EAS is happy to annnounce the keynote speakers for the EAS conference 2026 in Vienna/Austria!
WOLFGANG BEUTEL
(Leibniz University Hannover, DE)
33rd EAS Conference Vienna
Education for Democracy as a Challenge
Wolfgang Beutel
Democracy education, or education for democracy, is currently in high demand. It is frequently presented as a response to the multiple crises facing politics and society, as well as to the visible erosion of trust in constitutional liberal democracy. This assigns the education system a fundamental responsibility. However, the task is not so simple. Schools and educational institutions alone cannot resolve broader political or societal problems. Rather, they must engage, with continuity and professional expertise, in the sustained work of education for democracy. A central challenge lies in addressing the comparatively undemocratic institutional structures of schooling, which are difficult to alter at a fundamental level.
This involves reconsidering the specific relationships between teachers, parents, and students, and especially mitigating the asymmetries of power inherent in the assessment of learning. As a whole, educational institutions must commit to a long-term process of democratic school development.
Such a process depends on clarifying key concepts: What is meant by “democracy”? How are “education,” “learning,” and “upbringing” to be understood? Is it possible to establish a shared conceptual framework? Can a school system that is often organized around notions of homogeneity in age groups, learning cohorts, and academic disciplines open itself to the diversity, plurality, and individualization associated with democratic life? Do teachers welcome independent and critically engaged students who participate in decisions about curricular content and its evaluation? And what specific opportunities for democratically grounded learning emerge within music education?
This keynote lecture offers an introduction to the central concepts and traces the development of the discourse on democratic school development to date.
Wolfgang Beutel is a deputy professor of political education at the Institute for Democracy Education at Leibniz University Hannover. He was involved in the founding of the project “Demokratisch Handeln” in 1989 and was CEO until 2020 at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena. From 2010 to 2020, Wolfgang Beutel was a lecturer for “Democratic Citizenship Education” at the FU Berlin.
Since 2020, he has been a lecturer and project manager for the BMBF study “Monitor Demokratiebildung” at the Institute for Didactics of Democracy at Leibniz Universität Hannover. Since July 2022, he represents the (deputy) professorship for didactics of political education there.
Wolfgang Beutel studied education at the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, state exams in German literature and language, political science and educational research. In 1996, he received his PhD from the University of Jena on the topic of “School as a Place of Political Education” (scl). Wolfgang Beutel is a member of the jury of the German School Award since 2006. He is founding editor of the “Jahrbuch Demokratiepädagogik und Demokratiebildung” and co-editor of the “Handbuch Demokratiepädagogik”.
Recent publications:
- Beutel, W. (2025): Demokratiepädagogik und Demokratiebildung: Option oder Hoffnung? In: Die Deutsche Schule, H. 1-2-/25, S. 94-102.
- Beutel, W. (2025): Demokratiebildung allenthalben – Ein Essay zur aktuellen Lage. In: Politisches Lernen 1-2|2025, S. 2-5.
- Beutel, W./Hasenbein, L./Quenzel, G./Steiner, K./Tillmann, K.-J. zus. mit Friedrich-Verlag (Hrsg.) (2025): Identität. Friedrich-Jahresheft SchülerInnen. Hannover
- Beutel, W./Lange, D. (Hg.) (2025): Monitor Demokratiebildung. Bd. 2: Der Monitor-Bericht. Wochenschau-Verlag: Frankfurt/M. (OpenAccess: https://www.wochenschau-verlag.de/Monitor-Demokratiebildung-Band-2/41731)
- Beutel, W./Kenner, S./Lange, D. (Hg.) (2025): Monitor Demokratiebildung. Bd. 1: Demokratiebildung. Eine Orientierung. Wochenschau-Verlag: Frankfurt/M.
- Lange, Dirk/Kierot, Lara/ Breser, Britta/Beutel, Wolfgang (2024): Demokratiebildung. Konzepte, Strategien und Perspektiven. BMBW (Hrsg.): Nationaler Bildungsbericht Österreich. Wien, S. 467-510.
- Beutel, W./Gloe, M. (Hg.) (2024): Konflikte. Gesellschaft und Politik demokratisch gestalten. 2. Jahrbuch Demokratiepädagogik & Demokratiebildung. Frankfurt/M.: DebusPÄDAGOGIK.
NATE HOLDER
(Musician/Author/International Speaker, UK)
33rd EAS Conference Vienna
Music & Colonialism
Nate Holder
If Western European colonialism shaped the world we inhabit, music education — emerging from that same modernity — cannot exist outside its structures and effects. During this keynote, we will explore how rethinking music education’s purpose demands confronting colonial power, navigating contemporary politics, and drawing on performances like Bad Bunny’s recent Super Bowl halftime show to model decolonial practices across classrooms and communities.
