Japan has been one of the nations where music education is not grounded on its own indigenous music. The universal slogan that school music education should be based on each country's own music has mainly remained unpracticed here. This essay is to clarify the exing questions raised by the above discussion--why Western music is still the core of public music education in Japan and how this came to be so. I (...) then offer my views on the future of Japanese public music education: how Japanese traditional music should be dealt with in school music education. The responsibility of Japanese music educators might be concerning this issue. (shrink)

The development of local ethnic music culture is affected by the impact of foreign music culture, the establishment of the teaching system of music culture knowledge, understanding of history, culture, social background to mobilise the sensory mechanism, based on the popular elements of ethnic music innovation, as well as enrichment of the regional ethnic music and cultural activities, and active promotion of the protection of the local ethnic music culture of the five factors. The (...) five factors relationship value are 0.440, 0.517, 0.541, 0.498 are all greater than 0, and there is a significant relationship between the factors. The path coefficients of the refinement factors on the protection of local ethnic music culture are all greater than 0, and p=0.000. (shrink)

This article examines the social development of Hong Kong's cultural and national identity since its return from the UK to the People's Republic of China nearly six years ago, focusing on the extent to which Hong Kong students are now inculcated in traditional Chinese music and express their devotion to the PRC through singing the national anthem. Hong Kong music teachers experience conflicts concerning their roles as music teachers and as purveyors of values education. These observations (...) raise fundamental questions concerning the sociopolitical function of values education in the music classroom. (shrink)

For many countries instrumental music tuition in secondary schools is a ubiquitous event that provides situated and personalized instruction in the learning of an instrument. Opportunities and methods through which teachers operate during the COVID-19 outbreak challenged music educators as to how they taught, engaged, and interacted with students across online platforms, with alarm over aerosol dispersement a major factor in maintaining online instrumental music tuition even as students returned to “normal” face to face classes. This qualitative (...) study investigated the practices employed by instrumental music educators in secondary schools in Melbourne, Australia, analyzing teacher perspectives to music tuition amidst the restriction of interaction with students remotely via online means. Thematic analysis of the interview transcripts revealed music educational approaches that fostered connection, empathy and receptiveness to relationship-building, guiding students in slower and deeper learner-centered approaches, asserting pedagogical practices that reinforced and promoted interpersonal connectedness in and through musical experience and discovery. These findings provide a framework for how music educators can facilitate connection, motivation and student autonomy generating personal meaning and commitment to music making and the learning relationship, which can translate to significant student learning and value in the learning music. Exploring teachers’ pedagogical practices and behaviors within this dyadic teacher-student relationship is a significant addition to the literature, enabling the consideration of the type of connective behaviors required to stimulate and develop long-term interest in music. (shrink)

Burnout is a risk for many music teachers, particularly the highly successful and effective teachers. Burnout is more than a personal feeling of discomfort or fatigue. It is an attack on professional efficiency and personal integrity. Burnout is affecting male and female music teachers in different ways, because women tend to react to stress in other ways than men and are in a different position in schools, often suffering from the various roles they have both in professional and (...) private life. The school environment, which is often male dominated, output-oriented, and focused on achievement, is sometimes not a good place for a female music educator's creativity, intuition, and search for personal growth. This paper explores ways philosophy of music education can contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of female music teachers' burnout, also offering opportunities for prevention or treatment. (shrink)

In this article, the aim is to address different forms of relationship between deconstruction, as coined by Jacques Derrida, and research perspectives on music education. Deconstruction represents a radical departure from Western ontology from Plato onward and its essentialistic notions of the metaphysics of presence. Instead, Derrida claims that signs, as well as texts, are decentered, that is, they are continually altering meaning in relation to other signs or texts, being in constant motion. Simultaneously, signs and texts, as (...) well as existence and experience, constitute themselves by binary oppositions, like nature/culture, content/form, original/copy, internal/external, empirical/ theoretical, and so on. Derrida argues that such differences are not inherent, but are instead socially produced and hierarchical mechanisms for providing systematic priority to one aspect of the dualism to the neglect of the other. Consequently, the ethical interest of music education research, from a deconstructive perspective, would be to expose what is marginalized in musical schooling, upbringing, and socialization. In that case, deconstruction might also be able to rectify some of its destructive reputation. (shrink)

Music education has a profound impact on creativity and emotional development in teaching and learning, and helps to cultivate creativity and promote the development of self-awareness and social skills among primary school students by providing opportunities for creative expression and emotional release. In this study, four schools were selected as research subjects, and music education scale, students' creative self-efficacy scale, and students' creativity cultivation scale were used as measurement tools, respectively, and random sampling was used (...) to conduct surveys. Correlation and regression analyses of music education, students' creative self-efficacy, and creativity were carried out by using the SPSS software. The matching mediation model was constructed to investigate the correlation and regression analysis of music education, students' creative self-efficacy, and creativity cultivation of students. Creative self-efficacy, and creativity development. The results showed that music education, students' creative self-efficacy and students' creativity cultivation are all at the upper average level and still need to be developed. Music education will positively and positively promote college students' creativity as well as increase creative self-efficacy, which positively promotes creativity, and creative self-efficacy has a partial mediating effect in the relationship between classroom teaching strategies and creativity. (shrink)

Music education is one of human kind most universal forms of expression and communication, and it can be found in the daily lives of people of all ages and cultures all over the world. As university life is a time when students are exposed to a great deal of stress, it can have a negative impact on their mental health. Therefore, it is critical to intervene at this stage in their life so that they are prepared to deal (...) with the pressures they will face in the future. The aim of this study was to see how music education affects university students’ mental health, with emotional intelligence functioning as a moderator. The participants in this research were graduate students pursuing degrees in music education. Non probability convenience sampling technique was used to collect and evaluate the data from 265 students studying in different public and private Chinese universities. The data was gathered at a time, and therefore, the study is cross-sectional. The data was collected from January 2022 till the end of March 2022. Many universities have been closed because to COVID-19, therefore data was also gathered online through emails. The data was analyzed quantitatively using the partial least squares –structural equation modeling technique. The findings backed up the hypotheses. The results revealed that there is a significant effect of music education on student’s mental health. Also, emotional intelligence as a moderator significantly and positively moderates the relationship between music education and students’ mental health. Music has numerous physiological aspects, and listening to it on a daily basis may be beneficial to your general health and well-being. Furthermore, musicians and music students with a high level of emotional intelligence have a better chance of not just performing well in school, college and university or in the music industry, but also of maintaining mental health and improving it. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to re-examine the nature of “meaning” and “meaningfulness” in the context of instrumental music education. By doing so, I propose to expand the ways in which instrumental music educators conceive their mission and the ways in which we may instill meaning in people’s lives. Traditionally, pursuits of philosophical deliberation have claimed that meaningfulness comes from either personal happiness (e.g., Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill) or an impersonal sense of duty (e.g., (...) St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, and Immanuel Kant). However, philosopher Susan Wolf (2010) criticizes these positions in favor of a broader perspective, one that arises from understanding that there is a third sort of value, namely “meaningfulness.” Rightly understanding meaningfulness may help us engage more fully with a greater sense and understanding of the full potentials of eudaimonia: a life of significance and value for oneself and one’s community. Therefore, this paper links meaningfulness to a 4-E (embodied, embedded, enacted, and extended) account of “sense-making” in/for instrumental music education. In doing so, I discuss the aims of public-school music education; aims that engage teachers and students in meaningfulness—a meaningfulness that is ethical, embodied, enacted, and extended—in, with, and through musics and, more directly, “instrumental” music making. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Musik–Vielfalt–Integration–Inklusion: Musikdidaktik für die eine Schule [Music–Diversity–Inclusion–Integration: A New Philosophy of Music Education for an Inclusive School] by Irmgard MerktBeatrice McNamaraIrmgard Merkt, Musik–Vielfalt–Integration–Inklusion: Musikdidaktik für die eine Schule [Music–Diversity–Inclusion–Integration: A New Philosophy of Music Education for an Inclusive School] (Regensburg: Conbrio, 2019)Irmgard Merkt, a German music education scholar, is a pioneer of intercultural music education with (...) regard to the development of the concept Schnittstellensansatz, literally “interface approach,” as an initial concept of intercultural music education in the 1980s. Her book Musik–Vielfalt–Integration–Inklusion: Musikdidaktik für die eine Schule [Music–Diversity–Inclusion–Integration: A New Philosophy of Music Education for an Inclusive School] is a new philosophy of music education for schools, in which children and young people with and without disabilities as well as children and young people from the most diverse milieus and cultural backgrounds share a learning space.1 Merkt advocates for a broad concept of inclusion that refers both to the inclusion of children with different skills and abilities on a physiological and psychological level along with the integration of pupils from different cultures of origin. The overriding goal for the author is recategorization,2 which makes the terms “common school,” “school for all” or “inclusive music instruction” obsolete and which allows pupils to attend a kind of school and a kind of music education [End Page 187] that is inherently inclusive. Merkt even goes as far as promoting the dissolution of subject-specific margins of music education and establishing an omnipresence of music in everyday school life instead.3 However, I think it should be pointed out that completely dissolving or dismissing music education into interdisciplinarity or integrating music education into subject groups such as Aesthetic Education,4 would be compliant with attempts made on the level of educational policy in order to reduce the quantity of qualified music teaching within the curriculum.5 Nevertheless, Merkt’s critique of the German school system is nothing short of appropriate in view of the prevalent system-immanent character of exclusion as the recent Programme for International Student Assessment-report of 2018 reveals.6 Furthermore, it is essential to draw conclusions as to the extent to which music instruction can do justice to the diversity of the student body, both on an integrative and on an inclusive level.The first chapter of Musik–Vielfalt–Integration–Inklusion offers an overview of past and present viewpoints on the topic of inclusion. Ensuing, the second chapter outlines the evolution of music education and teacher training in view of students with special needs. Chapter Three focuses on integration, Chapter Four traces the lines of development in the field of intercultural music pedagogy, while in Chapter Five Merkt advocates an encompassing culture of recognition in which educators, learners, and different music cultures are acknowledged to an equal extent. In Chapter Six the author delves into the very beginning of music and its coincidence with the evolution of humanity from homo sapiens to homo musicus through the lens of science and musicology. The seventh chapter of the book constitutes a synopsis of the main ideas which are then amalgamated into the concept of “Mit einer Frage um die Welt” [around the world with one question].A key tenet of Merkt’s publication is decategorization. The term inclusion, going back to its Latin origin of inclusio or includere is bound to the existence of its antonym exclusion. Despite endeavors nowdays to reverse the term’s meaning from reclusion to all-embracing,7 efforts to establish inclusion would not be necessary without exclusionary preconditions. On a terminological level, the expression inclusion implicates that there is an existing dualism between an inclusive or enclosed in-group and an exclusive or excluded out-group. This close and inextricable linkage between the existence of inclusion and exclusion, shows the importance of Merkt’s endeavor of highlighting efforts and development of decategorization, both on a terminological and legislative level, as well as on the ideological level. She is portraying concepts of thinking and acting in view of disability as a recurring process of progression and regression in reference to exclusionary... (shrink)

