A rise of music education in a new era

Abstract

This chapter introduces The SAGE Handbook of School Music Education. Our thesis is that we are entering a new era of globalization. It is described using various metaphors: the age of disorder, the great reset, or the demographic reversal are the most extensive and are discussed in the first section. In a nutshell, this era is characterized by uncertainties and mainly affects productive changes in labor markets, the rapid development and advancement of new technologies, and climate change, among others. These changes also have an impact on education, especially the emergence of a balanced curriculum that includes humanities and arts along with science. We discuss some signs of such changes in education policy. Finally, we discuss the potential role that school music education can play in this new era and curriculum, a topic that will be developed extensively throughout the handbook.