Call for Papers: Ecological Keywords in Music and Music Education
Guest Editor: Daniel J. Shevock, dshevock@kcsd.k12.pa.us
The MayDay Group—and Action, Criticism, and Theory for Music Education journal in particular—functions to identify, critique, and change taken-for granted patterns of discourse in music education theory and philosophy. The MayDay Group’s ecological action ideal promises: “We commit to a Land-conscious, environmentally sustainable, and regenerative music education.” This action ideal affirms ecology that materializes as:
- Human relationships with the land
- Environmental sustainability
- Regenerative music education
- Cultural and physical commons
- The inherent value of non-human beings
- Environmental activism
This ecological commitment challenges the impacts of colonization, mass production, excessive travel, and resists our ongoing environmental crises—e.g., e-waste, potable water, species collapse, air pollution, heatwaves, environmental racism, and the environmental refugee crisis.
Music education scholarly writing is increasingly attending to the ecological crises and our responsibility of addressing them. Within ACT, Bates (2013) drew upon an agrarian land ethic to re-direct our discipline’s attention to the natural world; Shevock (2020) utilized the writings of Satis Coleman to cultivate an environmental philosophy for our field; and Smith (2022) critiqued how music education interrupted her connections to nature, instilling a sense of isolation and dissociation. There has also been an increase, especially in the most recent ten years, of music education monographs, edited books, and research articles in non-MayDay journals that are relevant to our discipline’s discourse on ecology.
In the field of ecomusicology, which considers the intersection of music, culture, and nature (Allen and Dawe 2016), authors—especially in musicology and ethnomusicology—have analyzed diverse cultural expressions of human relationships with the natural world, soundscapes, local and global crises, environmental activism, human musics, and the material costs of industrial music production systems.
With the increase of published writings in music education and ecomusicology, there are increasingly diverse keywords used to describe these movements, including, but not limited to, ecology, eco-literacy, eco-musicality, ecodiversity, and ecosocial music education. Different keywords often emerge in ecomusicology publications, with the result that the two areas of study are not often in communication (Shevock and Bates 2024). A keyword can be defined as an important word or phrase that embodies the main idea of a topic. With this call for papers, we invite contributions that focus on ecological and environmental keywords for music scholarship Authors might consider (but are not limited to) the following questions:
- How is this keyword used in music education and ecomusicology scholarship improving or deteriorating our relationship with the land?
- In what ways are sustainability keywords enacted in music teaching and learning praxis?
- How does a particular keyword limit or increase possibilities for sustainable policy?
- In what ways does a keyword expand or contract what it means to be human?
- Where does a particular keyword improve our care for the inherent value of non-human beings?
- To what extent does a keyword help us preserve and regenerate physical and cultural commons?
Please submit directly to Daniel J. Shevock, dshevock@kcsd.k12.pa.us . Submissions will be accepted until October 1, 2026. Prior to submission, please ensure that you have followed all ACT submission Guidelines found here: https://act.maydaygroup.org/submissions/, including specific formatting guidelines for this journal.