This article serves to extend a critique initiated by Allsup and Benedict in their 2008 PMER article, "The Problems of Band." Using the work of Michael Foucault as a theoretical and methodological basis, I consider ways in which today's large ensemble paradigm, particularly that of the wind band, has resulted in an ongoing antinomy in school music between those who view bands as a medium of music education and those who view bands as a medium for (...) music education. I argue that the emergence of the pedagogical band world in the United States and Canada altered the nature of wind band practices, and that the resultant bands-as-music-education paradigm can be understood in terms of issues of power and legitimacy. I strive to demonstrate how future directions in music education might benefit from a reflexive engagement with the discourses of our profession. (shrink)

In 1997 the Tenth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that school officials at West High School did not violate Rachel Bauchman's constitutional rights by including Christian religious music as part of its curriculum, or by staging school performances at religious sites. Three philosophical questions are investigated in this paper: whether the performance of religious text constitutes a religious practice, the ways in which instructional and performance context can affect the performance of sacred music, and (...) how music teachers can avoid coercion when teaching religious music. Conclusions suggest that music educators must carefully consider the historical and cultural context of texts utilized in choral music. Certain contemporary devotional texts intended primarily for worship may prove problematic in a classroom setting. In addition, the instructional context in which religious music is presented can greatly impact how students understand the music's significance. Music educators should carefully articulate clear pedagogical reasons for staging performances in houses of worship to avoid the appearance of endorsement, and should refrain from asking students to participate in organized worship services. Finally, music educators should be sensitive to the problems religious texts present to individual students, taking responsibility for facilitating a classroom environment that respects a diversity of viewpoints. (shrink)

In recent years, comparative education and comparative music education became important fields of research. Due to globalization, but also to international student assessments, it is most common to compare the outcomes of entire school systems or specific subject areas. The main goal is to identify the most successful systems and their best practices in order to help struggling countries to improve. While the notion of borrowing from successful systems might at first glance seem convincing, it has (...) its clear downsides: it fosters a kind of “cargo culture,” where the export and import of educational models and successful practices is undertaken without taking into account critical aspects of this procedure. This paper examines critically borrowing foreign educational practices as a goal of comparative music education, in the context of globalization. It takes an interdisciplinary perspective, using results from comparative education research and utilizing it for music education and music education philosophy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Democracy and Music Education: Liberalism, Ethics, and the Politics of PracticeHeidi WesterlundPaul G. Woodford, Democracy and Music Education: Liberalism, Ethics, and the Politics of Practice ( Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2005)Paul G. Woodford's Democracy and Music Education needs to be warmly welcomed in the field of philosophy of music education. It contributes to the discussion centering on ethics and (...) class='Hi'>music education—a discussion that after multiculturalism, pluralism, praxialism, and other recent "isms" still awaits its appearance in a stronger sense. Woodford writes that the aim of the book is to enhance democratic ends by inviting music educators to contribute "to wider intellectual and political conversations about the nature and significance of music in our lives and those of our children."1Woodford borrows ideas from many thinkers creating an interesting synthesis and lines of thought throughout the book. His main resource in developing a liberalist music education is, however, along the ideas of the American pragmatist and educational philosopher, John Dewey. Woodford's choice is well thought out. Dewey deserves to be redeemed and recognized in music education, not the least because of various distorted interpretations of his views that have commonly been accepted in the profession in the past. Woodford argues that the music appreciation movement, which aimed at developing good musical taste equally in all children, has not in any particular way been a Deweyan democratic movement. Music educators have not acknowledged their role as agents in the [End Page 235] transformation of school and society. Instead, he states, they have continued to subscribe to the older aesthetic and utilitarian rationales and yet neither approach prepares students "to question and challenge authority and thereby to transform musical society."2It is noteworthy that Woodford does not elaborate on Dewey's central concept, experience, but unexpectedly draws upon concepts such as abstract reason or the autonomous individual to reconstruct music education. Critical conversation becomes celebrated against performance-oriented music education. The book leaves open the discussion between utilitarian and aesthetic rationales and carefully avoids Dewey's notion of the aesthetic and experimentation, which could have brought new angles in understanding his notion of democracy and its relation to the social and musical.3 Woodford tries to maintain a middle ground in the North American philosophical battlefield of music education stating that music educators "should listen more closely to one another while avoiding extremes."4 His critique targets critical theorists, radical feminist writers, and modernist as well as postmodernist ideas, while Woodford himself seeks a middle way between laissez-faire and elitist or autocratic concepts of music education.As a whole, Woodford's conceptual toolkit for promoting ethical aspects in music education are less akin to Dewey's thoughts and more to the Greek philosophers and their notions of virtues. Woodford writes, "democracy depends on the existence of good faith and generosity of spirit, of character and love for one's fellow men and women."5 These virtues are "the glue that can bind us together as society."6 How is this achieved in music education? Teaching love becomes a practical problem: explaining love requires it to be modelled and experienced, Woodford writes. However, he leaves this cornerstone of his conceptual scheme to rest on the notion of intellectual conversation.Allow me to explain briefly in what way Dewey's philosophical project differs from the Greek philosophical ethos and why abstract reason and intellectual conversation are not central concepts in Dewey's pragmatism (this does not mean that they cannot be celebrated as Woodford has done). For Dewey, the virtue of love signifies devotion, interest, and courage since genuine interest challenges us to overcome the obstacles that stand in the way.7 Interest and devotion are not just attitudes or intellectual modes in the sense of mental states, but linked to doings and active transactions with and in the environment. Interest is co-extensive with action and devotion with dedication to shared projects. This devotion to shared doings and their significance is the socially inclusive ethical side that Dewey brought to the individualistic humanistic theory of self-realization and to the theory of experience. The vision of humanistic self-realization, as has been presented in... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Justifying the Right to Music EducationMarja HeimonenIn this study I will explore legal philosophical questions related to music education.1 I will begin by asking, "Is there a right to music education?" and move on to consider what constitutes a right and what kind of music education is at issue. My argument is that there is a right to music education (...) and to a certain kind of music education in terms of content.In the Nordic countries, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, and Norway, the right to general music education is based on law. All these countries belong to the Nordic legal culture. They are part of the Continental civil-law system consisting of enacted statutes with abstract norms. Case- and judge-centered common law that develops from decision to decision is used in Anglo-American societies such as the United States and England.2 The law usually leaves the contents of education more or less open.This study explores music education in the light of the ideas of Aristotle and some of his modern followers.3 Philosophers of music education significantly influenced this study, in which I argue that the principal aims of education are connected not only to musical skills, but also to virtues, moral philosophy, and the education of the human being as a whole. My objective is to make the differences [End Page 119] between the aims and content of music education in various societies more explicit and understandable.The right to music education is closely connected to its justification. In practice, music education is justified in terms of internal goods (in other words, by self-justifying values emphasizing personal well-being and self-expression) and external goods (favoring the effective training of future professionals, for instance). I will suggest that external goods should be subordinate to internal goods, and that an optional balance between the two is needed. This balance is achieved through continuous debate in a living tradition that focuses on the holistic view of the aims in music education.However, deeper arguments are needed in justifying the right to music education. According to Estelle Jorgensen, a dynamic and dialectic process characterizes music and education, both of which are part of the changing society and the culture that surrounds them: transformation is ongoing all the time.4 I will argue that music education has an important role not only for the individual, but also for society as a whole, since music could be regarded as an instrument in the teaching of virtues.The question that follows is: what kind of virtues? This essay explores the role of music education in developing one of the fundamental virtues in society, the sense of justice. The role of the music teacher could be compared with that of the judge: to build cases in real practical situations in the framework of general principles, which may be both written (such as law and curricula) and unwritten (tradition). Theory and practice have to go hand in hand—general principles always have to be adapted to individual situations (and not vice versa)—when music educators are acting in the present society.The ApproachThe right to music education includes not only the question of the right of every child and adolescent to receive a certain number of music lessons or to attend a music school. It also involves aspects related to values, aims, and contents. To clarify the complexity of rights in this context, we might think of several levels. The first level of ideological options comprises training for a professional career for which the notion of legal philosophy leans on analytical legal positivism. The second level of ideological options refers to artistic self-expression and the notion of law for this is outlined in terms of "law as culture" and natural law philosophy. The third level consists of the maintenance of societal or cultural values through music education and its notion of legal philosophy is given in terms of the historical school of law and natural law philosophy. A child's rights to music might be regarded as a negative freedom right, with protection against illegal interference on the part of the state, a positive welfare right (an [End... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:A History of American Music EducationSondra Wieland HoweA History of American Music Education, 3rd edition, by Michael L. Mark and Charles L. Gary. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Education, 2007, 500 pp., $95.00 cloth, $44.95 paper.Mark and Gary's editions of A History of American Music Education are indispensable reading for every music education student, practicing professional music educator, and (...) the general reader who is interested in the development of music teaching in American public schools. Based on excellent secondary sources, this history presents an overview of music education from Colonial America, through the development of textbooks in the nineteenth century and the growth of professional organizations in the early twentieth century, to the expansion of the curriculum and the role of government in education since 1950.This third edition is written by Michael L. Mark, professor emeritus at Towson University in Maryland, and dedicated to the memory of his friend and coauthor, Charles L. Gary.1 Mark has written two other books that complement the history editions. Contemporary Music Education surveys various reform projects since the 1950s, trends in the philosophy of music education, government policies, and the development of new methods.2Music Education: Source Readings includes writings about music education from both the European and American perspectives.3 There are many recent articles and dissertations on the history of music education, but the only recent book is Terese Volk's Music, Education, and Multiculturalism, which describes school programs and materials emphasizing multiculturalism in the twentieth century from a historical perspective.4 Publications in musicology add to our knowledge of the history of music in American society, but musicologists rarely write about music in public schools. Publications on the history of education are helpful in understanding trends in music education, but these publications do not discuss music.The third edition of A History of American Music Education is expanded to 500 pages from the approximately 400 pages of the earlier editions, largely because of new formatting and [End Page 115] spacing that make the third edition easier to read. Each chapter has a reference list in APA style in contrast to the Chicago Manual style of the earlier editions, with endnotes plus a bibliography at the end of each chapter. The material in Mark's third edition is basically the same as the earlier editions, with some expansion of the history of music education after 1950.This book, based on secondary sources, is an overview of the history of music in American public schools, showing the response of education to societal needs during various historical periods. There is an emphasis on the role of national music organizations, especially MENC: The National Association for Music Education (MENC), in advocating for the importance of music for every child. The historical account includes the various justifications for teaching music and discussions of the meaning of music. There were times when music educators were interested in aesthetics, but there were also many times when they were mainly interested in a practical understanding of music and extrinsic motives for including music in the school curriculum.5The first section on "The Western Heritage" (chapters 1-3) briefly covers music in Jewish traditions through the Greek and Roman cultures because the insights of these ancient thinkers influenced all Western societies. The chapter on the Middle Ages through the Reformation shows the role of music as a practical subject, part of the quadrivium with arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy. As music became an integral part of the church, musicians developed methods of teaching note reading. Martin Luther promoted the singing of "good music" in schools and education in the vernacular for the middle classes. With the development of Italian conservatories and the patronage of music by the elite classes of the Renaissance, music training became specialized for musicians working in the church and courts. These various conflicting European opinions of the role of music in society influenced American education.The second section on "The New World" (chapters 4-5) emphasizes the use of music as a means of praising God. Spanish musicians established successful music education programs in Peru and Mexico to promote Christianity. The French brought Christianity to... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Standards of Music Education and the Easily Administered Child/Citizen: The Alchemy of Pedagogy and Social Inclusion/Exclusion Thomas S. Popkewitz and Ruth Gustafson University of Wisconsin-Madison Educational standards are forsome a corrective device to promote the twin goals of excellence and equity by making explicit the performance outcomes ofschooling. For others, performance standards do not do what they say and install the wrong goals for teaching. But various (...) sides in the debate assume that school subjects teach the subjects and what is needed are more effective and efficient classroom practices. Our approach is different. We consider the standards of school subjects as related to the conditions of state governing. School subjects inscribe principles that administer the conduct ofthe child who is to grow into the "reasonable citizen." The Standards Movement is more than what is publicly discussed. Pedagogy embodies particular ways ofthinking or a system ofreason in which pedagogy orders who we are, who we should become, and who are not qualifiedto become that "we." If we think of modern schooling as an inscription device in the fonning of the citizen through the development ofthe child, the crux of the debate is not whether to have standards. It is how particular standards are inscribed through pedagogicalpractices. Ifwe treat school subjects as analogous to a uniform system of taxes, the developmentofuniformmeasurements, andurban planning in the modem state, our concern is with the boundaries created about the rules and standards of reason and the reasonable person. Pedagogygoverns inadoublesense: schoolmusic embodies representations that constitute the objects that children act on as real, and it generates principles to orderand patrol the borders that qualify and disqualify individuals for participation. The standards that govern music education can be thought about as an alchemy.1 The field of music is transported and translated into school subjects andpedagogical content. As the sorcerer ofthe middle ages sought to turn lead into gold, a specializedpedagogyplaces children in a new set ofrelations that is no longerthe academic field of music. Why is the alchemy important? First, the alchemy ofschool subjects is a particular system of reason that fabricates the kinds of people administered in schooling. Second, the alchemy reconfigures the sensitivities and awarenesses of the field of music to make the child's "soul" the site of administration. That soul in music and other school subjects is talked about today as personaldevelopment, self-reflection,personality, and character. Third, school subjects are sites in which the relations between the state, society, community, and individuality are worked and reworked to produce the borders ofinclusion and exclusion. The first section of this paper considers school subjects as a practice of governing that administersprinciples (orstandards ifwecanplay with that word) about who we are and should be. The second section considers psychology as the translation device that transports academic disciplines into school subjects. It may seem odd at firstglancebutthesamepsychologicaltransportation systems exist across school subjects. The historical intervention of the transportation system, we argue in the third section, has little to do with understanding music or science, but with governing the soul. In that section we examine the different cultural practices that overlap to©Philosophy ofMusic Education Review 10, no. 2 (Fall, 2002): 80-91. Thomas S. Popkewitz/Ruth Gustafson 81 generate principles that orderthe nature ofmusic, the child/childhood, teaching, and reflection and subjectivity in music education. The discussion is not about the internal structure or the goodness ofmusic education but the particular frames of reference that form the evidence and possibilities of reform in school subjects. We take up the task ofinquiry into the alchemy of music as part of a broader project to show the contingency ofthe arrangement that we live by showing how thought has played a part in holding those arrangements together and to contestthe strategiesthatgovernthehumanpossibilities. The Art ofGoverning: Standards as Mapping Who We are/to Become Themodern state governs through developing a precise system of classifications and the correct sorting devices to chart a course ofaction that will change society for the better and which will prevent any futurejoining ofthe ranks ofthe poorly performing. To govern is to develop systems ofclassification that calculate and make legiblepeople fortheadministrationofthe society and the citizen. Mass schooling is a central institution in... (shrink)

