Design-based research (DBR) has emerged over the last thirty years as a key methodological approach in education, uniquely suited for exploring and enhancing learning in complex, real-world contexts (McKenney & Reeves, 2012). The aim of DBR is to bridge theory and practice through iterative, collaborative innovations developed in authentic learning environments. Such innovations may take the form of products, processes, programs, policies, or projects (Barab, 2014). By integrating cycles of design, implementation, analysis, and refinement, DBR enables music educators and researchers to co-develop pedagogical interventions that are simultaneously grounded in theory and responsive to classroom realities. This orientation makes DBR particularly suited for music education, where teaching and learning are contextually grounded and sensitive to institutional, cultural, and policy fluidity (Mygdanis, 2025).In particular, DBR holds great potential for music education as a tool for understanding, engaging with, and responding to contemporary policy initiatives. Across global contexts, music educators continue to face top-down mandates such as standardized curricula, surveillant cultures, accountability frameworks, and whole-school initiatives tied to topics such as classroom management or social-emotional learning. While often framed as consistency measures, such policies frequently marginalize music education (Benedict, 2012; Bylica et al., 2025; Richerme, 2022, Spruce et al., 2021). Music educators are thus left to translate such policies into classroom practices, even when such policies conflict with educators’ professional and pedagogical values. This tension constrains teacher agency and risks the possibility of reducing music education practice to a series of acts of compliance (Spruce et al., 2021). I argue that DBR offers a methodological response, providing structures for teachers and researchers to collaboratively interrogate, interpret, enact, and rewrite policy in ways that sustain artistic and pedagogical integrity.In this presentation, I explore the potentials and limitations of DBR as a means of addressing policy understanding and practice in music education. Specifically, I ask: (1) how can DBR be understood as a form of policy work? (2) how might DBR help music educators view themselves as policy authors and practitioners with agency? and (3) what might DBR reveal about the politics of curriculum in music education? Drawing upon existing studies, I outline the core principles of DBR—collaboration, contextual grounding, and iteration—and demonstrate how they can align with the multifaceted nature of music teaching and learning. I then consider how such practices may be leveraged to provide opportunities for music educators and researchers to act as policy practitioners.