In 1997, Norway became the first country to make statutory provision for schools of music and arts requiring every municipality to run such a school. Based on an explicit vision of "schools of music and arts for everyone," the aim is to provide music education for all children, regardless of social and economic background. Despite their…

In this article, we enquire into the language of diversity as it is currently in use in the field of music education, by way of exploring the social and educational ambitions of the Norwegian system of extra-curricular, Schools of Music and Performing Arts. We take as our case the recently launched governing document of this particular educational…

This article builds from a multi-sited ethnographic study on immigrant students' musical agency, conducted in three lower secondary school classrooms in the capital cities of Finland, Sweden and Norway. The focus of the article is twofold, and concerns what kinds of meanings the participating students ascribed to the music from their own or their…