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The double game of music

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The book uses the metaphor of ‘double games’ to critically analyse how music education, as a series of games, is played. Examining the intertwinement of social power with players’ belief in the pur...
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  • 16 December 2025
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The double game of music imagines music education as a series of games – each with its own rules, play currency and players – to challenge readers to rethink the significance of music and musical upbringing in shaping social structures.

Drawing on their own empirical research and a wide range of international contributions, the authors unravel the intertwining of social positioning and power hierarchies with players beliefs in the pure values and virtues of their games, whether these relate to parenting, children’s play, schooling, academic pursuits, musical leisure activities or the television and music industries.

In a world where music is often celebrated as an important tool for inclusion and democratisation, this groundbreaking book offers a timely critique, revealing complexities and contradictions that tend to be overlooked by teachers, researchers, politicians and others interested in the powers of music education.

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Price: £25.00
Pages: 280
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Imprint: Manchester University Press
Series: Music and Society
Publication Date: 16 December 2025
ISBN: 9781526187246
Format: Hardcover
BISACs:

EDUCATION / Arts in Education, Educational: Music, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Social Classes & Economic Disparity, EDUCATION / Educational Policy & Reform / General, Educational systems and structures

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Introduction: the double game of music
Petter Dyndahl, Live Weider Ellefsen, Anne Jordhus-Lier and Siw Graabræk Nielsen

1 The game metaphor
Live Weider Ellefsen, Petter Dyndahl, Anne Jordhus-Lier and Siw Graabræk Nielsen

2 Democracy and inclusion: school(ed) music
Live Weider Ellefsen, Anne Jordhus-Lier, Kari Marie Manum and Siw Graabræk Nielsen

3 Social class and musical gentrification
Petter Dyndahl, Sidsel Karlsen and Siw Graabræk Nielsen

4 Classification struggles: music education and genre
Live Weider Ellefsen, Anne Jordhus-Lier and Ingeborg Lunde

5 Musical parenting and the child as investment
Petter Dyndahl, Anne Jordhus-Lier, Ingeborg Lunde and Siw Graabræk Nielsen

6 Children’s games of music: play as investment
Ingeborg Lunde and Live Weider Ellefsen

7 Public broadcasting: investments in children and childed television music
Ingeborg Lunde, Odd Skårberg and Petter Dyndahl

8 Talent and talentification
Petter Dyndahl, Anne Jordhus-Lier and Friederike Merkelbach

9 The double games of musical upbringing and schooling in the welfare state
Petter Dyndahl, Live Weider Ellefsen, Anne Jordhus-Lier and Siw Graabræk Nielsen

Bibliography
Index