Our current systems dictate what counts as ‘good’ music, whose histories dominate, and who even chooses to study it. Left unchecked, these Eurocentric structures relegate music education to the sidelines, evident in funding declines not from music’s intrinsic worth, but from a lack of clarity and direction amid marginalised voices.
By unpacking how Western classical canons have long sidelined non-European musics, entrenched racial hierarchies, and rigidified pedagogy, we deconstruct to reconstruct a plurality of approaches that honour historical traumas, engage present struggles, and envision decolonial futures. Though these approaches can challenge us, it is only through bravery in broaching them can we curate transformative music educations for all, helping to revitalising funding, relevance, and equity to empower all.
Prof Nathan Holder is an award winning author, international speaker, musician and education consultant. With over a decade of experience, Nate has been advocating for inclusive and diverse music education globally through speaking engagements, writing, and consultancy.
As an experienced public speaker, Nate has led numerous CPD training, workshops and lectures for schools, universities, and hubs to tackle issues including pedagogy and critical perspectives in Music classrooms, departments, and boards.
His collaborations include working with top artists such as Ghetts, Emeli Sandé, and Ed Sheeran, as well as with leading companies and organizations like BBC, Hal Leonard Europe, Oxford University Press and Harper Collins.
Nate’s contributions extend beyond his consulting work. He serves on the board for F-flat books, Music Teacher Magazine, and is a member of the Advisory Group to the Africa APPG’s Inquiry into Africa in the UK Curricula. Currently, he holds the position of Professor and International Chair of Music Education at the Royal Northern College of Music.
As an author, Nate has written seven books, including ‘I Wish I Didn’t Quit: Music Lessons’ (2018),’Where Are All The Black Female Composers’ (2020), and the award-winning ‘Listen and Celebrate’ (2022). His work aims to inspire and empower learners and educators to embrace inclusive and diverse music education.
Yvonne Wasserloos
(Mozarteum University Salzburg, AT )
33rd EAS Conference Vienna
‘Destroy Democracy’ – Undermining society through Mainstream-Music and AI-generated Hate
Yvonne Wasserloos
Anti-democratic groups have been expressing themselves and staging performances through various musical formats for more than 30 years. In the recent past, for around 15 years, the political activities of the far-right scene in Europe, i.e. the Identitarian movements, have been shaped by a common strategy. At its core is a move towards the mainstream at the centre of society, and the suggestion that it is not a niche phenomenon anymore but part of a broader social consensus. This is achieved through deliberate ‘cultural camouflage’, behind which lie aggressive, harmful and even destructive intentions directed against democratic values.
Music and its media play an important role. Since 2010 in particular, audio-visual productions have been added to reach a wider target audience. The use of “mainstream”-music and -media obscures extrem-right, radical positions through the misuse of different genres of pop music and film music. Behind this lies a self-image of heroism that sees itself as a fighter against social and cultural change.
Recently AI has been playing the role of a game changer. Parallel worlds are created through the production of one’s own music and images in enormous quantities and at tremendous speed. So called AI-generated hate songs and Deepfake Music open up a completely new and even more worrying dimension to popularise and spread exclusion.
The lecture traces the increasing use of music and media within the European far-right scene, each with new phases beginning in 2010 and 2022 in order to make racism, antisemitism, misogyny etc. ‘consumable’ and even ‘shareable’.
Prof. Yvonne Wasserloos studied Musicology, Modern and Contemporary History, German Literary Studies, and Scandinavian Studies (Danish language and culture) at the University Münster (Germany). She wrote her dissertation “Kulturgezeiten. Niels W. Gade und C.F.E. Horneman in Leipzig und Kopenhagen” (Münster 2002) on Danish-German cultural transfer. In 2014 she habilitated at the Folkwang University of the Arts Essen with the thesis “Music and State. Dimensions of interaction in the 20th century”.
She worked as guest professor for music and cultural history at the universities in Berlin, Düsseldorf, Copenhagen, London, Leuven etc. 2017–2022, she was professor of musicology at the University of Music and Theater Rostock. Since October 2022 she has been university professor for musicology at the Mozarteum University Salzburg.
Yvonne Wasserloos is co-founder and co-editor of the interdisciplinary publication series “Schriften zur Politischen Musikgeschichte” (“Writings on Political Music History”) (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen). In autumn 2023, she founded the research focus “Music and Power” (AMUM) at the Mozarteum University: https://www.moz.ac.at/de/studium/departments/musikwissenschaft/musik-und-macht-dimensionen-und-kontexte
Main research topics:
- Music, society and politics in the 19th-21st century, esp. National Socialism, Right-wing Extremism and Democracy
- Occupation music in Denmark (1940-1945)
- Music and remembrance culture
- Cultural transfer processes
- History of institutional music education in the 18th and 19th centuries