The ensembles of music high schools as contexts for cultivating artistic citizenship: A case study

Ph.D Candidate: 
Konstantinos Kerasovitis

Citizenship is an important and complex concept, one that makes its appearance more and more often in public speech, in academic publications, as well as in education policies. Questions regarding citizenship arise daily in education at all levels. This research aims to delve deep into the role of music education in addressing issues of citizenship. In particular, the research focuses on whether music schools ensembles as contexts for citizenship education, as means for cultivating the values of democracy and social justice. The contribution of this research in musical pedagogics has to do with analyzing and understanding the experience which students in a music school acquire, while joining and performing in music ensembles. Moreover, it aims to point out students’ experiences that have to do with citizenship, present those practices which boost up or, on the contrary, block these experiences. Consequentially, this research is about giving birth to new questions, questions capable of enriching the field of music education, while at the same time providing answers regarding understanding the social value of participating in a music ensemble, in a context of strengthening the everlasting values of justice and democracy. In particular, it is aspiring to show how much music education has to offer in a functional democratic school, which has the responsibility to cultivate the values of freedom, justice, equality, autonomy and participating in decision making process, by encouraging students to accept responsibilities, to cooperate, to achieve empathy, and to express one’s opinions freely. Last, but not least, I really hope that this research will prove useful for rethinking the role of music education in cultivating social justice.