Music is the universal language of mankind. The process of learning music can be understood as the process of constantly copying and spreading cultural memes. The term "mime" here comes from meme theory, which is a theory that studies cultural imitation and aims to explore the evolutionary model of cultural information dissemination. According to the principle of meme theory, music education itself is a process of cultural dissemination, which is transmitted to different meme carriers through imitation (...) and replication. At present, music education, especially instrumental music education, focuses on teaching performance skills, so there are many performers and educators who "only focus on skills". The author believes that this process should be based on the transmission of metaphysical music culture to be more in line with the philosophical meaning of education? Is education based on meme theory more effective? In order to verify this view, the author selected 20 students from a primary school and conducted a piano teaching experiment lasting 7 months. In the end, it was proved that the piano teaching model of " listening, reading, and playing" based on meme theory has a more benign improvement on students, and also revealed the philosophical significance of music education under the perspective of meme theory and the practical path of the future development of music education. (shrink)

Abstract:Bourdieu developed his theory of cultural capital, in part, to help explain why school achievement for students from lower income families is persistently below that of their wealthier peers. His theory has been applied and extended throughout the world, especially in capitalist countries where economic disparities prevail. Although it risks reifying common-sense assumptions that privilege the cultural values and practices of the affluent, the theory of cultural capital applied to music education provides a means to critique efforts (...) in school music intended to elevate or broaden the musical tastes of the poor and working classes. Rather than freeing students from “cycles of poverty,” music education efforts aimed at cultural refinement can have the opposite effect of leveraging distinctions between classes to further the reproduction of inequality. The argument is made in this essay that a robust framing of Bourdieu’s concept of habitus can serve as a corrective by highlighting the arbitrariness of cultural capital and supporting a more relativist view of culture. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Music Education for Social Change–Constructing an Activist Music Education by Juliet HessMartin BergerJuliet Hess, Music Education for Social Change–Constructing an Activist Music Education (New York, Routledge, 2019)Juliet Hess’s book is written with great passion and composed for a very good reason. It is published in troubling times when music educators are looking for new perspectives on old problems and (...) in search of a revived relevance for the subject. Although music educators appear to be better qualified for their jobs than ever before, there is still an underlying concern that we have lost the positive political influence on society we might have had in the past, that our contributions to enhancing tolerance and social justice are at stake again, and that our voices are not being heard. Or, in other words, that we lack relevance if we do not act.Juliet Hess raises her voice, reclaiming this relevance at a time when “[h]ate continually manifests in both new and familiar ways” and “the presence of oppression is consistent across time.”1 According to her, rising-up against oppressive ideologies, injustices, and material violence is imperative and urgent. Hess calls on finding ways for music education to contribute to resistance and hails concepts that allow educators to devise a distinctly anti-oppressive pedagogy. Her purpose is to offer a framework for what she calls an “activist music education,” a pedagogy that “aims to address the sexism, racism, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, heterosexism, cisgenderism, classism, ableism, anti-immigrant [End Page 207] sentiments, and other oppressions so prevalent in our society.”2 Inspired by the impact of their musicking, Hess conducts interviews with twenty activist musicians, exploring common themes, perceptions, values, philosophies, and ideas. All individuals interviewed are involved in social change movements across the United States and Canada. Hess positions them as “catalysts for change in music education,”3 providing “a means to conceptualize activist music education for school music.”4 Activism and music, says Hess, are “enmeshed and inextricably connected,”5 since both intrinsically involve exploring historical, political, social, and cultural contexts.Inspired by the relevance of activist music to a society, Hess is in search of a similar meaning for music education. As a result, she sketches a possible K-12 curriculum with three essential goals: fostering connection with Others, honoring and sharing lived experience, and enabling critical reflection on the world.6 In search of a conceptualization for her idea, Hess draws mainly on Freirian and critical pedagogy as a theoretical framework, placing lived experience at the center of education, and with conscientization and praxis being her key terms.7 According to Hess, praxis, defined as “the integration of thoughtful reflection and action,”8 is fundamental to any kind of transformation, while conscientization refers to processes through which learners “become aware and reflect upon the conditions that shape their lives.”9 Although Hess acknowledges the valuable scholarly contribution to critical pedagogy in the past, she remains careful in its application, urging music educators to “avert any dogmatic implementation.”10 As a result, she suggests a “tri-faceted pedagogy for future activism,”11 which is connective, communicative, and critical: “a pedagogy of community, based on activist musicians’ emphasis on connectivity, a pedagogy of expression rooted in honoring lived experiences and sharing them through music, and a pedagogy of noticing that emerges from activist-musicians’ work on critical thinking.”12 This combination will, according to her, set “the conditions for future activism among youth and offers a possible practical enactment of critical pedagogy for music education.”13 A valuable and most inspiring read!Although I strongly agree with the intention of this book, I do have some questions. The dream of a classroom that exercises social criticism both through thinking about music and through musicking itself has always been an aspiration. Scholars have regularly encouraged music educators to be public intellectuals and agents of change, ideally striving for social justice (or at the very least for social awareness), and preparing learners to be global citizens, able to think critically and ready to engage with the world.14 It is widely agreed that “music education deserves to be seen as a serious form of cultural... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reflections on Futures for Music Education PhilosophyEstelle R. JorgensenIn 1990, when I convened the first International Symposium for the Philosophy of Music Education at Bloomington, Indiana, there was one dominant philosophy of music education in the United States and another was about to make its appearance. The five succeeding symposia (Toronto, Canada, in 1994, led by David Elliott; Los Angeles, United States, in (...) 1997, led by Anthony Palmer and Frank Heuser; Birmingham, United Kingdom, in 2000, led by Mary Reichling and Forest Hansen; Lake Forest, Illinois, United States, in 2003, led by Iris Yob, Frank Heuser, and Forest Hansen; and Hamburg, Germany, in 2005, led by Charlene Morton, Paul Woodford, Frede Nielsen, and Jürgen Vogt) have promoted other philosophies. And this burgeoning of different voices and perspectives has greatly enriched the philosophical underpinnings of music education and moved us from relying on a narrow range of philosophical views towards a plethora of them.In our infant society, the International Society for Philosophy of Music Education (ISPME), we are creating and institutionalizing a forum that can nurture and critique ideas and practices and sustain the work of philosophical reflection in music education over the longer term. We have also benefited from long-term commitments by the Indiana University School of Music and Indiana University [End Page 15] Press to publishing the Philosophy of Music Education Review, now in its fourteenth volume (building on three years of publication of the Philosophy of Music Education Newsletter), and the Counterpoints: Music and Education series that provides an important venue for publishing cutting-edge scholarship in our field. And over the past two years, we have begun to build an international team of philosophers committed to establishing a strong philosophical society in music education.Beyond institutionalizing philosophical scholarship in music education, our society is committed to creating a genuinely international community that offers a global perspective. In the past, music education grew up within national borders and its work was often nationalistic in emphasis. Now, we face new challenges of thinking beyond these national commitments to a world of music education. This world might be seen as what Maxine Greene aptly terms "multiplicities and pluralities,"1 the many differing groups forged within language groups, religious perspectives, political ideologies, economic strictures, and familial obligations. And as philosophers, we work especially within our various linguistic and cultural traditions as we also seek to transcend these traditions in a common discourse.How shall we address philosophically the multiplicities and pluralities, commonalities and differences in music education internationally? Radical relativism and pluralism offer contrasting perspectives.2 Radical relativism sees the host of different music education beliefs and practices around the world as incommensurable and focuses on differences between them. For example, viewing Japanese and British music education within this stance would suggest that since Japanese and British music education reflect Japanese and British society and culture respectively, each cannot be understood in terms of the other, they are different and incommensurate with the other, and it is important to understand each in its own terms. Pluralism, however, sees differences as commensurable and focuses on shared attributes. Since human beings are the creators of culture and society, common threads amidst the differences emerge from this common humanity. For example, as a reflection of their different societies and cultures, although we expect to encounter differences between British and Japanese music education, we may also observe commonalities since they both bear the imprint of a shared humanity.Notwithstanding that musics and educational systems seem, upon first glance and when considered specifically, to be incommensurable, a deeper and more general examination turns up evidence supporting a pluralist perspective.3 Historically, cultures regularly borrow from different others as if there were common human threads. Maurice Ravel, Carl Orff, and Paul Simon are among twentieth-century composers to draw on cultures from the Far East and Africa. In music [End Page 16] education, Masafumi Ogawa's study of the introduction of Luther Whiting Mason's ideas into Japan in the nineteenth century,4 the dissemination of Shinichi Suzuki's ideas into the United States, the spread of Zoltán Kodály's, Émile Jaques-Dalcroze's, and Carl Orff's and Gunild... