Humanity has recently steered itself into an era of environmental instability where the earth is ravaged of its natural resources, where the biodiversity of living organisms is decreasing everyday, and where a rapidly growing human population has become a driving factor in an impending ecological crisis (Rockström et al., 2009; Steffen et al.,…

Satis Coleman (1878-1961) was a pioneering but underacknowledged teacher in the history of American music education. Hers was a voice of teaching creativity in the twentieth century, which occurred at the progressive Lincoln Lab School and Teachers College, Columbia University, in New York City. This article considers Coleman's music education…

For pre-service music teachers it is important to develop a personal philosophy of music education before entering the teaching profession. Having a philosophy to music education enables students to clearly articulate the meaning of music not only in their own lives but also how this might impact on their practice as a teacher. Many philosophies…

A three-year-case study funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) from the Portuguese Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education was designed to study a 30-year project of music and drama in primary schools in Madeira. This article reports on the narratives of the three main figures in the project as they elaborate on its…

The ideas and philosophies of preservice secondary music teachers (PSMTs) are formalized in their tertiary education years. In these years, PSMTs must reconcile the expectations, beliefs, and values espoused by their lecturers, tutors, and other significant people from their past. PSMTs have accumulated various musical experiences through prior…

In this paper, I critique the ideology of competition in school music using the philosophy of Herbert Marcuse, including his concepts of the performance principle and "The Great Refusal," which he saw as defining aspects of what he termed a one-dimensional society. Under a one-dimensional neoliberal educational regime, as can be found in…

Musical Futures is an informal approach to music education that was introduced into Australia as part of a pilot project in 2010. It is described as a "100% practical approach" (Musical Futures Australia, 2016a) that, "can be easily be tailored work in conjunction with any existing or future Australian music curricula" (Musical…

To respond to the current advocacy of a transcultural inquiry into music education philosophy rooted deeply in Western civilization, the primary purpose of this essay is to provide a broader alternative to examine the phenomena of music teaching and learning to bridge the philosophical gap between the West and the East. This essay also attempts to…

Love, beauty, and the good are three key concepts of Platonic aesthetics, which frequently appear in the fairy tales of Oscar Wilde, a classical scholar deeply influenced by Plato and his philosophy. Plato's views on music, as a part of his aesthetics, were championed by Wilde, who regarded music as "the perfect type of art." It is…

For a practicing arts educator, the relationship between theory and practice is often unproblematic: theory is considered to be irrelevant for the good practice. Considering the matter from an academic standpoint, one faces the distinction between poietic, or productive, and contemplative, or responsive, mindsets stemming from the classical…

Originally rooted in aesthetics, David Elliott's thoughts about jazz education have changed considerably from his 1983 dissertation through his 1995 landmark book, "Music Matters," which outlined his praxial music education philosophy. The purpose of this article is to extrapolate the apparent evolution of David Elliott's thoughts about…

This paper addresses the complex relationship between Confucian values and music education in East Asia, particularly its history in China. How does one account for the present "cultural fever" of Western classical music that has infected more than 100 million Chinese practitioners? It is proposed that Western classical music finds…

This article builds an interdisciplinary perspective on the nature of western classical music performance by combining concepts from literary theory, music philosophy and music education philosophy. The article concludes with practical proposals for the education of music performers. (Contains 2 notes.)

In partnership with academics from McGill University and community arts partners, a high school in Montreal faced with significant challenges became an "urban arts school," offering music and visual art programs centered in youth culture, as well as integrating arts into several academic subjects. The initiative was inspired by the…

This study was designed to examine the decision-making process for keeping or cutting the music program in one selected public school district. Lekbery School District, in the Detroit suburb of Lekbery, Michigan, had not made extreme cuts to the music program in over 10 years, nor had it specifically targeted the music program when budgets cuts…