E.08. Music and Anthropology a Synergistic Dialogue in School Autonomy: Is It Possible to Co-construct Permanent Values of Active Citizenship?

The panel invites interdisciplinary contributions exploring critical intersection of music, anthropology, and education as a tool to promote democratic pedagogical practices. Starting from the guidelines that define democracy as a plural and situated cultural phenomenon, we argue that musical practices offer a specific lens for understanding different historical periods, current social dynamics, and collective construction of meaning in diverse communities: they can be used as ethnographic sources to understand the relationship between power, culture, and cultural product (Zagrebelsky 2014).

The panel will welcome both ethnographic studies and practical, participatory approaches that analyze how the production, performance, and reception of music within educational contexts function as arenas for negotiation, power dynamics, and the co-construction of values (Bagaskara et al. 2024). We intend to investigate music not merely as content, but as a methodological tool that reveals existing hierarchies, identities, and structures of belonging (Centemeri 2017).

Furthermore, we will critically address the role of institutional autonomy in facilitating or hindering the integration of musical practices into curriculum. How can educational autonomy be utilized to favor the inclusion of music education at all levels of instruction, promoting the recognition of the inherent knowledge and historico-social understanding within diverse musical traditions? What tensions emerge between the democratic promise of music education, understood as a space for critical citizenship, and the constraints of public accountability and standardization? How can music education, read through the critical lens of cultural anthropology, form citizens capable of relating to the cultural products they will encounter throughout their lives?