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Music Education in an Age of Virtuality and Post-Truth by Paul WoodfordPanagiotis A. KanellopoulosPaul Woodford, Music Education in an Age of Virtuality and Post-Truth (New York, Routledge, 2018)This book is provocative. And challenging. It is written with passion, aiming to induce controversy. And with good reason. For we live in times when populism professes an illusionary sense of community, invoking a seemingly 'anti-systemic' but (...) highly hypocritical, racist, and sexist discourse;1 in times where "bullshitting"2 has advanced to the highest governmental levels in many countries; in times where "authoritarian neoliberal statism"3 becomes the new status quo, inducing a scandalous increase of economic inequalities, forcing large populations to live precarious lives; in times where privatization of educational services in the context of market-oriented practices impose restrictive and ultimately unjust politics of accountability and performativity;4 in times where instrumentalization of educational ends has taken the lead, assisted by a systematic co-option and misappropriation of notions such as excellence and creativity;5 in times, finally, where spaces that allow for "the sharing (out) of the incalculable,"6 forging unknown potentialities in education, life, and thought, are being destroyed. In such times, Paul Woodford has stepped in, reclaiming his right to speak uncompromisingly.Hannah Arendt has written that "[w]hen men [sic] are deprived of the public space--which is constituted by acting together and then fills of its own accord [End Page 108] with the events and stories that develop into history--they retreat into their freedom of thought."7 Woodford refuses to retreat. He writes as a public intellectual of the highest order, committed to upset and not please those in power. A great service that his latest book performs is that it speaks daringly, stirring a debate that helps us all to do away with fear. For as Bertrand Russell has aptly said quite a long time ago, "[I]f thought is to become the possession of many, not the privilege of the few, we must have done with fear. It is fear that holds men [sic] back."8Resisting the "melancholy of inner exile,"9 but not immune to possible accusations of left melancholy, understood as "a refusal to come to terms with the particular character of the present,"10 the author wrote a book that provokes music educators to actively think beyond their sealed and safe world of convictions that is based on ideology-free conceptions of music teaching. Estelle Jorgensen has long ago brought to our attention the urgency of this task: "in an era in which the mindset and political reality have changed dramatically, … there is an urgent need to revisit the political character of music education and the ways in which it needs to address the cultural issues of our day."11Along this pathway, Woodford's book encourages music educators to live and teach as public intellectuals, forging "a democratic purpose for music education"12 that acts against the "anachronistic and formalist conception of music that reduces music education to supply-side economics as children are conceived as either future professional musicians or consumers and not as citizens to be prepared in schools to participate intelligently in the political life of society."13 Woodford articulates a vision of music education "as preparation for adulthood and democratic and global citizenship."14 He strongly advocates an approach that balances performance and creativity-based experiences with a socio-historical study of the social, ideological, and cultural workings of different musics in a wide variety of contexts. He encourages music educators to teach "how music's structural properties and qualities contribute to the shaping of people's perceptions and understandings of themselves and their world,"15 "asking the who, what, when, where, how, to, with, or for whom, and, most importantly of all, why of music."16 He envisions a music classroom that exercises social criticism "directly and self-consciously"17 both through "learning how to make music"18 and through thinking about music. He sees this approach as a tool for raising students' consciousness. Woodford's ultimate vision of music education is one that casts it as a means for cultivating "a justice-oriented" approach... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy of Music Education Review 11.2 (2003) 200-202 [Access article in PDF] Bennett Reimer, A Philosophy of Music Education:advancing the Vision, Third Edition. (upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice In his third and greatly revised edition of A Philosophy of Music Education, Bennett Reimer fulfills the promise of his subtitle, Advancing the Vision. While incorporating essentials and a few passages of his previous (...) edition, its thrust is to present and argue for a new theory of musical intelligences. Here Reimer is pushing into a theoretical frontier, one that he sees as crucially relevant to the music education concerns that have so long been at the heart of his thinking.So although this is a new edition, third time around, of a classic in the field of philosophy of music education by one of its "elder statespersons," it is in many ways a new book. Reimer has never been a thinker to rest on his past achievements. He demonstrates here his ongoing curiosity about issues he has been wrestling with for decades. He engages in debate (as sympathetically as possible) with others who are also forging new ideas. Interacting with their ideas and his own former ones, he generates new ways of thinking about what is involved in musical composing, performing, listening, and theorizing. He uses all this as ground for challenging students and teachers of music to reflect on their own philosophical or pre-philosophical assumptions, their learning and teaching practices, and their [End Page 200] opportunities to make music even more meaningful in their lives and the lives of others. All this is informed by his evident (without his ever making an overt claim for it) love of music, love of philosophizing about music and music education, and his love of teaching about music. I will comment here on just some of the many notable features of the new edition.Reimer announces his approach as synergistic—that is, looking for areas of agreement beneath the surface of what seem to be radically opposing positions (between absolutism and relativism concerning musical value, for instance). What is especially noteworthy is that he demonstrates this moderation throughout his book. This does not lead to his being uncritical; in fact, he is highly critical of some stances and in Chapter 1 makes a devastating attack on postmodernism in music education. But generally he seeks to find what is worthwhile in the views of others and what he can assimilate from their thinking.While valuing musical performance and especially the successful record on teaching performance in American schools, Reimer believes that music education should have much wider concerns: to provide the groundwork for students interested in composing, conducting, improvising, arranging, reviewing, theorizing, and above all listening. Listening, he persuasively argues, is the core skill for all the other activities or roles, and it is also the skill probably most useful in the long run for the greatest number of students. Few, after all, will go on to become professional performers or music creators in some other role, and not many will even become highly competent performing amateurs. But almost everyone can develop some skills in active listening, and they deserve the attention in music education that has been mostly lacking. In the program Reimer advocates, the largest potential student population will become (in his aptly chosen term) aficionados—intelligent, discriminatory listeners. Some of this is attended to in colleges and universities, but by then the opportunity for many has passed.Building on Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences, Reimer points out the limitations of analysis in terms of simply one musical intelligence. The abilities needed for musical activities are not all the same, even though they have the common requirement of listening skill. The notion of multiple musical intelligences (specifically composing, performing, improvising, listening, music theory, musicology, and music teaching) provides a rich basis and suggests new possible methods for broadening music education at all school levels. It also indicates a worthwhile area both for future research and for application beyond the field of music. Education, Reimer says, should be thought of... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy of Music Education Review 12.2 (2004) 102-125 [Access article in PDF] Towards an Ecology of Music Education June Boyce-Tillman King Alfred's College, England Western culture has developed a concept of knowledge as divided into discrete categories, which are reflected in the disconnected subjects of our school curricula and the titles of our university faculties. However, music should be intimately bound up with (...) the wider curriculum, particularly in the areas of personal, social, cultural, moral, and spiritual education. From an examination of the values that are implicit in the musical traditions that dominate music education in Western culture, in this paper I will set out some pointers towards a more ecological understanding of music education, drawing on experiences I have had with music and music education in a variety of settings. I will examine how musicology has concentrated only on certain aspects of the musical experience, ignoring areas such as expressive character, value systems, and spirituality, which are the areas that link the musical experience to the fabric of life as lived beyond the confines of the classroom and academe. This paper seeks to re-establish a notion of connectedness both within the musical experience and also beyond it and through it to other areas of knowledge and understanding. For this I have adopted the term "ecology." To explicate this notion of ecology, I have developed a model which incorporates the values that are both usually associated with Western culture and are subjugated by it, drawing on the experience of music itself. [End Page 102] Ways of Knowing The first of these models deals with the social construction of knowledge. Stan Gooch defines two systems of thought embodied in various cultures in the world. He identifies the favored characteristics of one system (Type A) as activity leading to products; objectivity; impersonal logic; thinking and thought; detachment; and discrete categories of knowledge that are based on proof and scientific evidence. The other system (Type B) favors being; subjectivity; personal feeling; emotion; magic; involvement; associative ways of knowing; and belief and non-causal knowledge.1Gooch suggests that the Western world has chosen to value the first of these systems and neglect the other. This is done by a process of devaluation that can be carried out in various ways. In the Western media this devaluation can be manifested as public ridicule or by simply ignoring those events that reflect Type B values. Community-building activities based on associative ways of knowing and acknowledgement of people's feelings and sensibilities are not reported, while a considerable amount of space is given to the essentially dehumanizing practices of warfare and the dissociative practices of violence and crime. For example, reports and articles on holistic, associative approaches to health based on belief systems that defy rational explanation often end with throw-away comments like "If you believe that, then you will believe anything!" Public figures sometimes indulge in similar practices in their pronouncements by initiating policies to outlaw health practices that cannot be supported by scientific methodologies and appealing to the grounds of public safety. People who wish to embrace the values of Type B can easily be pathologized or criminalized as the dominant culture seeks to reinforce the validity of its Type A values. Academic, medical, psychological, and even sociological research concentrates on so-called objective methodologies associated with scientific ways of knowing and the use of numbers in some shape or form. Qualitative methodologies that collect people's stories are often regarded with suspicion because of the alleged subjectivity of the approach.So the values of Type B have become hidden or repressed by Western culture. I have therefore called the ways of knowing that characterize Type B "subjugated ways of knowing,"2 following the work of Michel Foucault and his notion of subjugated knowledges.3 This paper will concentrate on how the ideas of the subjugated ways of knowing can be used to understand where we are in music education, drawing on my experience in the UK. I shall look at ways of bringing the two ways of knowing-Type A and... (shrink)

