Toward a culture of care in music higher education: setting the scene for collective well-being with a salutogenic, whole-institution approach

Abstract

The current academic discourse in musicians’ health and well-being is dominated by pathogenic and preventive paradigms focusing primarily on risk reduction but underlining the urgent need for intervention, especially in music higher education. Efforts to implement various treatment and preventive strategies as well as health education and promotion curricula have so far yielded inconclusive results. We therefore propose a paradigm shift from pathogenesis to salutogenesis, emphasizing the factors that promote health and well-being. With this paper, we aim to provide an overview of the current landscape of musicians’ health research, discuss conceptual foundations, and outline our position of advocating for a theory-driven, salutogenic, whole-institution approach that should foster a culture of care and build on the design of a new, unified measurement tool to facilitate implementation and evaluation. Based on an emerging line of research on the role of challenges in salutogenic, resource-oriented approaches to music students’ health and well-being, we argue that a culture of care could include multiple stakeholders in music higher education and would contribute to health and well-being as an integral part of performance and success.