Heidi Westerlund
Biographic Data
| ID | 4013092 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Heidi Westerlund |
| GIVEN NAMES | Heidi |
| FAMILY NAME | Westerlund |
| SIGNATURE | WESTERLUND H |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of the Arts Helsinki |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-3354-9473 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 17 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 3 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 17 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2013 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Contemporary composers’ changing “practice in context”
While musical practice is more often than not considered through musical repertoires, genres, and traditions, in higher music education, musical practices are further narrowed down to music profession-specific, craft-based competences and learning outcomes. This narrow understanding encompasses the intertwined social and material dimensions that—according to practice theories—constitute and determine all practices. This study seeks a new understa…
Toward Sustainability Beyond Advocacy
In the face of the unequal effects of neoliberalism on politics, education, and culture globally, there is an urgent call for music educators to proactively address the collective concerns for sustainability. As the need for transformation grows louder, music education cannot advocate for more resources to unlock its transformative powers while maintaining a presumed political neutrality that reinforces neoliberal logic. To transform the field’s …
Professional education toward protean careers in music? Bigenerational Finnish composers’ pathways and livelihoods in changing ecosystems
Contemporary professional landscapes in classical music fields are rapidly changing and younger generations of musicians are confronting their creative careers, more often than not in connection to self-employment and freelancing. This narrative inquiry investigates the pathways and livelihoods of composers in a changing professional ecosystem through interviews with 10 bigenerational composers in Finland. The analysis is presented in three “fact…
The protean music career as a sociopolitical orientation
Socially engaged, participatory music making is slowly establishing itself as a complement to musicians’ portfolio careers, although it may still be considered of less value than established concert hall practices. To gain a better understanding of the drivers toward socially engaged practice in music field, we analyzed 20 semi-structured interviews with musicians in Finland, using the lenses of work values and career orientations. The abductive,…
Hidden elitism
This study presents an analysis of hidden elitism in music education through the free choice argument – that individuals are fundamentally free to choose to study music – as a meritocratic power structure. Qualitative Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) is applied to understand music education as a social system with a special structure in which its purpose regulates its functions and makes them meaningful in a given social setting through discourse. …
Interrogating intercultural competence through a “pedagogy of interruption”
Highlighting the need for teacher education programs to respond to rapidly diversifying societies, this article reports a qualitative metasynthesis of intercultural outreach projects in music teacher education, conceptualizing these projects as a “pedagogy of interruption.” Results show that such outreach projects interrupt the individualistic frame of music teacher education, the known difference, the logic of teaching, and the understanding of …
Visions for intercultural music teacher education in complex societies
This article presents a synthesis of findings from a large-scale research project, the Global Visions Through Mobilizing Networks—Co-developing Intercultural Music Teacher Education in Finland, Israel and Nepal ( https://sites.uniarts.fi/web/globalvisions/home ), and conveys its theoretical and practical explorations and insights. By envisioning 21st-century music teacher education from the perspective of interculturality and through transnationa…
Professional reflexivity and the paradox of freedom
Embracing an ethos of sharing music and practices across cultural boundaries, the multicultural vision of music (teacher) education has paid scarce attention to the paradox of freedom that arises between such freedoms and the complex politics that frame and constrain teachers’ choices and values. In this article, we explore these demands of professional reflexivity through an instrumental case study of music teacher educators working in an all-fe…
The Mnemonist’s legacy
Expert musical memory has been the fundamental focus of research in the field of musical memory, and this line of research has demonstrably informed the ways memory is understood by the current generation of music professionals. In this theoretical inquiry, we draw on Foucault to first argue that the dominant Western classical music expert gaze in music and memory studies can be seen as a form of ocularcentrism. Second, due to this narrow gaze, t…
Stories and Narratives as Agencies of Change in Music Education
By synthetizing a compilation of theoretical lenses and exemplifying narration in one institution’s community building, this inquiry explores the idea of stories and narratives as important strategic agencies of change for music education professional communities. More specifically, it examines narrating as forward-looking and as a source for creating identities for academic communities and organizations, and how the meaning, related to narration…
Respect, trust and continuity
BACKGROUND: To meet the challenges caused by non-communicable diseases, Norway has established Healthy Life Centres within primary care to encourage a healthy lifestyle. To promote people's health and ensure high-quality services, user involvement in contemporary health care is regarded as essential. OBJECTIVE: To explore the experience of user involvement among Healthy Life Centre users participating in individual health consultations, followed …