In this paper, we explore challenges in conveying the culturally constructed meanings of local Indigenous musics and the worldviews they manifest to students in K-12 school music classes, when foundational aspects of the English language, historical and current discourse, and English language habits function to thwart the transmission of those meanings. We recount how, in settler colonial societies in North America, speakers of the dominant English language have historically misrepresented, discredited, and obscured cultural meanings that inhere in local (...) Indigenous musics. First, we examine three ways in which the use of English has distorted the cultural meanings of those musics. Next, we explain how historical discourses in English have intentionally undervalued or discredited the values intrinsic to those musics, also describing how some current music education discourse in English might work against the embedding of Indigenous meanings in school music education settings. We then consider additional factors distinguishing Indigenous languages from European languages (especially English) to show how a people’s “language habits” influence their perception of and thus their relationship with their natural environment. We conclude by considering the role of music education in revitalizing local Indigenous languages and musics and advancing the cultural values of their originating communities. (shrink)

Due to the historical background, political changes, external cultural impacts, and drastic internal changes in people's lifestyles, ethnic music is step by step on the decline or even on the verge of extinction. This paper analyses the significance, characteristics and dilemmas of the inheritance of folk music, and discusses the influence of social music education policy on the inheritance of folk music, and new ways of inheritance. It proposes two effective paths for the implementation of (...) the social music education policy, namely, the construction of high-quality music teachers and the development of school-based ethnic music programs, which will jointly promote the development of ethnic music in China. In the empirical study, a stratified sampling of schools was conducted in City G. Thirty-four schools were sampled. With a sample of students (1972), teachers (102), and music group leaders (34), the implementation of social music education policy in primary schools can significantly improve students' cognition, experience, understanding, love, inheritance, and development of ethnic music culture. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Chances and Choices: Exploring the Impact of Music Education by Stephanie PittsLeonard TanStephanie Pitts, Chances and Choices: Exploring the Impact of Music Education (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012)In Chances and Choices: Exploring the Impact of Music Education, Stephanie Pitts investigates the lifelong effects of music education by examining the place of music in the lives of more than a (...) hundred adults. Cast in seven chapters, this qualitative study includes six pairs of interludes inserted between the chapters as well as a concluding postlude. Following a brief summary of the book, I will offer my critical response.In Chapter One, Pitts lists the six primary aims of the study: to examine the impact of musical learning during childhood on lifelong engagement with music; to assess the role that school music plays in lifelong involvement in music and attitudes to music; to investigate the influence of various locations for learning; to discuss particular strengths of music education; to probe into the problems of music education systems; and to proffer ways in which knowing more about the long-term implications of music education can help inform practice. She then presents the life history methodology she employs to accomplish these aims, detailing how she gathers retrospective accounts of formative musical experiences by British classical musicians, supplemented by accounts from British popular musicians and Italian respondents. These accounts constitute the data that are [End Page 102] analyzed from different perspectives later in the book. A brief survey of international approaches to music education and outline of the chapters to follow conclude the chapter.In Chapter Two, Pitts sketches a brief overview of twentieth century British music education before analyzing trends in the formative musical experience of British respondents from the 1930s to the 1990s. In an attempt to determine generational trends, Pitts groups the written responses according to six categories of musical influences: classroom music, music outside the classroom, teacher attitudes, music in the home, parent attitudes, and lifelong involvement. For each decade, Pitts presents a rank ordering of the six musical influences, revealing the increasing importance of music outside the classroom through the decades. Pitts then examines the various locations where musical learning takes place, such as the school, the home, and the church, in Chapter Three. Here, she surveys the characteristics of supportive musical environments, examines extracurricular music making, and discusses self-learning in music. Pitts concludes the chapter by analyzing findings from the Italian participants, drawing attention to the fact that in its emphasis on specialist training, the Italian music education system differs from the generalist approaches of its British counterpart.Pithily titled “Inspiring, Affirming, Challenging,” Chapter Four explores the characteristics of memorable and significant music teachers and role models. Among the many themes considered, Pitts notes that inspiring teachers are those who provide constant support to their students and possess advanced musical skills; teachers who were recollected negatively, on the other hand, were associated with being negligent, incompetent, dismissive, or fearsome. In addition, Pitts also explores the role of parents, siblings, extended family, and friends as musical mentors, role models, and sources of musical learning. With these foundations for musical learning established, Pitts analyzes the life history accounts of the respondents by musical outcome in Chapter Five. She discusses how adults make music in community settings, educational settings, worship settings, self-directed groups, and private homes, and describes how adults learn music and attend concerts as a form of lifelong musical involvement. From the data, Pitts surmises that even after leaving school, the participants often desire to improve musically; they frequently concentrate their efforts not only on participating in musical activities, but also on developing their musical skills further.In Chapter Six, “Rhetoric and Reality,” Pitts assesses the degree to which the participants’ experiences corroborate contemporary claims for the value and effects of musical learning. Drawing on the rich data of life history accounts, Pitts concludes that there is “compelling evidence for the lifelong impact of musical education” (p. 173), further arguing that the musical skills, attitudes, and values acquired during school years do have a long-term influence on musical engagement [End Page 103] in later years. Chapter Seven, aptly titled “Chances, Choices, and Conclusion... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Response to Alexandra Kertz-Welzel’s “Two Souls, Alas, Reside within My Breast”: Reflections on German and American Music Education Regarding the Internationalization of Music EducationPhilosophy of Music Education Review, 21, no.1 (Spring 2013): 52–65Leonard TanAs a Singaporean who, like Kertz-Welzel, spent four years residing in the United States, I read the article with great interest. Born to traditional Chinese parents, I was raised steeped in (...) Confucian values, savored Chinese operas, and spoke Mandarin as a child. When I went to school in postcolonial Singapore, however, the medium of instruction was primarily English. I read Enid Blyton in primary school, Shakespeare in secondary school, and Chaucer in Junior College. My university studies in music were Western-centric. All seemed fine until my doctoral studies in the United States when I was inspired by my music education professor to revisit my cultural roots and to read Chinese philosophy. It was [End Page 113] no easy task reading the original texts—they were written on bamboo slips more than two thousand years ago in classical Chinese, and I needed tuition from my mother. Nevertheless, as I worked my way slowly but surely through each character, one thing became unmistakably clear: although I had read more Western than Asian philosophy, many ideas in the ancient Chinese texts resonate with the innermost recesses of my being and are unmistakably a part of who I am as a Chinese Singaporean, albeit one schooled in Western ways.Two souls, alas, have been residing within my breast! Like Kertz-Welzel, I had to find a way to reconcile my two scholarly identities. How may one negotiate the seeming chasm between the Chinese and Western philosophical worlds? In this paper, I sketch some insights gleaned from my journey into the world of comparative philosophy, specifically, classical Chinese philosophy and American pragmatism. In particular, I address two obstacles to the internationalization of music education identified by Kertz-Welzel, namely, the tendency for researchers to know only one scholarly tradition well, and the use of English as an international language. I then proffer Dewey’s metaphor of “friendship” as a way of charting a new “silk road”—one that blends Eastern and Western ideas—for the philosophy of music education.As noted by Kertz-Welzel, many researchers only know one scholarly tradition well. Dangers lurk when scholars have limited knowledge of foreign philosophical enterprises. To begin with, one may fall into the trap of stereotypical preconceptions. For example, I have been asked if it were methodologically sound to juxtapose Chinese philosophical aphorisms with the closely argued texts of the American pragmatists. The basis of this critique is understandable: think Confucius and aphoristic phrases that teach humans how to lead moral lives immediately spring to mind; think Dewey and one is reminded of the depth and breadth of his philosophical arguments. Chinese philosophical texts, however, are by no means mere aphorisms. While the Analects of Confucius may, prima facie, appear as if it were a random collection of brief sayings, many passages relate to one another and cohere as a philosophy. The rich commentarial tradition that spans over two thousand years further augment the range of insights embedded in the Analects. Post Confucius, Xunzi, the philosopher best known for his argument that human nature is evil and ought to be cultivated through ritual (li 禮) and music (yue 乐), articulated his philosophy through thirty-two books that rival Dewey in richness and complexity.1 For two souls to reside within one breast, one has to remain vigilant against potential stereotypes.The tendency to know only one scholarly tradition well may also inadvertently cause one to judge a foreign philosophical tradition using the standards of the familiar one. When encountering Confucius for the first time, scholars schooled in European philosophy may, as Hegel did, criticize him for being a [End Page 114] shallow moralizer obsessed with rituals (li 禮) rather than a speculative philosopher concerned with theoretical matters.2 Such a judgment is misguided as it ignores the fact that the Chinese philosophical tradition was founded on a set of metaphysical assumptions that differed from its Greek counterpart. Seeing the cosmos in discrete, quantitative, and unchanging terms, the ancient... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:What's so Important about Music Education?Leonard TanJ. Scott Goble, What's so Important about Music Education? (New York, NY: Routledge, 2010)In What's so Important about Music Education, J. Scott Goble proposes a new philosophical foundation for music education in the United States based on the theory of semiotics by American pragmatist Charles Sanders Peirce. Following a brief summary, I will note (...) several merits in Goble's book before sketching four recommendations for future editions.In Chapter One, Goble notes how the inclusion of non-Western musics in the public schools as espoused in the 1967 Tanglewood Declaration has raised two crucial questions: "Whose music should be included in the curriculum?" and "What is the role or social importance of public school music education in the United States as a postmodern society?" Noting that music education was established in the United States during the modern era, and that the Tanglewood Declaration did not account for vast differences in beliefs about music, Goble argues that there is a need to establish a new philosophical foundation that can accommodate the varied beliefs and practices of diverse cultural groups in postmodern United States.In Chapter Two, Goble sketches and critiques five cultural anthropologists. Of the five, he singles out Clifford Geertz's conception of culture as "semiotic [End Page 201] webs" (p. 20) as the conceptual foundation that is appropriate for this study. He then links Geertz's notion of culture to the semiotic theory of C. S. Peirce which is to become the theoretical underpinning of the book. Subsequently, he unpacks many key Peircian themes: human conceptions are maintained not individually but collectively in cultural groups, provisional truth (as opposed to absolute Truth) is relative and dependent on conceptions of communities, and the scientific method is the sole mode of inquiry by which people in communities may use to satisfy their doubts to formulate beliefs. Most importantly, Goble expounds the "pragmatic maxim" that since humans live in communities united by common beliefs, "the 'clear' meaning of an idea held by a member of the community will almost inevitably stem from the beliefs—or ways of understanding—held by members of that community" (p. 30). Goble concludes the chapter by presenting the Peircian semiotic system of cognition which posits that a "sign" is conceptualized in a triadic relationship: the Sign or "Firstness," the Object or "Secondness," and the Interpretant or "Thirdness" (p. 33).In Chapter Three, Goble considers how music is a sign based on the theoretical framework laid in Chapter Two. Drawing on the work of ethnomusicologists, anthropologists, psychiatrists, and a neuroscientist, he formulates a Peircian pragmatic approach to musical practices which posits that "the musical practices of different cultural communities represent a diverse cluster of community-specific ritualized behaviors involving sound" (p. 252). Furthermore, each of the musical practices "serves those persons who meaningfully participate in it as a means of psychophysiological, psychosocial, and/or sociopolitical equilibration relative to the worldview—or ordered conception of Reality—they tacitly share" (p. 252). For Goble, this pragmatist conception of musical practices is neither ethnocentric, universalist, nor relativist, and can serve as a conceptual framework for all diverse musical practices in postmodern United States.With the Peircian pragmatic conception in mind, Goble examines historical factors that contributed to current conceptions of music in the United States in Chapter Four. He laments that as a result of European Enlightenment and three socio-political phenomena in the United States (the separation of church and state, promotion of no other worldview than democracy, and adoption of democratic capitalism), music is no longer pragmatically oriented but trivialized and pursued by self-serving musicians.In Chapter Five, Goble traces the philosophical justifications for music education throughout the history of the United States. While the sign "musical practice" was conceptualized as "worship" in colonial America, the sign "music" was conceived as "art" during the age of Enlightenment, and as "product" during the age of science and technology. Noting that Bennett Reimer's music education as aesthetic education is limited in its Western focus on music as works [End Page 202] of artistic objects, Goble aligns his Peircian conception along praxial lines—in particular, with... (shrink)

