Developing visions for the future. A reflection on utopias in music teacher education

Abstract

As society changes, new challenges arise for education. Major social upheavals have led to increasing awareness of social justice issues and critical reflection within the field of music education, as well as calls for social and educational change. In this article, five music teacher educators discuss how music teacher educators and pre-service music teachers can develop spaces for envisioning future music teacher education through utopian thinking. We consider utopias as social dreaming reflecting a desire for a better way of life, and utopian pedagogy as experimenting to envision new alternatives, tell new stories and construct new realities. The article starts with outlining theories of utopia and utopian pedagogy, before moving on to reflecting on challenges related to music teacher education. A situation where preservice music teachers were invited to think utopian is then critically explored, as is our double position as researchers/educators. Finally, we address the envisioning of possible futures within the field of music teacher education.