The new issue of the Journal of Public Pedagogies has recently been published.

The contributors to this special issue are part of the community of researchers, teachers, and students at the Sibelius Academy, University of the Arts Helsinki, Finland. 

The issue was Guest Edited by Tuulikki Laes & Heidi Westerlund.

From the Editorial:

“With this special issue, we wish to highlight the potential of public pedagogy in the music field as perhaps the oldest form of associated behavior in human existence. The authors of this issue address, for example, the pressing issues of sustainable futures, including climate action, resistance to colonial occupation, and girls’ and women’s access to the public sphere, by reflecting on the interruptive potential of public pedagogy in higher music education, school music education, and community-based musical practices. In this context, the call for new configurations of public pedagogy is not limited to informal contexts and practices but also, and quite uniquely, includes educational institutions, through their practices, hierarchies, repertoires, admissions, and events, which are integrally connected to public life.

The contributors to this special issue are part of the community of researchers, teachers, and students at the Sibelius Academy, University of the Arts Helsinki, Finland. While the topic of public pedagogy has only recently emerged within music education research (see, e.g., Lewis, 2024; Barrett & Westerlund, 2024; Laes et al., 2025; Westerlund et al., 2026), several studies from the past decade resonate with the idea of public pedagogy, shaping a research landscape that manifests critical structural change in music education, particularly at the intersections of democratic education and social activism. The authors of this special issue are undergraduate and postgraduate students and faculty members who all have long-established public professional status, as performing for audiences and building relationships with the public are prominent aspects of professional education, often beginning in childhood.

The articles acknowledge that the publicness of music and music education is indeed taken- for-granted and unarticulated, permeated by the dominant practice where past musical repertoires are taught, practiced, and publicly performed without necessarily rethinking the ‘whats’ and ‘why’s beyond the expected musical quality. “

The issue is now available be read online on the Journal page.