Sustainable development in Music education - part 3 : Quality of music teaching, learning and knowledge - perspectives on assessment and evaluation

Project summary

In a definition of Brundtland Commission, Sustainable Development "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" (WCED 2010). The key to this is often taken to be environmentality: the capacities of natural systems are considered as critical factors framing the social changes. Aside with issues related to relationships between people and nature, the discussions connected to Sustainable Development touch upon issues related to economic and sociopolitical factors. In education, Sustainable Development amounts to a vision that integrates the concern of the carrying capability of natural and human resources to social-political and ethical concerns of poverty, equality, human rights, education for all, health, security and interculturality. Education for sustainable development (ESD) aims at helping people to develop the attitudes, skills and knowledge to make informed decisions that help them to deal with the kinds of problems referred to above, and to act upon these decisions (UNESCO 2010).

It has been argued (ibid.) that Sustainable Development can best be promoted in a kind of democratic society that enables transparency, equal expression of opinion, free debate, and politics that support these values. From this standpoint, governance, well-being and equality are key assets taken to enable Sustainable Development. Active citizenship is central to developing the attitudes towards Sustainable Development. Cultural beliefs, values, and norms shape our way of living in society. It is through critical reflection that taken-for-granted beliefs are challenged and developed. Tolerance is one of the key issues helping the attitudes towards Sustainable Development to emerge, as people-to-people relationships lie at the core of a sustainable society. 

Along with other art subjects, music can be conceived as a field of international and cross-cultural education (Bamford 2006,Field 2010). It has been argued that music has power to create communities and promote creative agency (Karlsen & Westerlund 2010). There have also been voices that emphasize the specific power of music in contributing to positive identity formation, empowerment and access to cultural capital (McDonald et. al 2002; Hofvander Trulsson 2010). Thus, it can be argued that music education has a role in promoting attitudes towards Sustainable Development.

One central theme regarding the role of music education in society is related to aspects of plurality and change in musical life (Lundberg, Malm and Ronström 2003; Westvall 2007). For instance, through facing the plurality in musical expression, music education faces the diversity in cultural practices, values and opinions that characterizes contemporary democratic culture. Music education can be considered as part of lifelong learning. While lifelong learning can be defined as a continuing effort to relate to changes in society and culture, it is also connected to ideas of social inclusion, active citizenship and personal development. Quality assessment and dynamic evaluation are pivotal issues within the area of contemporary music education.  Sustainable Development it is crucial to continually consider developmental processes and outcomes from a critical standpoint. This way of thinking challenges the tradition of top-down evaluation by emphasizing teachers’ and students’ engagement in assessment. If music educators are to meet the challenges of pluralism and lifelong learning, they must develop flexible criterion for evaluating not only the learning outcomes, but their own teaching strategies and institutional structures of education, as well. Consequently, the concept of quality has to be continually redefined.