Pedagogical Fundamentalism versus Radical Pedagogy in Music

Abstract

Due to the increasing media influence in society, the systematic development of media literacy in music education is a matter of the utmost importance. This chapter engages in an exploration of the role of the school in the face of the social-cultural changes that new media technologies have brought about in the wider culture of music making and learning. It is argued that it is equally unhelpful to adopt the strategy of “pedagogical fundamentalism,” according to which students are passive victims of harmful and damaging media, as that of “pedagogical populism,” which uncritically buys into utopian fantasies about social change autonomously produced by technology. Instead, the chapter argues for the importance of radical pedagogy in music education by suggesting that schools should aim to build balanced approaches to new media that will contribute to the development of the cultural competencies required for students’ growth into digital citizenship.