Thinking Queer Pedagogy in Music Education with Girl in Red

Abstract

This chapter addresses a gap in how to approach LGBTQ issues in Norwegian schools, and by that how to fulfil the school curriculum’s aim for equality and justice to meet the diversity in the classroom and society. Due to the queer turn in popular music as well as other areas of popular culture, the chapter argues for the use of popular music to develop queer pedagogy in the classroom. Through an analysis of the song “Girls” by the Norwegian artist Girl in Red, the author suggests ways to work with queer issues to build empathy and belonging among students and teachers in diverse educational settings. The analysis, as well as the discussion, is informed by queer theory in general, in educational studies, in popular music studies, and in music education studies. The chapter also draws on methodological approaches from multimodal discourse analysis.