The music classroom as a local place and a public space

Democratic education towards music as a language of us all

Abstract

Many young people need and use artistic expressions to communicate their feelings, experiences and ideas. To use, as well as experience, different art forms is a human right. But even if this is something that can be agreed upon, we have to ask several questions. The aim of this paper is to describe the place of democracy in the current Swedish curriculum for compulsory schools (Lgr11, National Agency for Education 2011) and to investigate how Hannah Arendt’s thoughts about democracy can be used as a guideline for organizing music education in Swedish schools in line with the curriculum. What challenges and priorities can music educators gain from Hannah Arendt’s writings in this respect? Arendt underlines that human beings become clear to themselves and to others through interaction in social life. To do so they need different forms of languages to try out, modify, and create ideas and insights. Questions that have to be elaborated upon when using Arendt’s view of democracy are for example: Who is expected to raise their voices and be heard? Who is seen as a possible participant? Who has access to specific artistic areas?