Special Issue of The Finnish Journal of Music Education 2026 – Call for Papers

2025-09-02

The Finnish Journal of Music Education (FJME) is inviting papers for a special issue on Anti-colonialism, Radical Inclusion, and Interculturalism in Music and Music Education.

Engaging meaningfully with new, emerging, and intersecting qualities of difference and diversity requires constant reimaging of the ways in which musicians and educators can navigate this complex, dynamic environment, and practice the art of living with difference (Ballantyne & Kallio, 2024; Bauman, 2010).

In 2025, the relevance and importance of these topics is further heightened as our world continues to face increased division and immeasurable societal crises, calling for musicians, educators, and researchers to continually re-evaluate and re-imagine their roles and the actions they take. With this call for action, this special issue seeks to highlight work that centers anti-colonialism, radical inclusion, and interculturalism in music and music education.

In this context, anti-colonialism is understood as resistance to coloniality and identity politics, with an emphasis on agency, indigeneity, and multiple epistemologies (Sánchez-Gatt et al., 2025 ; Said, 1977; Tan, 2021). Radical inclusion is understood as an activist approach that questions surface level inclusivity and challenges power structures, seeking to create agency, accessibility, and foster a sense of belonging for all regardless of background, dis/ability, or identity (Freire., 2000/1970; Hess, 2021; Laes, 2017; Sengeh, 2023). 

Furthermore, within this context, interculturalism is understood as a framework that integrates both anti-colonialism and radical inclusion, decentralizing Eurocentric approaches, acknowledging inherent power dynamics, and actively seeking ethical collaboration across borders and boundaries (Adewale & Thomson, 2024; Kallio et. al., 2021; Thomson, 2024; Westerlund & Gaunt, 2021). 

Through the lens of anti-colonialism, radical inclusion, and interculturalism, we invite musicians and educators from diverse backgrounds and practices to contribute to this special issue, reflecting on questions such as:  

  • How can anti-colonialism, radical inclusion, and interculturalism be catalysts for constructing a more pluralistic framework, moving beyond tokenistic, essentialist views of diversity, inclusion, identity, and culture?  
  • How can colonial perspectives be dismantled and resisted in music and music education?  
  • How can all voices and dis/abilities be heard and valued equally?  
  • How might musicians, educators, and researchers affect needed systemic change in educational institutions and arts organizations?   

Engaging with these questions and developing core intercultural skills and competencies has become increasingly recognized as being crucial in the training of musicians and educators (Adewale & Thomson, 2024; Bartleet et. al.; 2020, Saether, 2013; Tan, 2021; Thomson, 2024; Westerlund & Gaunt, 2021; Westerlund et al., 2021). In this special issue, you are invited to contribute to the discussion and further our collective knowledge and understanding of these crucial topics as musicians, music educators, and scholars.    

Please submit proposals in the form of original research articles or reports on educational, artistic, and research actions by providing a 150-word abstract, including a title, key references, and key words by the 15th of November 2025 to the issue editor nathan.thomson@uniarts.fi. Tentative inquiries may also be sent before this date to the same email.  

All original research articles will be peer reviewed and must be language checked by the author as part of the publication process. Reports are not peer reviewed, but are expected to be language checked by the author. The journal has no publication fees. Manuscripts should follow the APA 7 referencing system.

In accordance with the current policy, the journal issue becomes full open access within a year from the publication. All authors have the right to parallel publish the article’s Author Accepted Manuscript version in a repository immediately on publication with a CC BY-ND license. More information is available on the FJME publication platform: https://fjme.journal.fi/

The full schedule is: 

  • Abstract deadline for consideration: 15th November 2025.  
  • Accepted full texts deadline: 15th February 2026. 
  • Peer review and editing process: 16th Feb – 31st of Aug 2026.  
  • Layout process September – October 2026. 
  • Issue publishing date: 30th of November 2026.  

Thank you for considering your contribution to this special issue!  

On behalf of the FJME editorial board,

Dr. Nathan Riki Thomson, guest editor of the special issue

Sibelius Academy, University of the Arts Helsinki

nathan.thomson@uniarts.fi

 

References:

Adewale, A., & Thomson, N. R. (2024). ‘SONIC EQUITY‘, RUUKKU - Studies in Artistic Research, 21. https://doi.org/10.22501/ruu.2091988  

Ballantyne, J., & Kallio, A. A. (2024). Engaging emerging diversities: 

Navigating complex and dynamic intersections in music teacher education. International Journal of Education & the Arts, 25(15). http://doi.org/10.26209/ijea25n15 

Bartleet, B.-L., Grant, C., Mani, C., & Tomlinson, V. (2020). Global mobility in music higher education: Reflections on how intercultural music-making can enhance students’ musical practices and identities. International Journal of Music Education, 38(2), 161–176. https://doi.org/10.1177/0255761419890943 

Bauman, Z. (2010). 44 letters from the liquid modern world. Polity Press. 

Freire, P. (2000/1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed: 30th anniversary edition. Translated by Myra Bergman Ramos. Continuum. 

Hess, J. (2021). Music education and the colonial project. In Wright, R., Johansen, G., Kanellopoulos, P.A.,, & Schmidt, P. (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook to sociology of music education (1st ed. pp. 23–39.) Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429504631

Kallio, A., Westerlund, H., Karlsen, S., Marsh, K., & Sæther, E. eds. (Eds.) (2021). The politics of diversity in music education. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-65617-1  

Laes, T. (2017). The (im) possibility of inclusion: Reimagining the potentials of democratic inclusion in and through activist music education. [Doctoral dissertation, Sibelius Academy]. Studia musica 72. University of the Arts Helsinki. http://www.urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-329-075-4 

Sánchez-Gatt, L. L., Menon, S. A., & Hess, J. (2025). Troubling transcultural practices: Anti-Colonial thinking for music education​.  Action, Criticism, and Theory for Music Education, 24(1), 48–82. 

Sæther, E. (2013). The art of stepping outside comfort zones: Intercultural collaborative learning in higher music education. In H. Gaunt & H. Westerlund (Eds.), Collaborative learning in higher music education. Why, what and how?  (pp. 37–48). Ashgate. https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/4024618 

Said, E. W. (1977). ORIENTALISM. The Georgia Review, 31(1), 162–206. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41397448 

Sengeh, D. M. (2023). Radical inclusion: Seven steps to help you create a more just workplace, home, and world. A Moment of Lift Book. 

Tan, S. E. (2021) (Ed.). Special issue: Decolonising music and music studies. Ethnomusicology Forum, 30(1), 4–8. https://doi.org/10.1080/17411912.2021.1938445 

Thomson, N. R. (2024). Global artistic citizenship: (Re-)imagining interculturalism, collaboration, and community engagement as central elements of higher music education. Nordic Research in Music Education, 5, 133–159. https://doi.org/10.23865/nrme.v5.6236 

Westerlund, H., & Gaunt, H. (2021). Expanding professionalism in music and higher music education: A changing game (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003108337 

Westerlund, H., Kallio, A. A., & Karlsen, S. (2021). Interrogating intercultural competence through a “pedagogy of interruption”: A metasynthesis of intercultural outreach projects in music teacher education. Research Studies in Music Education, 44(2), 380–398. https://doi.org/10.1177/1321103X211026007