Social Innovations in Music Education
This article addresses the discourse on social justice and inclusion in music education by exploring how educational systems can be transformed in the rapidly changing world of late modernity. We aim to show that one possible approach to tackling injustice in music education at the micro level is to reflect on the possibilities for institutional change at the macro level. As an institutional context, we use Basic Education in the Arts, a characte…
Knowledge Production Beyond Local and National Blindspots
In this article, we argue that mainstream discourses of diversity in music education are ocularcentric; that is, they provide a one-sided way of understanding diversity that has prevented music educators from seeing our biases. In remedying these local and national professional blindspots, we propose transnational knowledge production, which we explore through our own experiences in an ongoing research project aiming to co-develop intercultural m…
Are Users Satisfied with Assertive Community Treatment in Spite of Personal Restrictions
Safely cared for or empowered in mental health care? Yes, please
BACKGROUND: High-quality health services include both safe care as well as involving service users in treatment and decision-making. MATERIAL: The aim was to explore how mental health service users perceive the relationship between safe care on the one hand and increased influence and decision-making on the other. This was a qualitative study of 15 User Interviewing User evaluation reports, including 417 service users. DISCUSSION: Safe and predic…
Same description, different values. How service users and providers define patient and public involvement in health care
Background Patient and public involvement in health care is important, but the existing definitions of the concept do not integrate the stakeholders’ own perceptions. Objective To investigate and compare service users’ and service providers’ own definitions of patient and public involvement and their implications. Design, setting and participants Qualitative study with mainly individual in‐depth semi‐structured interviews conducted between June 2…
Patient participation in mental healthcare
BACKGROUND: In western countries, patient participation is requested in policies on mental health services. Participation is built on ideas of democracy and individual responsibility. Mental illness has, however, been characterized by its irrational features. AIM: To investigate mental health service users' and providers' views on patient participation during episodes of mental illness. METHODS: Qualitative interview study with 20 users and 25 st…
Knowledge Production Beyond Local and National Blindspots
In this article, we argue that mainstream discourses of diversity in music education are ocularcentric; that is, they provide a one-sided way of understanding diversity that has prevented music educators from seeing our biases. In remedying these local and national professional blindspots, we propose transnational knowledge production, which we explore through our own experiences in an ongoing research project aiming to co-develop intercultural m…
Social Innovations in Music Education
This article addresses the discourse on social justice and inclusion in music education by exploring how educational systems can be transformed in the rapidly changing world of late modernity. We aim to show that one possible approach to tackling injustice in music education at the micro level is to reflect on the possibilities for institutional change at the macro level. As an institutional context, we use Basic Education in the Arts, a characte…
Same description, different values. How service users and providers define patient and public involvement in health care
Background Patient and public involvement in health care is important, but the existing definitions of the concept do not integrate the stakeholders’ own perceptions. Objective To investigate and compare service users’ and service providers’ own definitions of patient and public involvement and their implications. Design, setting and participants Qualitative study with mainly individual in‐depth semi‐structured interviews conducted between June 2…
Patient participation in mental healthcare
BACKGROUND: In western countries, patient participation is requested in policies on mental health services. Participation is built on ideas of democracy and individual responsibility. Mental illness has, however, been characterized by its irrational features. AIM: To investigate mental health service users' and providers' views on patient participation during episodes of mental illness. METHODS: Qualitative interview study with 20 users and 25 st…
Safely cared for or empowered in mental health care? Yes, please
BACKGROUND: High-quality health services include both safe care as well as involving service users in treatment and decision-making. MATERIAL: The aim was to explore how mental health service users perceive the relationship between safe care on the one hand and increased influence and decision-making on the other. This was a qualitative study of 15 User Interviewing User evaluation reports, including 417 service users. DISCUSSION: Safe and predic…
Are Users Satisfied with Assertive Community Treatment in Spite of Personal Restrictions
Social Innovations in Music Education
This article addresses the discourse on social justice and inclusion in music education by exploring how educational systems can be transformed in the rapidly changing world of late modernity. We aim to show that one possible approach to tackling injustice in music education at the micro level is to reflect on the possibilities for institutional change at the macro level. As an institutional context, we use Basic Education in the Arts, a characte…
Knowledge Production Beyond Local and National Blindspots
