About the no­tion of cul­tur­al iden­ti­ty in the con­text of an (in­ter­cul­tur­al) mu­sic ed­u­ca­tion

This paper discusses the question, how the «Intercultural Music Education» can contribute to develop what the author calls a «stable, balanced cultural identity». The term identity, by reference of a (post-)modern approach, is seen as a relational construct and contains moments of reflections and the location in a social context. Culture is understood in the sense of shared interpretations of meaning according to a meaning-based concept of culture (Reckwitz 2000). This understanding neither forces migrant children to orientate themselves on traditional music of their country of origin, nor demands from children and youths of the majority society to seek for their music cultural roots in the works of the «Occidental Art Music». The paper ends with the authors considerations how these concepts should be taken account in music classes to introduce students to an open identity creation with multiple music cultural senses of belonging and to a respectful interaction with other identities.