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…

By identifying three main sociologies that characterise broad movements in the field since its inception, this paper provides a background to considerations of music education from the perspective of sociology. A fourth sociology is then proposed that may be useful to interrogate the complexities of the field of 21st century music education. This…

This paper explores the effects and problems of one highly influential default setting of the "normal style template" of music education and proposes some alternatives. These do not require abandoning all traditional templates for school music. But re-setting the default settings does depend on reconsidering the promised function of…

Archetypal images in stories and lyrics such as Lehi's Dream in the Book of Mormon, Country Mouse and the City Mouse, and selected Country music lyrics grow from perceptions of social, cultural, and geographical realities. For their purveyors, they likely stem from personal experience as the proverbial Country Mouse in the city and/or from…

In the summer of 2011 (June 16-19), the MayDay Group met in Salt Lake City, Utah (USA) for MayDay Colloquium 23, with presentations and discussions on the theme,"The End(s) of Music Education? A Call for Re-Visioning": In a time of rapidly changing political processes, power relations, and policies, music educators are challenged to…

In this paper Vincent Cee provides a synthesis of ideas published by several authors who wrote in the late 1960s through the early 1980s. Remarkably, these authors arrived at similar conclusions in disparate ways and disciplines, all of which hold rich implications for music education. The works examined include Neil Postman's and Charles…

Axiology is the philosophical discipline that studies questions of value. It is centrally concerned, then, with both the arts and with ethics and morality. Music teaching clearly involves questions of musical value and, because the wellbeing of students is at stake, teaching engages a wide range of ethical responsibilities. However, music…

The hardship and pleasure of a life in ethics, as in music, springs not from a commitment to the veneration of stability, refinement and consistency, as some political and aesthetic discourses often suggest. Rather, the productive tensions of ethical living arise from a restless interaction between constant motion and adaptability; both marks of…

Music education is generally equated with the act of teaching music. In "The Good Life of Teaching: An Ethics of Professional Practice," the remarkable book that orients the essays in this issue of "Action, Criticism, and Theory for Music Education," Chris Higgins argues, among other things, that the view of teaching as a helping profession--one…

In his book, Chris Higgins acknowledges the challenges of teaching associated with heavy workloads, increasing responsibilities, and often diminishing respect from the very public institutions that teachers serve. However, his purpose is not to deplore the external conditions of teaching but to raise concerns about its service culture. He argues…

In his recent monograph, Chris Higgins (2011) offers a remarkably original, thoughtful, and provocative argument for "an ethics of professional practice" for teachers. His study brings together a wealth of ideas and authors not often discussed in relation to each other, and it draws out elusive themes and ideas often overlooked in most analyses of…

"Poor white trash" is likely the most enduring and degrading in a long line of "stigmatypes"--"stigmatizing boundary terms that simultaneously denote and enact cultural and cognitive divides between in-groups and out-groups"--such as "redneck," "cracker," and "hillbilly." Some people apply these terms in reference to poor or working-class, usually…

Turner's (1974) conception of liminal space provides an entry point to look beyond the given and to create opportunities to examine, critique, and challenge the assumptions inherent in many music programs. Building upon his theory of liminality as a place that is "ambiguous, neither here or there, betwixt and between all fixed points of…

With this article, the author alludes to Brian Roberts' 2004 article "Who's in the mirror? Issues surrounding the identity construction of music educators," and the "looking glass self" famously described by Charles Horton Cooley a little more than 100 years ago. Both authors speak to the notion that one's identities are as much constructed by how…

This study focuses on music education for children and adolescents offered by music and arts schools receiving public financial support (from the municipality or the state) and that are "independent" of the comprehensive and secondary school. For these purposes, then, "extra-curricular" music education will be understood as "voluntary" instruction…