VII Folk Music Researchers’ Symposium: Folk Education and Sustainable Futures

27.-28.2.2026  Sibelius Academy, University of the Arts, Helsinki

The VII Symposium of Folk Music Researchers envisages the role of folk music education in building sustainable futures. The need to create visions is based, among other things, on the UNESCO Framework for Culture and Arts Education (2024), which strongly emphasises the role of arts education in addressing sustainability challenges. According to UNESCO, arts education, including popular music education, should be built on aspects of cultural and social sustainability in particular, but with ecological sustainability as a boundary condition. 

Culturally sustainable education involves, among other things, a holistic view of sustainability, support for cultural identities and the future-oriented safeguarding and enabling of cultural rights. Social sustainability encompasses the objectives of equality, inclusion, and the well-being of individuals and communities, as well as safeguarding fundamental rights and basic conditions for a good life that are passed down from one generation to the next. 

The symposium will approach folk music education from an ecological perspective, where the sustainability of intangible musical heritage and broader social and cultural sustainability can be understood as intertwined aspects of the past and future. The ecological perspective emphasises the link between music education and social phenomena and social systems, and thus its role and responsibility in addressing current societal challenges.

The symposium’s ecological and future-oriented perspective aims to inspire scholars and educators in the field to envision a broad and diverse range of contextual perspectives for folk music education, which can combine the vitality of traditions with educational and other broader sustainability goals. The symposium will thus provide a multi-perspective, international meeting place for researchers, educators, teachers, educational practitioners and musicians working in folk music research and/or education. 

We welcome scientific, artistic, and educational proposals. Contributions relevant to the field can take many forms. Connecting to the overarching theme of sustainability, proposals may address any aspect of traditional music and education, including empirical research, philosophical or artistic research, promising and innovative practices, professional development, conceptual reflection, and perspectives on issues of power relations and minority groups. We particularly encourage proposals that combine research and practice. 

We invite you to submit your proposals via e-mail as PDF documents to pilvi.jarvela@uniarts.fi by 1.11.2025. 

Please state in the headline the type of your proposal, following the format:

1. Paper presentation (20min +10min QA): Title of your presentation, max 300 words abstract
2. Panel presentation (60min +10min QA): Title of the panel: A 250-word abstract of the entire panel and a max 300-word summary of each participant’s contribution, stating the relationship of each participant’s presentation to the overall topic of the panel.
3. Student corner (10min +5min QA): Title of your presentation, max 300 words abstract. Bachelor’s and Master’s level students, as well as early-stage doctoral researchers, are welcome to present their research topics and areas of specialisation in the Student Corner.
4. Workshop (45min +15min QA): Title of your workshop, max 300 words description of the content of the workshop.  Please mention also if you would need any instruments or other equipment organised for your workshop. Note, however, that we can not necessarily guarantee availability!