Prof. Dr. Emily Akuno (Kenya) works as a Professor of music with teaching and university administration experience at Kenyatta University in Kenya, University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa, Maseno University andThe Technical University of Kenya. Currently, she serves as the Deputy Vice-Chancellor in charge of Academic Affairs at The Co-operative University of Kenya.

Emily trained as a performer-educator in Kenya, USA and the UK, Her research interests veer towards cultural relevance in music education. She is the editor and a contributing author of the (2019) Routledge published Music Education in Africa: Concept, Process and Practice. She is a former president of the International Music Council (IMC) and current President of the International Society for Music Education (ISME) as well as chair of the Music Education Research Group – Kenya (MERG-Kenya).

Prof. Dr. Bettina Fritzsche (Germany) works as a professor for general education with an emphasis on qualitative methods at the University of Edcuation in Freiburg / Germany.

In a research project completed in 2015 she undertook a comparative ethnography of teacher-student-relationships in an English and a German primary school (funded by German Research Foundation). She is one of the leaders of the junior research group “Contexts and ways of education of young migrants between the poles of inclusion and exclusion” (funded by Hans-Böckler-foundation). 

Her research interests lie in cultural-comparative educational research, reconstructive research on education, ethnography and videography of pedagogical practices and diversity in schools.

Prof. Dr. Evert Bisschop Boele studied Music Education in Maastricht and ethnomusicology at the University of Amsterdam. He obtained his PhD from Georg-August Universität Göttingen (D) on the basis of a dissertation on the uses and functions of music in modern western society. He is currently professor (‘lector’) Arts Education at the Research Centre Art & Society of Hanze University of Applied Sciences Groningen, and endowed professor of culture participation at Erasmus University Rotterdam. He teaches, supervises masters’ theses and PhD dissertations, and coordinates research projects. His research focuses on the fields of arts education – specifically the concept of ‘idiocultural music education’ – and culture participation, and he currently works on an ethnography of a Dutch shanty choir.