ecosocial music education can support a sustainable life orientation by cultivating embodied listening, relational awareness, multispecies sensitivity, and shared creative agency. In this session, we move beyond theorizing and illustrating these ideas and instead examine how the model operates in a new research context: a heterogeneous group of international arts education scholars in a conference setting. The session treats the conference room as a temporary research site. Rather than presenting predetermined findings, we invite participants to engage in a structured series of embodied and sonic practices derived from our ecosocial framework. Through these practices, we investigate how ecosocial music education principles function when applied to a new setting with a group of international scholars with diverse backgrounds. The research focuses on three interrelated questions: The session unfolds through three phases that operationalize our model. First, participants engage in an attunement practice that shifts attention from analytical listening to embodied awareness of sonic environments. This phase explores how participants experience relational listening and how their sense of self, space, and environment change through focused sonic attention. Second, participants reconnect with personal sound memories, allowing remembered sonic experiences to surface as research material. These memories are shared through sound rather than narrative, enabling us to study how memory, emotion, and place become audible in a collective research process. Third, participants engage in a collaborative co-composition process in which voices, objects, ambient sounds, and spatial acoustics function as co-creative agents. This phase allows us to examine how creativity and authorship are redistributed when sound-making is understood as a more-than-human practice. In this way, the session functions as a practice-based experiment that both enacts and evaluates our ecosocial model. Rather than treating theory and practice as separate domains, the research unfolds through action, participation, and reflection. Knowledge is generated not only through verbal analysis but through embodied experience, sonic interaction, and relational attunement. The format intentionally involves uncertainty. Outcomes are not fully predictable, and participants’ responses shape the session's direction. This openness allows us to study how ecosocial music education principles operate under real-world conditions of variability, cultural difference, and institutional framing. By positioning conference participants as collaborators in an ongoing research process, this contribution reframes the conference presentation as a site of knowledge production rather than knowledge dissemination. The session thus extends our prior work by transforming an ecosocial theoretical framework into a live, collective, and empirically generative research event. Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources Used Practice-Based Research Design The methodological approach combines ecosocial music education theory with practice-based and performative research. The session is designed as a situated field experiment in which our previously developed ecosocial model is tested in action. Participants and Role Conference participants are invited to join the session as co-researchers. Their embodied experiences, sonic contributions, emotional responses, and reflections form the primary research material. The facilitators function less as presenters and more as research orchestrators, guiding the process while allowing participant responses to shape its unfolding. Research Procedure: Three Phases Phase 1 — Attuning to Sonic Environments Participants engage in a guided listening practice that foregrounds bodily sensation, environmental sound, and shifting attention. This phase explores how relational listening alters participants’ perception of space, presence, and sonic agency. Phase 2 — Sound Memory Activation Participants are invited to recall personally meaningful sound memories. Instead of narrating these memories verbally, they express them through sound, voice, rhythm, or gesture. This allows us to examine how memory operates as an embodied, multisensory, and relational form of knowledge. Phase 3 — Co-Composing with the Environment Participants collaboratively create a sonic composition with each other and the acoustic environment. Voices, objects, room acoustics, and ambient noise are treated as active contributors. This phase investigates how creative agency becomes distributed across human and more-than-human actors. While the session is conceived as an extended practice-based research encounter, its three phases can be condensed into a shorter conference format without losing their experiential or methodological integrity. Data and Documentation Research material consists of audio traces of the collective soundscape, facilitator field notes, participant reflections (optional verbal or written), and embodied observations of group dynamics, affect, and interaction. Analysis is conducted reflexively, attending to emergent patterns in participation, relational shifts, sonic structures, and affective responses. Ethics Participation is voluntary. Silence, withdrawal, and passive observation are recognized as valid forms of engagement. The session prioritizes care, consent, and respect for vulnerability, while avoiding the extractive use of participants' experiences. Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or Findings This session positions a conference presentation as a site of ongoing research, extending an existing ecosocial music education framework into a new empirical context. Rather than presenting finalized results, it treats the event itself as a moment of data generation, theoretical testing, and methodological experimentation in an international setting. The contribution demonstrates how ecosocial music education theory can be examined through live, practice-based inquiry. By inviting participants into attunement, sound memory work, and co-composition, the session explores how the model functions beyond its original educational settings and how it resonates with an international research community. Methodologically, the project expands understandings of what counts as empirical research in arts education by treating embodied sensation, sonic interaction, memory, and relational dynamics as legitimate sources of knowledge. It offers a model for how conferences can serve not only as dissemination platforms but also as temporary research laboratories. The session also generates insights into how an international group of researchers responds to ecosocial pedagogical practices, how collective sonic creation shapes relational awareness, and how more-than-human agencies participate in knowledge production. These insights will inform future iterations of our ecosocial model and contribute to broader discussions on practice-based research in arts education. Overall, the contribution frames ecosocial music education as a living, evolving research program rather than a fixed theory. It demonstrates how theoretical models can be tested, refined, and transformed through participatory, embodied, and sound-based inquiry. References Atkinson, D. (2018). Art, Disobedience and Ethics: The Adventure of Pedagogy. Palgrave. Foster, R., & Sutela, K. (2024). Ecosocial approach to music education. Music Education Research, 26(2), 99–111. Foster, R., Mäkelä, J., & Martusewicz, R. (2019). Art, EcoJustice, and Education: Intersecting Theories and Practices. Routledge. Foster, R., Salonen, A. O., & Sutela, K. (2022). Taidekasvatuksen ekososiaalinen kehys: Kohti kestävyystietoista elämänorientaatiota. Kasvatus, 53(2), 118–129. Keto, S., & Foster, R. (2021). Ecosocialization – an ecological turn in the process of socialization. International Studies in Sociology of Education, 30(1–2), 34–52. Oliveros, P. (2005). Deep Listening: A Composer’s Sound Practice. iUniverse. Østern, T. P., Jusslin, S., Nødtvedt Knudsen, K., Maapalo, P., & Bjørkøy, I. (2021). A performative paradigm for post-qualitative inquiry. Qualitative Research, 23(2), 272–289. Vadén, T., & Torvinen, J. (2014). Musical meaning in between: Ineffability, atmosphere and asubjectivity in musical experience. Journal of Aesthetics and Phenomenology, 1(2), 209–230. 29. Research on Arts Education
Paper “What’s New?” Re-distributing Creativity in Flemish Youth Choir Practices LUCA School of Arts / KU Leuven, Belgium Presenting Author:Throughout the last decades, creativity has undoubtedly become one of the most frequently used buzzwords in education and educational research. The widespread idea that traditional school education “kills creativity” has sparked countless attempts to show how creativity could (re)gain its rightful place within educational practices, both as a quality of these practices – making them more open to novelty – and as a learning objective for the learners – enabling them to take more creative part in the world. Unsurprisingly, this idea has also been taken up eagerly in arts and music education, where creativity plays an important role in advocacy narratives: since art is often defined by its creative dimension, artistic practices are frequently presented as examples for creative learning, often showing innovative learning environments in which learning unfolds through participation, interaction and meaning-making.
In music education research, this has resulted in a strong focus on improvisation as the most important practice of musical creativity, often framed as a necessary component of music-educational practice. However, research on creativity in (arts and music) education is not without its critics. A recurring concern is that creativity is frequently embraced uncritically as an inherently valuable educational aim, while remaining blind to its alignment with broader neoliberal discourses of innovation and acceleration. This raises fundamental questions about the value, meaning and purpose of creativity in education. After all, what is the value of creativity anyway? And if creativity is an essential aspect of, e.g., the art of music, does this then necessarily entail that all music-educational practices must be creative themselves? These questions are particularly relevant in learning environments that are informal, non-formal or extracurricular, where educational aims are negotiated rather than prescribed.
In my PhD research, I address these questions within the specific field of choral pedagogy, focusing on the pedagogical dynamics of amateur choir singing practices, and more specifically on Flemish youth choirs. On the one hand, this interest stems from my own background as a Flemish music educator and youth choir conductor, and from resistance to the widespread assumption that amateur choirs mainly engage in the collective reproduction of existing repertoire and therefore leave little room for creativity, particularly from the perspective of individual participants. On the other hand, I aim to explore how a renewed engagement with creativity in choir practices might contribute to their attractiveness for young people and to the long-term sustainability of amateur choir singing.
According to data from Koor&Stem (2026), the Flemish umbrella organisation for amateur choirs, the majority of choirs in their member base consist of adult singers, while the number of children’s and youth choirs is comparatively low. While this development is shaped by multiple demographic, cultural and socio-economic factors, this research explores whether pedagogical conceptions of creativity play a role in how youth choir practices respond to contemporary expectations of personal, social and artistic fulfilment.
