Journal of Popular Music Education - Popular Music Education in Europe, Sept 2025

This article explores deep learning in collaborative music-making contexts, examining the experiences of nine electric guitar and bass students (aged 17–18) in Norwegian upper secondary schools. Deep learning is conceptualized as meaningful learning and transfer of learning, analysed through cognitive, social, affective, embodied and performative dimensions. Using the metaphor of mycorrhizal networks – underground systems of plant roots and fungi – knowledge is framed as interconnected and constantly evolving. Based on participatory observations and semi-structured interviews, the study highlights diverse learning approaches across genres, tensions between formal and informal situations, and the role of collaboration in fostering deep learning. Insights emphasize the need for inclusive and flexible music education frameworks that accommodate diverse genres and pedagogical approaches to support deep learning and creative growth.

This article explores popular music and jazz education in Finland. First, it briefly presents the history of the Pop & Jazz Conservatory in Helsinki which was a pioneering institution for popular music learning in the Nordic countries in 1972. Second, it takes an insider’s view at the current education at the Pop & Jazz Conservatory as seen by the author who is a full-time lecturer at, and former student of, the affiliation. Third, it discusses a pedagogical study conducted by the author at this institution. That research involved designing, testing and refining a fresh approach to actualizing student-centred popular music education, the Student-Centred Musical Expertise (SCME) pedagogical design.

This qualitative study employs critical discourse analysis (CDA) to examine the hegemony of musical knowledge within the United Kingdom’s government-released documents, the National Plan for Music Education (NPfME) and the Model Music Curriculum (MMC). This research uses Mullet’s systematic seven-step framework to explore musical genres’ dominant hegemony and valorization and their impact on curriculum design and teacher agency. There is a focus on ages 11–14 (Key Stage 3). The integration of CDA with thematic, comparative and frequency analysis reveals a dominance of western classical music and neocolonial values within these documents. As a result, this marginalizes many musical genres and pedagogical ideologies. This study contributes to ongoing debates within UK education policy and curriculum studies. In examining how hegemonic paradigms are reproduced through policy texts, the article shows broad implications for global policy-makers and educationists. This study aims to determine the depth and extent of dominant powers that impact the school curriculum and has international relevance due to discussions around inclusivity, cultural responsiveness and equity in music education.

The integration of popular music into the Spanish educational system has been facilitated by a rising interest in informal learning strategies in the music classroom. In this article I set out the context in which popular music and informal learning have increased within Spanish education, and I discuss some particularities about assessment and the use of Instagram in the music classroom. The research presented here was carried out with a group of initial teacher education students, who were integrating popular music and informal learning strategies, and aimed to analyse the use of Instagram as a tool for assessment. The thematic analysis of a range of data generated during one semester offers insight into the students’ perceptions of social networks and music practice. The findings show how Instagram enabled them not only to share content but also to improve their own instrumental skills and put peer assessment into practice. Therefore, the use of Instagram in the classroom is suggested to be a useful tool for assessment that can preserve the holistic and emergent nature of informal learning practices.

Israel’s unique geopolitical positioning – geographically in the Middle East yet institutionally and culturally entwined with Europe – has fostered a popular music scene that fluidly negotiates East and West. Israeli artists blend western harmonic frameworks with Middle Eastern modal systems, reflecting the country’s layered social and musical history. This article investigates the surge of Jewish prayer song within Israeli rock and pop from 1990 to the present, proposing a four-part typology of engagement: (1) faithful re-arrangements of canonical piyutim; (2) contemporary musical settings of historic liturgical texts; (3) original ‘prayer-style’ compositions and (4) secular pop songs embedding religious motifs. Through detailed case studies of Nikmat HaTraktor’s techno-rock rendition of ‘Adon HaSelichot’ (1990), Berry Sakharof’s ‘Adumei HaSfatot’ (2009), Eti Ankri’s ‘B’chol Libi’ (2009), and mainstream hits by Rami Kleinstein and Omer Adam, the article traces how these practices expand aesthetic boundaries and renegotiate communal identity. Finally, it examines the pedagogical potential and challenges of integrating prayer-infused popular music into Israel’s segmented education system – comprising Jewish secular, Jewish religious, ultra-Orthodox and Arab streams – highlighting opportunities for cultural bridging alongside concerns of religious coercion.

Despite popular music having been the leading genre in the Czech Republic for many decades, it is largely omitted from the formal educational system. This ‘Practice and Perspectives’ essay aims to illustrate the almost exclusively classical-focused nature of formal music education in the country and the omission of popular music from government-issued educational frameworks. The position of popular music in official curricula from primary schools to universities is examined, as well as the small amount of popular music that is included in some state-provided and private formal music education institutions outside of compulsory schooling. The essay further contextualizes the history of the country’s attitude towards popular music, especially whilst under communist powers and suggests that this history continues to affect current governmental policy, despite the ‘Velvet Revolution’ which freed the country in 1989. A plea is made for more research into popular music education in the Czech Republic, as well as changes in governmental music education policy and teacher education, to more closely reflect the importance of popular music in the country.