Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>This book draws together thinking on the notion of improvisation as liberatory praxis for popular music education. There is growing recognition that improvisation is a vital artistic and ontological practice that can promote developments in many areas of musicianship and beyond. Although improvisation is taught and assessed in education institutions throughout the world, pedagogical research on improvisation has hitherto often been disparate, emerging mainly from case-specific accounts of particular musical traditions, for instance jazz and free improvisation. Furthermore, improvisation is often viewed primarily as a means to musical ends such as constructing musical artifacts. This volume affords authors the opportunity to move away from considering improvisation as a “means to an end ” and instead to explore improvisation as liberatory praxis—praxis in the Freirian sense, meaning “reflection and action directed at the structures to be transformed” (Freire, 1970, p. 126). The editors view improvisation and improvisatory thinking within education as means to enhance, challenge, rethink or disrupt normative pedagogic approaches within and around popular music education. Improvisation offers liberatory potential through resisting, undermining, and refocusing many of the forces in music education and cultures of music learning that can have dehumanizing effects on learners, teachers, scholars, and practitioners alike. The book’s editors have curated herein a unique collection of essays wherein improvisation as liberatory praxis works as an exploratory framework to consider ways in which educators, musicians, and scholars develop popular music education as a diverse area of musical learning that prioritizes humanization toward effecting meaningful change.</jats:p>