Mayday Group

IX: Music education practices are inescapably bound within ecology—interactions among organisms and physical environments. Diverse cultures and species can be sustained by environmentally regenerative music education attuned to cultural and physical commons, pollution-free soundscapes, the inherent value of non-human being, and people musicking for environmental activism.

We live in a time defined by ecological crises, many of which intersect with and initiate economic, gender, racial, and other injustices. Long-placed, sustainable, and indigenous cultures throughout the world contrast with an uprooting industrial culture that has brought Mother Earth to the brink of ecological collapse. Music education has an essential role to play in cultivating eco-literacy, educating citizens to take action in alleviating ecological crises. Therefore, we should critically review former, current, and upcoming musical practices from an ecological scope, taking into consideration the following questions.

1. What actions can music educators and institutions take to enact sustainable approaches to music teaching and learning and to foster the genuine interest of music educators and learners for the sustainability of local and global natural ecologies and soundscapes, as well as the musical practices that originate from them?
2. In what ways do some musical and educational cultures and practices sustain local ecologies, while others are environmentally destructive?
3. How often and to what degree do the actions of music educators in economically, industrially, and militarily dominant countries impact ecological systems throughout the world?
4. In what ways do environmental justice and musical diversity intersect with class, gender, race, place, ability, and other relevant categories of experience within the field of music teaching and learning?