Women music educators in the USA have been active in public and private schools, churches, and community organizations. In the nineteenth century, Julia E. Crane founded the Crane Institute of Music, the first institution to train music supervisors; and women developed kindergarten programs throughout the US. In the "private sphere," women taught in home studios and Sunday schools, and published children's songs and hymns. In 1907, the Music Supervisors National Conference (which became the Music Educators (...) National Conference) was founded under the leadership of Frances E. Clark, although only thirteen women have been president of MENC between 1907 and 2010. In the twentieth century, women have edited music textbook series and served on editorial boards of music education journals. This survey of nationally prominent music educators shows the importance of quality education, guiding personal philosophies, positive supportive mentors, and leadership opportunities within the profession for developing successful lifetime careers. (shrink)

Music education has historically had a tense relationship with social justice. One the one hand, educators concerned with music practices have long preoccupied themselves with ideas of open participation and the potentially transformative capacity that musical interaction fosters. On the other hand, they have often done so while promoting and privileging a particular set of musical practices, traditions, and forms of musical knowledge, which has in turn alienated and even excluded many children from music education (...) opportunities. The Oxford Handbook of Social Justice in Music Education provides a comprehensive overview and scholarly analyses of the major themes and issues relating to social justice in musical and educational practice worldwide.The first section of the handbook conceptualizes social justice while framing its pursuit within broader contexts and concerns. Authors in the succeeding sections of the handbook fill out what social justice entails for music teaching and learning in the home, school, university, and wider community as they grapple with cycles of injustice that might be perpetuated by music pedagogy. The concluding section of the handbook offers specific practical examples of social justice in action through a variety of educational and social projects and pedagogical practices that will inspire and guide those wishing to confront and attempt to ameliorate musical or other inequity and injustice. Consisting of 42 chapters by authors from across the globe, the handbook will be of interest to anyone who wishes to better understand what social justice is and why its pursuit in and through music education matters.Music education has historically had a tense relationship with social justice. One the one hand, educators concerned with music practices have long preoccupied themselves with ideas of open participation and the potentially transformative capacity that musical interaction fosters. On the other hand, they have often done so while promoting and privileging a particular set of musical practices, traditions, and forms of musical knowledge, which has in turn alienated and even excluded many children from music education opportunities. The Oxford Handbook of Social Justice in Music Education provides a comprehensive overview and scholarly analyses of the major themes and issues relating to social justice in musical and educational practice worldwide.The first section of the handbook conceptualizes social justice while framing its pursuit within broader contexts and concerns. Authors in the succeeding sections of the handbook fill out what social justice entails for music teaching and learning in the home, school, university, and wider community as they grapple with cycles of injustice that might be perpetuated by music pedagogy. The concluding section of the handbook offers specific practical examples of social justice in action through a variety of educational and social projects and pedagogical practices that will inspire and guide those wishing to confront and attempt to ameliorate musical or other inequity and injustice. Consisting of 42 chapters by authors from across the globe, the handbook will be of interest to anyone who wishes to better understand what social justice is and why its pursuit in and through music education matters. (shrink)

The aim of this research is to identify the success factors of music students and to find out what the success of primary and secondary school students in the Republic of Croatia looks like. For the research, 153 music teachers working in primary and secondary music schools in 38 cities and municipalities in Croatia were surveyed. The results show that students most often enrol in music schools because they want to learn to play an instrument (...) or sing, then because of parental encouragement or curiosity, and finally, as a rarer motivation for enrollment, the love of music or the influence of peers who attend the music school. Teachers working in Croatian music schools believe that the most important success factors for music students are family and parental support, the quality of communication between teachers and students, and the time and quality of students’ individual practicing. (shrink)

Music teachers are often inclined to advocate the aesthetic value of music that is uncritically propagated by their conservatory training.1 Consequently, a host of misleading assumptions that music is a "fine" art that exists solely to promote aesthetic experience is simply taken for granted as the benefits of art and music education—thus ignoring the differences of purpose between school music and university-level training. Just offering routine musical activities and performances is thereby assumed to (...) kindle students' aesthetic appreciation. Whether the experiences provided have led to an enriched life of playing and enjoying... (shrink)

This article examines the educational function of the North American wind band program. Issues such as band education's methodological control, perceived lack of self-reflection or inquiry, its insecurity concerning program legitimacy, and the systemic fear that seems to permeate its history provide the framework for this exploration. With a philosophical eye toward the future of school-based instrumental music education each author brings perspective to the task of critiquing an institution that has taken on the seemingly sacrosanct (...) and inviolable trappings of tradition and ritual. (shrink)

We are living in a time of social and cultural changes. As in other disciplines, the foundations of music education are being increasingly challenged. Thus, it is no longer possible to specify reliably the aims and contents of music education and their implementation in school by simply basing them on lasting musical traditions and changeless forms of life. It has been said that such an assessment leads us to a pluralistic—if not relativistic—view of music (...) education. But it does not help us when we have to make a decision on "What is to be done?" How can we orientate ourselves in our actions and whereupon should we base our judgements when negotiating decisions and trying to convince others? If we are not ready to accept that the decision-making process in the field of music education is just a matter of power, we have to be content with the arguments we can offer. We need to have the courage of independent critical thinking in terms of Didaktik involving all concerned. The situation is similar to that of aesthetic arguing: there is no sure footing; our criteria for evaluation are always up for discussion. (shrink)