In this article, we argue that mainstream discourses of diversity in music education are ocularcentric; that is, they provide a one-sided way of understanding diversity that has prevented music educators from seeing our biases. In remedying these local and national professional blindspots, we propose transnational knowledge production, which we explore through our own experiences in an ongoing research project aiming to co-develop intercultural m…
Respect, trust and continuity
BACKGROUND: To meet the challenges caused by non-communicable diseases, Norway has established Healthy Life Centres within primary care to encourage a healthy lifestyle. To promote people's health and ensure high-quality services, user involvement in contemporary health care is regarded as essential. OBJECTIVE: To explore the experience of user involvement among Healthy Life Centre users participating in individual health consultations, followed …
The Mnemonist’s legacy
Expert musical memory has been the fundamental focus of research in the field of musical memory, and this line of research has demonstrably informed the ways memory is understood by the current generation of music professionals. In this theoretical inquiry, we draw on Foucault to first argue that the dominant Western classical music expert gaze in music and memory studies can be seen as a form of ocularcentrism. Second, due to this narrow gaze, t…
Stories and Narratives as Agencies of Change in Music Education
By synthetizing a compilation of theoretical lenses and exemplifying narration in one institution’s community building, this inquiry explores the idea of stories and narratives as important strategic agencies of change for music education professional communities. More specifically, it examines narrating as forward-looking and as a source for creating identities for academic communities and organizations, and how the meaning, related to narration…
Professional reflexivity and the paradox of freedom
Embracing an ethos of sharing music and practices across cultural boundaries, the multicultural vision of music (teacher) education has paid scarce attention to the paradox of freedom that arises between such freedoms and the complex politics that frame and constrain teachers’ choices and values. In this article, we explore these demands of professional reflexivity through an instrumental case study of music teacher educators working in an all-fe…
Hidden elitism
This study presents an analysis of hidden elitism in music education through the free choice argument – that individuals are fundamentally free to choose to study music – as a meritocratic power structure. Qualitative Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) is applied to understand music education as a social system with a special structure in which its purpose regulates its functions and makes them meaningful in a given social setting through discourse. …
Interrogating intercultural competence through a “pedagogy of interruption”
Highlighting the need for teacher education programs to respond to rapidly diversifying societies, this article reports a qualitative metasynthesis of intercultural outreach projects in music teacher education, conceptualizing these projects as a “pedagogy of interruption.” Results show that such outreach projects interrupt the individualistic frame of music teacher education, the known difference, the logic of teaching, and the understanding of …
Visions for intercultural music teacher education in complex societies
This article presents a synthesis of findings from a large-scale research project, the Global Visions Through Mobilizing Networks—Co-developing Intercultural Music Teacher Education in Finland, Israel and Nepal ( https://sites.uniarts.fi/web/globalvisions/home ), and conveys its theoretical and practical explorations and insights. By envisioning 21st-century music teacher education from the perspective of interculturality and through transnationa…
Professional education toward protean careers in music? Bigenerational Finnish composers’ pathways and livelihoods in changing ecosystems
Contemporary professional landscapes in classical music fields are rapidly changing and younger generations of musicians are confronting their creative careers, more often than not in connection to self-employment and freelancing. This narrative inquiry investigates the pathways and livelihoods of composers in a changing professional ecosystem through interviews with 10 bigenerational composers in Finland. The analysis is presented in three “fact…
The protean music career as a sociopolitical orientation
Socially engaged, participatory music making is slowly establishing itself as a complement to musicians’ portfolio careers, although it may still be considered of less value than established concert hall practices. To gain a better understanding of the drivers toward socially engaged practice in music field, we analyzed 20 semi-structured interviews with musicians in Finland, using the lenses of work values and career orientations. The abductive,…
Contemporary composers’ changing “practice in context”
While musical practice is more often than not considered through musical repertoires, genres, and traditions, in higher music education, musical practices are further narrowed down to music profession-specific, craft-based competences and learning outcomes. This narrow understanding encompasses the intertwined social and material dimensions that—according to practice theories—constitute and determine all practices. This study seeks a new understa…
Toward Sustainability Beyond Advocacy
In the face of the unequal effects of neoliberalism on politics, education, and culture globally, there is an urgent call for music educators to proactively address the collective concerns for sustainability. As the need for transformation grows louder, music education cannot advocate for more resources to unlock its transformative powers while maintaining a presumed political neutrality that reinforces neoliberal logic. To transform the field’s …
Psychology (13 works) · Sociology (13 works) · Diverse Music Education Insights (12 works) · Pedagogy (10 works) · Music education (8 works) · Political science (6 works) · Business (5 works) · Medicine (5 works) · Mental Health and Patient Involvement (5 works) · Nursing (5 works)