This study explores contradictions in an international music education partnership project involving Norway and India. The study aims to contribute knowledge about systemic contradictions that might occur in international partnership projects in music education and to briefly discuss how such contradictions might energize international collaboration. Recordings from six project group meetings between the involved partners, recordings from a group conversation session, and the first author’s research diary constitute the empirical data in this study. The analysis is informed by cultural–historical activity theory, in which contradictions are viewed as both barriers to and energizers for development. The identified contradictions are categorized into three topics: the role of the music teacher, the role and type of music/music education, and the need for structure. The findings suggest that the identified contradictions can be attributed to three culturally and historically constituted discursive practices: the Indian educational system, the Norwegian school music tradition, and the guru-shishya tradition. Although it is a common perception that societal and systemic contradictions cannot be resolved within the boundaries of small-scale projects, such projects can create a third space in which the multivoicedness of discursive practices found in international collaboration can become a transformative force for new practice models. This could create opportunities to recognize motivational similarities despite perceived differing discursive practices.
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