Cultural Diversity in Music Education (or CDIME for short) is an informal international network of institutions, organisations and individuals. The network came into existence in the early 1990′s when a group of people saw themselves faced with the same challenges as they worked on incorporating world music styles into western education systems such as music schools and conservatoires. Over the years the network has expanded and come to include teachers, researchers and policy makers.
The topic ‘cultural diversity in music education’ is very broad. It encompasses not only teaching and learning of world music styles now, but also for example working with culturally diverse groups in today’s multicultural societies. The network does not exclude practices because it has found that e.g. music projects with an aim that is primarily social feed into university research and in turn e.g. methodologies developed for higher music education can be inspirational for community projects or amateur music schools.
CDIME is an informal network. It does not have an organisation structure or office; there is no overhead. There is only this website, a mailing list (subscribe to this site by clicking the button on the right) and a group of people who believe that music education should not be exclusive: not for people, and not for musics.
Although CDIME is an informal network, there are of course people at its core that keep it going. The main partners are listed under ‘Partners’. The informal ‘secretariat’ of the network is based at the World Music & Dance Centre in Rotterdam (www.wmdc.nl). Feel free to contact her (ninja[at]wmdc.nl) if you have any questions regarding the CDIME network.
