Striving for democracy in the nordic context: possibilities for change through innovative cases of activist music practices

In this roundtable we will present three cases of activist music education, in other words innovative and inclusive practices of music education initiated by courageous institutional leaders and teachers in the Finnish and Swedish context. By activism we mean professional thinking and action that strives toward new ways of making change inside and outside educational institutions through four characteristics identified as the catalysts of teacher activism in music education contexts: High motivation; Communicative capacity; Ethical commitment; and Imaginative adaptation. As a whole this roundtable argues that the presented cases can be seen as social investments that pave the way for larger structural changes within music education.