Concepts of informal learning in music education have been developed from adult interpretations of the ways in which young people are perceived to learn. Informal learning can therefore be reified or transformed into pedagogy that prioritizes an adult understanding of the processes of learning. This article presents the first part of an analytical…

Studies on sociology and music education are important because they can enlighten how music education relates to social change. By studying how music education changes and is changed by society we enable ourselves to describe how it can contribute to the understanding of social change generally. This may lay the ground for us in contributing to…

This article traces the formation of community music through professional and scholarly articles over the last century in North America, and argues that community music has been discursively formed through social rationales, although the specific rationales have shifted. The author employs an archaeological framework inspired by Michel Foucault to…

In this article I discuss children's everyday uses of recorded music (such as CDs, Mp3-files) in the light of sociological notions of "children" and "childhood". The discussion provides perspectives on musical engagement and musicality that supplement perspectives within developmental psychology. The study is based on…

Predicting the future is a challenging task for music education, requiring both retrospection, analysis of current events, and foresight. This article examines several predictions from 2001 and challenges music educators to consider factors that may influence the future of teaching music in society.

This paper evaluates three teaching approaches to improving sight-reading skills against a control in a large-scale study of advanced pianists. One hundred pianists in four equal groups participated in newly developed training programmes (accompanying, rhythm, musical style and control), with pre- and post-sight-reading tests analysed using…

There is now an accepted need for initiatives that support older people's well-being. There is increasing evidence that active engagement with music has the potential to contribute to this. This paper explores the relationship between musical possible selves and subjective well-being in later life. The research reported here formed part of a…

This author presents variable and stimulating activities using songs to encourage students to connect with language. Seven dynamic activities include Song Pictures, Re-order It, Matching Meanings, Changing the Text, Song Strip Connections, Song Cards, and Pair Watching. All are outlined to facilitate their use, and many have added extensions and…

Genuine worldwide movements for social change are rare in human history. Even more rare is the phenomenon of a worldwide movement for social change through art, with teaching artists at the forefront. This article presents the evolution of such a movement now, in the global blossoming of "El Sistema," a program that seeks to change the…

In the most recent Ministry of Education work plan seminar (Ministry of Education, 2010), a clear signal was sent out that arts education, primarily music and visual art, would become one of the key areas of focus in pursuing the goal of holistic education of a primary school child in the Singapore school system. This article, as part of a larger…

There has been little published pedagogical research on popular music group rehearsing. This study explores the perceptions of tutors and student pop/rock bands about the rehearsals in which they were involved as a part of their university music course. The participants were 10 tutors and 16 bands from eight British tertiary institutions. Analysis…

The purpose of this study was to determine what effect body movement would have on listeners' (N = 90) perceptions of a professional chamber ensemble performance. Specifically, an audio/video recording of a trombone quartet performance was used for the music stimulus. Listeners were asked to rate each performance on the basis of perceived…

In this article, we provide a process description of scaffolding in music lessons based on the scaffolding model of Van Geert and Steenbeek (2005). Scaffolding is a form of socially mediated learning in which teacher and student constantly adapt their behavior to one another in order to reach a goal. To illustrate this process, data from…

The Reggio Emilia approach is based on the idea that every child has at least, "one hundred languages" available for expressing perspectives of the world, and one of those languages is music. While all of the arts (visual, music, dance, drama) are considered equally important in Reggio schools, the visual arts have been particularly…

In this article, an approach to unit plans using essential questions is described within the context of general music education and illustrated in the unit "Repetition and Contrasts: Understanding Music Through Form." This unit is founded on the essential question: As musicians, how do we use form to organize and understand music?…