The study draws on theoretical perspectives that conceptualize creativity as plural, situated and practice-based (Burnard, 2012), on little-c creativity as everyday creative engagement, accessible to all participants (Craft, 2001), as well as on notions of distributed creativity (Glăveanu, 2014), which emphasize how creativity emerges through interactions between people, practices and contexts. Together, these perspectives allow creativity to be analyzed as a relational and context-sensitive phenomenon, shaped within specific artistic and educational environments. Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources Used At the current stage of the PhD, the research is about to enter a first pilot study, the initial results of which are intended for presentation at ECER. This pilot study consists of short ethnographic case studies of four Flemish youth choirs. The study departs from a first literature review on creativity in choral pedagogy (in preparation), which has led to the outline of a preliminary categorization, distinguishing and describing different choral-pedagogical creativities (Burnard, 2012). Empirical data are collected through observations of rehearsals, concerts and other choir-related activities, as well as through focus group interviews with different participants, including singers, conductors and board members. The focus groups serve to relate the researcher’s observations to participants’ own views and experiences. The observation and analysis framework is supplemented with elements from Kemmis’ theory of practice architectures (2009), to allow empirical findings to refine and challenge the current categorization. This theory conceptualizes practices through the interrelation of cultural-discursive “sayings”, material-economic “doings” and socio-political “relatings”, and therefore seems highly suitable for deepening our understanding of what makes certain choir practices (more or less) creative. It also enables analysis of how learning environments are shaped by cultural norms, materialistic conditions and social relations within music educational settings. Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or Findings The pilot study is designed with three main aims. First, it functions as an exploratory exercise in approaching a practice, that I know well from the inside, as a field of research. Second, the study is designed to help me finetune the research’s theoretical and methodological frameworks (e.g., the categorization of choral-pedagogical creativities), through deliberate dialogue with the practices at which it is aimed. In doing so, the study aims to contribute empirically grounded insights to research on arts education and creative learning environments. Third, and more broadly, the study is intended to lay the groundwork for a later phase of practitioner research, in which I will actively intervene in and collaborate with youth choirs to (re)develop the creativity of their practices. This future phase aims to explore how choral creativity might be fostered in ways that are pedagogically meaningful, socially embedded and resistant to dominant neoliberal accounts of creativity, thereby contributing to the sustainable, transgenerational future of amateur choir singing. References Burnard, P. (2012). Musical creativities in practice. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199583942.001.0001 Craft, A. (2001). Little C Creativity. In A. Craft, B. Jeffrey, & M. Leibling (Eds.), Creativity in Education (pp. 45-61). New York, NY: Continuum International. Glaveanu, V. P. (2014). Distributed creativity: Thinking outside the box of the creative individual. Springer Publishing Company. SpringerBriefs in Psychology Vol. 2014 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-05434-6 Kemmis, S. (2009). Action research as a practice-based practice. Educational Action Research, 17(3), 463-474. https://doi.org/10.1080/09650790903093284 29. Research on Arts Education
Paper Teaching, Reflection, and Change: An Instructional Journey with Undergraduate Students 1: Netanya Academic College, Israel; 2: University of Klagenfurt, Austria Presenting Author:The paper describes and reflects the journey of a lecturer into pedagogical transformation in a visual communication course for first-generation undergraduate students at an academic college, within the School of Communication in Israel. The goal of the course is to develop visual thinking and understanding, to comprehend the complexity that can be created in a visual message, to improve the ability to read visual messages, and to create visual messages independently. To this end, the course covered diverse fields such as advertisements, photographs, films, music videos, websites, and paintings, understanding that all these are based on a multi-layered history of visual culture. The idea was to combine theoretical study with practical application. This study employs Educational Action Research (EAR) which applies the concepts and practices of action research (Lewin 1946; Feldman et al. 2018) to the context of education, so most educational action researchers are teachers (including lecturers in higher education). As a genre of action research, EAR recognizes both the uncertainty around the nature and extent of action (that needs to be undertaken in complex situations) and the general precariousness of conceptions of value. Researchers therefore need to engage in ongoing reflection on their actions and understandings, to inform further planning, action and understanding. Through this cyclical process, educational action researchers produce contributions to both conceptual and practical knowledge of education (Rauch, Zehetmeier & Posch 2019). Furthermore, by integrating creative and artistic tasks as a core part of the inquiry, the study aligns with the Art-Based Action Research (ABAR) framework developed by Jokela and Huhmarniemi (2018), Hughes (2019), Har-Gil (1998). This study is grounded in the methodology of Action Research. The primary objective of this study is to document and analyze a systematic process of pedagogical change aimed at improving student engagement and satisfaction. Specifically, the research seeks to: A. Identify the gaps between traditional frontal teaching methods and the cognitive/cultural characteristics of contemporary first-generation students from peripheral regions. B. Transform a lecture-based curriculum into a dialogical, interactive learning environment that accommodates limited attention spans and diverse cultural backgrounds. C. Evaluate the effectiveness of "Critical Friend" and student-centered feedback loops in driving instructional redesign. The lecturer was guided by the following research question: How can a structured, multi-layered Action Research process - incorporating personal reflection, critical friendship, and student feedback - facilitate the adaptation of teaching practices to meet the evolving needs and learning patterns of "new" undergraduate students in a digital-social media era? Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources Used The research was conducted over a period of three academic semesters, positioning the classroom as a living laboratory for pedagogical inquiry. By adopting this qualitative approach, the researcher moved beyond traditional instruction to systematically investigate and address the shifting learning patterns of "new" undergraduate students. To ensure the validity and depth of the findings, a multi-layered triangulation of data sources was utilized: Self-Reflection and Documentation: The lecturer maintained systematic personal reflections throughout the process. These records captured immediate pedagogical dilemmas, instructional decisions, and the emotional landscape of the teaching experience. Critical Friendship: A unique pillar of this methodology was the involvement of a "Critical Friend, who was present in all class sessions. This role provided an external yet deeply contextualized perspective. Immediately following each lesson, structured debriefing sessions were held, resulting in verbatim written records that documented classroom interactions and provided critical feedback on the teaching process. Student Voice (Qualitative and Quantitative): Student perspectives were integrated through weekly open-ended written reflections, allowing for a continuous pulse-check on their lived experiences and difficulties. This was complemented by periodic anonymous questionnaires designed to measure broader patterns of engagement, satisfaction, and perceived learning outcomes. External Analytical Support: The process was further validated by the involvement of an external researcher, who assisted in framing the reflective data within broader AR theoretical constructions and supported the objective interpretation of findings. The analysis followed a qualitative thematic approach, where verbatim records of post-class discussions, self-reflective journals, and student feedback were coded to identify recurring pedagogical challenges and successes. This rigorous, collaborative reflection allowed the researchers to recognize "moments of regression" not as failures, but as essential data points within the action-reflection cycle, leading to the eventual redesign of the course into a more dialogical and interactive learning environment. Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or Findings The findings of this Action Research process indicate a strong and consistent relationship between structured pedagogical reflection and enhanced student engagement, particularly among first-generation undergraduate students from peripheral backgrounds. Analysis of the qualitative data revealed that traditional lecture-based instruction was increasingly misaligned with students’ contemporary cognitive habits, attention patterns, and learning expectations. A significant finding was the critical contribution of continuous, multi-layered student feedback to pedagogical improvement. Feedback channels enabled ongoing calibration of teaching practices, allowing the lecturer to maintain a constant “finger on the pulse” of what was effective and what required adjustment. The sustained involvement of a critical friend, present in every class session over more than one academic year, emerged as one of the most influential elements of the process. Regular post-lesson reflective dialogues - documented verbatim - supported both incremental improvements and more substantial pedagogical redesigns. Importantly, the process legitimized experimentation, including the trial of innovative practices that were later abandoned when found ineffective. The analysis demonstrated that recognizing moments of regression as inherent to the Action Research cycle reduced frustration and prevented burnout. Rather than signaling failure, such moments functioned as productive data points that informed subsequent planning and action. This reframing fostered long-term pedagogical adaptability and sustained motivation for improvement. This study concludes that in an era characterized by rapid technological, cultural, and social change, teaching practices cannot remain static. For lecturers working with first-generation and peripheral student populations, pedagogical transformation is not merely a methodological choice, but an ethical responsibility. At the same time, the study emphasizes that these conclusions are context-dependent. The specific instructional solutions identified here emerged from the interaction between a particular lecturer, a specific student population, and a defined institutional and cultural setting. Teaching practices will necessarily vary according to lecturers’ personal characteristics, disciplinary cultures, and local norms. References Har-Gil, A. (1998). Good Morning Israel: Film and Action Research [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. University of Northumbria. Feldman, A., Altrichter, H., Posch, P., & Somekh, B. (2018). Teachers Investigate their Work. Routledge. (Third Edition) Hughes, J. (2019). Action research in the creative arts. Routledge. Jokela, T., & Huhmarniemi, M. (2018). Art-based action research as a tool for developing practices. In T. Jokela & G. Coutts (Eds.), Relate North: Art and Design for Education and Local Communities (pp. 10–29). Lapland University Press. Lewin, K. (1946). Resolving social conflicts: Selected papers on group dynamics (G. W. Lewin, Ed.). Harper & Brothers. Rauch, F., Zehetmeier, S., & Posch, P. (2019). Educational Action Research: In O. Zuber-Skerritt, & L. Wood (Hrsg.), Action Learning and Action Research. Genres and Approaches (pp. 111 - 126). Bingley: Emerald Group Publishing Limited. | ||