Daring to Care with Music Education: Pedagogies for Authentic Connection and Musical Engagement

Daring to Care with Music Education offers a practical resource and reflective guide for music educators seeking to support their students' motivation and musicianship through intentional connection and care. As an instrumental clinician and the editor of The Oxford Handbook of Care in Music Education (2023), Karin S. Hendricks provides research-based strategies for music teachers to strengthen their pedagogy and their students' success. Drawing on the work of over 70 music teachers and scholars, this book considers a variety of topics including the role of care in music teaching, effective and appropriate forms of care, co-creating caring relationships, caring and musical development, caring with musical expressions, caring with identity expressions, caring to change the world, and caring for wellbeing and human flourishing. Several successful music teachers are spotlighted throughout the text, who share their secrets as well as their vulnerabilities when caring for, about, and with music students. Daring to Care provides a variety of approaches to help music teachers engage and connect with music students of all ages and stages, emphasizing the courage, curiosity, creativity, and vulnerability needed to reach beyond the protective barriers of a "content only" approach into the unpredictable and nuanced space of authentic connection.