In this essay, I articulate the value of understanding antiracism from a materialist perspective, drawing from the concept of racial capitalism. I critique the lack of accounting for race in class-first paradigms of critical scholarship in music education, arguing that racial hierarchy laid the foundation for capitalist exploitation through colonialism. Employing critical race theory, I discuss the racial nature of class formation in the United States, focusing on the connection between housing, school funding, and so-called high-performing (...) class='Hi'>music programs. I then discuss the limitations of current anti-racist scholarship in music education, suggesting that its focus on representation and classroom practice neglects the material conditions that shape music teaching. Drawing from Olúfémi Táíwò’s work, I propose a constructive approach to reparations in music education that attends to the material and symbolic aspects of white supremacy inside and outside of the music classroom. By taking a both/and approach to antiracism, music education could contribute to the self-determination of racially oppressed people and communities. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Response to C. Victor Fung and Leonard Tan, “‘Love of All Wisdoms’: Toward A Multiphilosophical Approach To Music Education”Lauren Kapalka RichermeFung and Tan’s arguments regarding the limits of our profession’s longstanding narrow focus on Eurocentric and American philosophical traditions are crucially important, and I think the majority of PMER readers will agree about the need to engage with philosophies written by those from diverse geographic locations and (...) with other forms of contrasting lived experiences. Additionally, this essay contains many thoughtful clarifications, including the importance of local and individualized needs, accruing philosophical wisdoms over time, and ongoing reflexivity. I found the conceptualization of boundaries “as a connecting agent rather than a separation device” particularly intriguing. Moreover, I applaud Fung and Tan for their work outside of this paper; their efforts to translate and extend various Asian philosophical ideas have certainly enriched the graduate philosophy classes that I teach.1 For me, the joy of any philosophical inquiry is the questions and imaginings it incites, and these authors have certainly given me a lot to contemplate. I begin this response with a couple of wonderments and then provide a possible extension of this valuable work. [End Page 185]One of my wonderments regards the relationship between culturally sustaining pedagogy and the proposed multiphilosophical approach. Fung and Tan write, “Ontological and axiological questions regarding the meaning of music in education and in the broader life are still unaddressed” and specifically ask “To what extent should musics of the students’ cultural tradition be customized and incorporated in the curriculum?” Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy or CSP, which is a primary contemporary outgrowth of the multicultural education movement, provides a clear response. Django Paris and H. Sami Alim write that Culturally Responsive Pedagogy:seeks to perpetuate and foster—to sustain—linguistic, literate, and cultural pluralism as part of schooling for positive social transformation. CSP positions dynamic cultural dexterity as a necessary good, and sees the outcome of learning as additive rather than subtractive.... Culturally sustaining pedagogy exists wherever education sustains the lifeways of communities who have been and continue to be damaged and erased through schooling.2Given the similarities between this explanation and Fung and Tan’s description of a multiphilosophical approach, I wonder if they could say more about points of alignment and disagreement. Might their arguments serve as an extension of CSP?Another wonderment I have is: What does a multiphilosophical approach exclude? I’m intrigued by Fung and Tan’s rich metaphor of a Chinese medicine cabinet and find it applicable to an array of philosophies. Yet, equating students to “patients” and a music educator to a “doctor” who “writes a prescription for a patient” is incompatible with some philosophies. For example, such language implies a banking model of education that undermines Brazilian philosopher Paulo Freire’s core tenets.3 Given that no metaphor or philosophical approach can address everything, I wonder if in addition to inclusions, a multiphilosophical approach necessarily relies on certain exclusions. I spend the remainder of this response positing three potential ways that exclusions might extend Fung and Tan’s ideas.First, inclusive approaches such as Fung and Tan’s multiphilosophy necessarily exclude philosophies resistant to openness and varying viewpoints. Philosophies that forward single prescribed educational ends or limited ways of being musical cannot function within a multiphilosphical approach and therefore must be excluded. Moreover, Fung and Tan’s references to democracy and use of Dewey suggest that a main purpose of a multiphilosophical approach is to propagate liberal pluralism. Such thinking aligns with Meira Levinson’s ideas about liberal education. She writes: “liberal citizenship does require certain habits and virtues, and pluralism is rightly restricted to individuals holding conceptions of [End Page 186] the good which are compatible with liberal citizenship.”4 Specifically, Levinson argues that these habits and virtues include respecting the democratic process, paying attention to public issues, and public involvement through voting and other forms of engagement. While I agree with Fung and Tan that “contemporary diverse needs are localized and always evolving,” those needs exist within larger socio-political-economic structures that inevitably rely on certain exclusions. The nature of those exclusions informs how “diverse needs” are understood and addressed... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:A Way of Music Education: Classic Chinese Wisdoms by C. Victor FungJui-Ching WangC. Victor Fung, A Way of Music Education: Classic Chinese Wisdoms (New York, Oxford University Press, 2018)The philosophical inquiry of music and music education has traditionally been limited to a Western lineage, primarily Greek civilization. Many prominent scholars of music education philosophy in the English-speaking world have (...) long restricted their quests to the offspring of this Western philosophy. Although music education scholars have urged a need for more than one "single philosophical foundation" for the field,1 not much has been done systematically to make up for this shortcoming until most recently when scholars such as Wayne Bowman, Ana Luciá Frega, Victor Fung, and Leonard Tan started to call for a more inclusive way of thinking to accommodate the "complexity, plurality, and change" in twenty-first century music education settings.2 To respond to this call, the primary contribution of A Way of Music Education: Classic Chinese Wisdoms is to provide an alternative for examining the phenomena of music teaching and learning by introducing classic Chinese philosophies, Yijing (the Book of Change), Confucianism, and Daoism to bridge the philosophical gap between the West and the East.This book is organized in three parts. Part I, Classical Chinese Philosophies and Music Educational Interpretations, consists of four chapters with the [End Page 116] fundamental background of each philosophy Fung adopts and its interpretation and application in music and music education. Part II, Complementarity and a Trilogy, contains four chapters that help explain how Yijing, Confucianism, and Daoism complement each other as a "harmonious triad," not only in their original context but also in the philosophical frame of contemporary music and music education. The two chapters in Part III, A New Way of Thinking and Practical Implications, discuss practical implications of these classic philosophical ideologies in music education. An epilogue calls for future research on more Chinese classics in both music education and other non-music fields as Fung believes that these rich classic wisdoms are transcendental in time and space, and thus can be experienced as a way of life that "champions the human spirit in relation to the ever-changing natural environment, material life, and social system."3 Lastly, to help readers unfamiliar with Chinese philosophy, a glossary defines the key Chinese terms in each chapter with original Chinese characters and English translations. In addition, flow charts and diagrams help readers visualize the application of complex classic Chinese principles to music education.Attempting to develop "a new way of thinking in music education,"4 Fung situates his inquiry in an "organismic worldview,"5 a way of examining oneself and his/her relation to all elements of the world, a common philosophical thread derived from ancient classic Chinese philosophies of Yijing, Confucianism, and Daoism. Transcending the long debate about the praxial philosophy and aesthetic philosophy of music education, Fung uses these Chinese philosophical principles to explain human musical behaviors first with an ontological lens. He then moves on to examine from a utilitarian perspective the significance of these musical behaviors as inseparable parts of the 'humanly human.' Carefully framing interpretations within the three Chinese classic philosophies, Fung uses a comparative method to scrutinize the meaning of music for human beings who practice it, to their social network (small or large), and to their natural environment. Fung's comparison of the similarities and differences of ancient Chinese principles concludes that "music and music education [are] part of the larger entities and phenomena that cut across time and space."6 Such comparison exemplifies the value of comparative philosophy in "acknowledging and appreciating differences in a realization of the complementarity of perspectives."7 As a result, Fung is able to complement ideas from the seeming contradiction between Confucianism's "human-centric" ideology and Daoism's "dao-centric" ideology to cleverly picture a more comprehensive way of music in education: because "these two schools are addressing different human needs…, they influence each other and provide momentum for each other."8Moreover, going beyond the "minor varieties of comparisons" within the Chinese classics, Fung challenges himself to a higher level of inquiry stretching [End Page 117] out to... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy of Music Education Review 11.2 (2003) 185-193 [Access article in PDF] Response to Marja Heimonen, "Music Education and Law:Regulation as an Instrument" Raimo Siltala University Of Helsinki, Finland From a legal point of view, Marja Heimonen's dissertation and the extract published in this issue of PMER, "Music Education and Law: Regulation as an Instrument," presents a most important question: Should music (...) education be regulated by law, and if so, by what kind of legal instruments—by strict legal rules, by softer legal standards, by self-regulation, or by leaving the matter to the laissez-faire and "invisible hand" of the market, where economic efficiency takes over from legal regulation? Heimonen's dissertation is to my knowledge the very first of its own kind, combining elements from music education and the law and, indeed, legal philosophy in an imaginative and highly original manner. Her scholarly position between music education and law is a courageous one because she might invite critical comments equally from the two branches of science involved: the music educational and the legal philosophical one. Yet, she has a gained a profound understanding of the specific needs of music education and of the restrictions of law and legal regulation, and the two-sided approach is really one of the true strengths, and not weaknesses, of the scholarly work. Her approach strives mainly at a broad hermeneutical comprehension of the issue in the humanistic [End Page 185] tradition, but there are other elements involved, as well, related to the analytical or instrumental tradition.There is a large legal comparative part in the treatise, covering approximately one third of the whole thesis, with material drawn from Sweden, England, Germany, and Finland and the system of music education in each. The three legal systems have been chosen with good discretion: one with a common law background (England), one belonging to the Roman-Germanic tradition (Germany), and one from the Scandinavian legal tradition (Sweden), and the Finnish system of music education is then compared to all of them. The Swedish model is based on equal opportunity given to all the applicants with no entrance examinations held and as many willing children accepted to the music schools as is possible. The British system, or rather a "non-system," of music education is privately owned and market-based, with only a few regulations issued by the government and with an emphasis on the visiting peripatetic teachers, voluntary Saturday music schools, and the special schools founded for the musically talented. The German system, like the one in Finland, is based on formal entrance examinations and degrees passed, where both a professional career in music performance and artistic self-expression may be pursued as the primary goal of music education."The Swedes have Abba and Roxette, we the Finns have Kaija Saariaho and Ralf Gothoni"—along with Esa-Pekka Salonen and other world-class conductors, one might add—as Heimonen notes in the text, but why is that so? Does the difference in the outcome, in the sense of a breakthrough either in popular music groups or individual performers in classical music, lie in the system of music education and the legislative ideology at the back of it? Heimonen refuses to give a simple and straightforward answer to that question, declining to place the various systems of music legislation in an order of preference. Instead, she adopts a broadly humanistic and hermeneutical perspective to the issue, where the merits and the disadvantages of each legal system are taken on an individual basis. The Shakespearean question that is so boldly put forth by her, "viz. to regulate or not to regulate," is answered only with reference to a widely humanistic understanding of the complex issue of music education where the intrinsic values of artistic self-expression and the instrumental values of training future professionals in music performance, composing, and conducting, are contrasted with other, but where no winners or losers are identified by her.There would seem to be a connection between a certain legal system and its model of... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A Reconception of Performance Study in the Philosophy of Music EducationValerie L. TrollingerThe actual place of performance in music education has been the subject of numerous debates over the years. Most debates have revolved within the paradigm of the performance ability of the teacher and consequently the performance ability of the students. Is the level to be attained that of a winning concert band/marching band/choir? Or, (...) is the level to be attained the level at which the students and teacher feel the most comfortable and pleased? Most of this debate, along with the development of various assessments (including the Watkins-Farnum Test) and various rubrics to score music performance competitions, has emphasized characteristics of performance pertaining to accuracy of notes, precision of rhythm, and attendance to musicianship, style, and interpretation. On the other hand, the aesthetic value of performance has also been questioned in that the value of music in the schools should not be assessed solely by the importance placed on the attainment of performance skills by the students, suggesting that it is only through performance that one may know music. For example, in a recent article in the Music Educator's Journal,1 Bennett Reimer promotes the [End Page 193] position that time spent in either performance studies and active performance in music education (both at the K-12 and college teacher training levels) is not vital to the reconception of the National Standards (USA) for music education and, by extension, the field of music education itself. In the MEJ article, Reimer wrote:there is no reason to believe that highly developed performers make the best general music teachers, just as there is no reason to believe the reverse. We must get over the outdated and unrealistic assumption that performance is the one, singular, royal road to being musical and being an effective music educator.... [T]eachers cannot be expected to do what performance specialists do, and their teacher education curriculum must reflect that fact.2This position has also been recently supported by sociological publications3 and the following statement—echoed by several colleagues of mine—by a music teacher-training specialist,There is one big misconception among many music education students. Many graduates view themselves as musicians who are going into teaching. I attribute my own success to the realization that I am a teacher at heart. My first responsibility is teaching children. The vehicle through which I connect to them is music.4It is likely within the previous paradigm in which these respected authors positioned their arguments for the place of performance in the music curriculum and in that regard these assertions are unquestionably valid. What this particular paradigm concerns is the quantity and quality of performance based on purely musical attributes. The omission is that it does not include the quality of performance in relationship to health-based music education, a growing area of concern in the performing arts medicine field and, by extension, music educators who are concerned about this particular aspect of performance.5 The reason for the concern and hence this paper calling to the philosophical community to re-think the place and quality of performance in music education is that these viewpoints have had a great impact upon the validity of music education, in that they ignore a growing body of research from the performance and medical fields. While it must be made clear for the purposes of this paper that the writers of the above quotes have framed their ideas gracefully within their individual philosophical structures of music education, it must be pointed out that current research and knowledge in performance arts, in its conception as a physical human activity, needs to be incorporated into a revised philosophy of music education and curriculum. Music performance in music education has traditionally been viewed as a cognitive and emotional experience. However, it [End Page 194] is also a psychomotor experience, involving all sorts of soft body tissues, bones, and cartilages, which can enhance or detract from the total musical experience. Many music educators do not get enough instruction in college on how to teach voice or instruments healthfully and this is the reason for the concern... (shrink)

