Federico Farini: The environment: resource, context or both?
Mari Ystanes Fjeldstad: Missing stickers and bouncing bows: Material agency in music education (online, free, Monday 6th Feb 2023,London, UK)
Federico Farini: The environment: resource, context or both?
Since 2012, the term enabling environment has been one of four themes of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS). An enabling environment is described as a rich, stimulating, and safe space offering opportunities to play, to be, to learn and to explore both physically and mentally.
This seminar argues that EYFS meaning of enabling environment is underpinned by an adult-centric vision: adults are the demiurges who construct ‘the rich, stimulating and safe space where children find opportunities to play, to be, to learn and to explore both physically and mentally that are offered to them’ (EYFS, 2014-2021).
An alternative approach is introduced, developing from the concept of environments that enable. Environments that enable position the environment, understood as the network of relationships and interactions, at the centre. It is that network that enables, with the active participation of children are authors of knowledges and responsible decision-makers, not the creative actions of adult demiurges.
Mari Ystanes Fjeldstad: Missing stickers and bouncing bows: Material agency in music education
This talk starts from an interest in the matter of violin lessons and how they take part in the learning, teaching, and playing done. What happens when the stickers used to mark where to put the fingers on the fingerboard of a violin go missing? Or when the student shows up without a violin? To explore these questions, I tell stories from a violin lesson held by three humans—an adult teacher and two 8-year-old students—and a myriad of more-than-human agencies. I then read the stories diffractively through agential realism to develop insight into how matter matters, and how matter is connected to social class. By exploring these connections, I aim to move music education toward being more responsible for the differences we produce.
Federico Farini is Professor of Sociology at the University of Northampton, where he leads the Centre for Psychological and Sociological Sciences, and Professor of Research Methods at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia. Prof Farini’s research concerns the inclusion of migrant children and young people in education; youth subcultures and cultural studies; conflict management; client-centred interpreting in healthcare and education, the role of digital media in the diffusion of knowledge. Recently, he has worked in three large EU-funded projects: Child-UP supports hybrid integration in the education system; SPACEX aims to transform urban space in places of democratic participation through public art; SHARMED promotes the inclusion of migrant-background children in the classroom. Find his profile here: https://pure.northampton.ac.uk/en/persons/federico-farini
Mari Ystanes Fjeldstad teaches violin and viola in Haugerud strykeorkester, one of the coolest and most diverse string orchestras of Oslo. She is also a PhD student at the Norwegian Academy of Music. Her research interests are feminist new materialist and posthuman theories, social justice, and the knowing and learning of music education. Both as a teacher and researcher, she tries to be playful and mindful while moving toward a more liveable world for humans and non-humans.
photo courtesy of Johannes L. F. Sunde