Glazbena djela skladateljica važan su, ali nedovoljno obrađen segment glazbeno-povijesne baštine te u nedovoljnoj mjeri zastupljen element suvremene glazbene kulture. Djeca se s djelima skladateljica u prvom redu upoznaju u okviru osnovnoškolske nastave glazbe. U radu je prikazano istraživanje kojemu je cilj bio utvrditi zastupljenost djela skladateljica namijenjenih za slušanje i pjevanje u udžbenicima za Glazbenu kulturu koji su u uporabi u Hrvatskoj, a posebno djela hrvatskih skladateljica. U istraživanju je analiziran 21 udžbenik triju hrvatskih nakladničkih kuća. Rezultati ukazuju na (...) to da su u udžbenicima najviše zastupljena djela skladatelja, potom tradicijske skladbe, dok su djela skladateljica zastupljena u bitno manjoj mjeri. Autori predlažu revidiranje popisa djela za slušanje i pjevanje u udžbenicima za Glazbenu kulturu kako bi se u njih u većoj mjeri uvrstilo stvaralaštvo domaćih i stranih skladateljica. The female composers’ musical pieces are an important but relatively unknown part of the musical and historical heritage. They are also underrepresented in the contemporary musical culture. Children are introduced to works of female composers mainly through the music curriculum in primary schools. This paper presents the research of the Music education textbooks that are in use in primary schools in Croatia. The main aim of the research was to establish the number of compositions by female music composers in the overall number of compositions listed for listening and singing in textbooks, especially the presence of pieces authored by Croatian female composers. We have analyzed 21 textbooks from three Croatian publishing houses. Results show that compositions by male compositors are most often, and then follow traditional compositions, while the compositions of female composers are significantly less present. We propose the revision of the compositions for listening and singing that are included in the Music education textbooks in a way that would enable greater participation of work by both Croatian and other female composers. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Response to Elvira Panaiotidi, “The Nature of Paradigms and Paradigm Shifts in Music Education”Wenyi W. KurkulAt the beginning, I would like to congratulate Elvira Panaiotidi on her interesting paper and on her proposal to move beyond the long-running debates that began in the mid-1990s between Bennett Reimer and David Elliott and their respective supporters. I also applaud her affirmation that, beyond the numerous debates within the (...) class='Hi'>music-education philosophy community, the ultimate goal is to put the theories to work in schools or, in other words, to convert theories into operative paradigms.Echoing her affirmation, I shared her article with a class of my graduate students after I received the invitation to respond to this paper. All of my graduate students are current schoolteachers in the greater Washington, DC metropolitan area in the United States. Some of them are young teachers; others have decades [End Page 114] of teaching experience. As a university professor, I have always been thrilled by how much my thoughts are inspired by my students—by their stories, writing, discussions, dialogues, and sometimes very challenging questions in class. Their concern for their daily jobs and their students constantly remind me of our responsibilities to the children in the schools. However, with our schools and students in mind, I have to ask the music education philosophy community a question: Is "producing a unified concept of music," or "searching for a unified approach," or even aiming to "develop a unified approach in music education" as proposed by Panaiotidi what we truly need?In her paper, Panaiotidi discusses the debate over the approaches in music education by Reimer and Elliott in the context of paradigm shifts. The term, "paradigm shift," was introduced by Thomas Kuhn in 1962 in his highly influential book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Kuhn proposes that almost every significant break-through in the field of scientific endeavor is first a break with tradition, with old ways of thinking, with old paradigms. For example, until the germ theory was developed, there was a high percentage of deaths during childbirth and scientists were not sure why. Likewise, in military settings, more people were dying from small wounds and diseases than from the major traumas experienced on the frontlines. But as soon as the germ theory was developed, a whole new paradigm—a better, improved way of understanding what was happening—made dramatic and significant improvements in the practice of medicine possible.The United States today is the setting for another fruitful and powerful example of a dramatic paradigm shift. The traditional concept of government had been monarchical, based on the divine right of kings. It was not until centuries later that a significant break-through paradigm was developed: government of the people, by the people, and for the people. A constitutional democracy was born that unleashed tremendous human energy and ingenuity. This new paradigm, over time, generated personal empowerment, free enterprise, a higher standard of living, freedom and liberty, and influence and hope unequaled in the history of the world.Stephen R. Covey, the author of a popular book in the late 1980s, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, cites Kuhn's conception of paradigm shift to illustrate his own ideas. He describes an experiment at the Harvard Business School in which an instructor passed out a picture of a young woman to half of the class and a picture of an old woman to the other half. The students were asked to look briefly at the picture and pass it back. The professor then asked the class to describe the woman as he projected on a screen a picture of a woman that was a combined image of the "old" and "young" women. Needless to say, the students debated the age of the woman. If they had seen the "young" version, [End Page 115] they could see only a young woman now, and vice-versa. Each student was adamant about his or her position. They did not see the image in another way until the lines were pointed out to demonstrate the features of the old and young woman. Covey cites this exercise to prove the powerful conditioning effects of one... (shrink)

In this paper Kirsten Fink-Jensen suggests how a phenomenological-hermeneutic perspective can contribute to the knowledge of learning and teaching processes in music education in school. The philosophical frame is Danish philosophy of life, represented by Knud Ejler Løgstrup, and Merleau-Ponty's philosophy of body, both pointing to the wholeness of mind and body in all kinds of actions. Within this framework interpretation is an epistemological, practical-hermeneutic activity based on different analytical methods. Phenomenologically, experiences of music are constituted (...) in an intertwinement of personal, cultural, and local meaning. The challenge facing the teacher is then to understand what becomes meaningful to persons in a given situation. 'Bodily dialogue' is a metaphor of a hermeneutic process of understanding that highlights the importance of bodily aspects in the teacher's answer to a child's musical attuned articulations. This focus can facilitate children's learning processes and change and qualify the teacher's didactic reflections on the impact and progression of music lessons. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Response to Anthony J. Palmer, “Music Education for the Twenty-First Century: A Philosophical View of the General Education Core”Ana Lcuía FregaI would like to discuss three themes related to Tony Palmer's paper: (1) my agreement with the content of his paper in general, (2) some remarks on elements of what he deals with, including notions about the concept or a vision of what music (...) class='Hi'>education should be in the USA and in the rest of the world and an approach to training music teachers at university level in the USA and in the rest of the world, and (3) my personal conclusions.Music is a particular medium of expression, irreplaceable, not interchangeable with any other. It is also a natural medium of human communication. We do not think or propose that schools should create musicians, but that they should aid in the improvement of all humankind.1This quotation of mine allows me to introduce my general agreement with the main content of the first part of Palmer's paper. Neither of us argues against the importance of teaching music within the general system of education. We both promote this and work to make this a fact in our different parts of the world.We both view the tasks known as "music education" as a part of the teaching of the humanities as a way to maintain a certain level of civilization and of a culture; that is, to keep alive the rich tradition in each culture, to develop skills, to listen to, perform, and create music, and to become acquainted with the wealth of masterpieces.Also, as I have said,"I can only give what I have," and "a teacher does not teach what he/she knows but what he/she is."2 I agree with Palmer on the relevance and importance of the task of music educators. There should be a correlation between the school's mission and the quality of the training for prospective teachers for them. This is consistent with Palmer's thinking about the university task when training future music teachers.George Steiner articulated some of the difficulties, limitations, and new possibilities brought into university classrooms by the technology of the global village when he wrote:[Those artifacts] determine a new way to organize human knowledge and to connect contemporary research with previous books. All taxonomies are essentially [End Page 194] philosophical, any library... represents a formalized vision of how the world is structured, and what are the optimum views about both the human mind and the phenomenological whole.3He also adds, "We will not be able to avoid the illusion-and so it is when talking about Humanities-that knowledge is cumulative, that there is an improvement and an unavoidable teleology needed when expressing sentiments and ideas."4By introducing Steiner's ideas, I am opening a line of critical thinking about a kind of "universalization" of both Palmer's concept of whatmusiceducationmeans as well as whether and then how there should be a world-wide dissemination of the training model that he describes for music teachers. I have doubts about the underlying assumptions of these notions and their feasibility.The examples Palmer gives of listening would require an inordinate amount of time and effort. Although this may be a valuable expenditure of resources in some parts of the world, in other parts the focus would be better directed elsewhere. In some places many people do not complete their basic education, do not have access to good nutrition, and have not acquired basic language and communication skills. The big question is, "What should we really teach them?"My point here is that if Michael Murphy's model is indeed an inspiring framework, it may be useful for people belonging to a part of the so-called First World only. Palmer's work should be understood with that consideration in mind. Africa, Latin America, and the Arab world are certainly not looking for these kinds of skills from the music taught at the general level if there happens to be any music taught at all in schools.Multiculturalism is another significant issue in Palmer's paper. I understand the... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Policy and the Political Life of Music Education ed. by Patrick Schmidt and Richard ColwellHung-Pai ChenPatrick Schmidt and Richard Colwell, eds., Policy and the Political Life of Music Education (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017)Policy and the Political Life of Music Education is a collection of discourses regarding music education policy and its practice across a wide range of perspectives and (...) geographical background. The book, edited by Patrick Schmidt and Richard Colwell, not only provides the general readership with a well-rounded basis for comprehending music education policy in various regions, but it also offers music education stakeholders’ perspectives regarding the meaning, value, and the importance of participating in policy development and its implementation.This book discusses various policy-related issues among music education systems in terms of education levels from kindergarten to higher education and institutional music education systems. It explores both general music learning and professional musician training. Further, the scope of its observations cover issues outside of the campus; for instance, the work of musicians/teachers at the community level (Chapter 11) and the hardships associated with performing organizations such as orchestras (Chapter 13). Besides, the editors survey policy implementation at national, state, local, and organizational levels in different countries and circumstances in the Anglo-American educational world as well [End Page 217] as other contexts including Brazil (Chapter 7), Taiwan (Chapter 8), and Norway (Chapter 12).The crucial issues raised in the book are also within the focus of global education; for example, multicultural education, assessment of policy/curriculum, social inclusion, and equality of access to music education. These all accord with the notion of current trends in education and provide directions for future development. Such comprehensive discussions indeed offer readers extensive information through the three sections of policy foundation, international perspectives on policy, and policy in context.The prerequisite of the overall practice of policy is to translate an education philosophy into comprehensive terms while convincing the public.1 However, many consider that policy development is the business of government, authorities, and politicians; some music educators even believe that the discourse of policy and political issues concerning music education is far beyond their control. My ongoing study also shows that a number of music educators, including school teachers, studio instructors, and student teachers, lack the understanding of and are ignorant in the interpretation of policy.2 Policy documents such as statutes, blueprints, and even curriculum guidelines/standards are often strictly followed as compelling legislation or mandates, despite the fact that public hearings, dialogues, and on-line forums are available for all stakeholders to contribute their thoughts and experiences in their on-going development and interpretation. In this book, the authors provide a clear range of views to explain the complexity of policy development and its future implementation, embracing factors such as social context, economic condition, political evolution, assessment, and research, as well as diverse populations including academics, principals, school teachers, parents, and students. Throughout the collection, cases are raised for stressing the significance of participating in policy development and implementation and, as such, nobody is a bystander.Further, this book advocates that the awareness and understanding of policy issues should be included in teacher preparation programs for better participation in and implementation of policy by teachers, while policy related masters and doctoral studies should be encouraged. This suggests that policy relevant courses in university curriculum, either at the undergraduate or post-graduate level, should be evaluated in view of cultivating students’ political literacy and, consequently, enabling them to participate more fully in their future career. This view links to Katherine Zeserson and Graham Welch’s argument (Chapter 14) that research, policy, and practice are the spinning triangle which could make music more inspiring for the next generation. Policy should not be alienated from music and its teaching; it has the ability to improve and change both. [End Page 218]David Elliott claims that all musicians, including students, are part of the artistic citizenship and therefore should develop a social-political identity and a commitment toward social change.3 Paul Woodford further expresses that children should be prepared to develop their voice for shaping the society.4 Margaret Barrett (Chapter 10... (shrink)