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…

The purpose of this paper is to apply Noddings' ethic of care to a qualitative inquiry of select instrumental music educators. In the first section I describe and define an ethic of care, considering specifically who is involved in a caring relationship, how an ethic of care can be taught, and strategies for educational implementation and…

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…

This paper begins with a premise that each person's musical education is made of multiple and diverse experiences that occur in settings both in and out of school (Campbell 2002, 2003, 2008; Green 2002, 2005; Jaffurs 2004, 2006). Nevertheless, when speaking and writing about music education, one often restricts the kinds of music, ways 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…

This article presents the author's views on the concepts of the philosophers Deleuze and Guattari on striated (sedentary) space and smooth (mobile) space, asserting that "nomads" can move freely about their space. She relates these concepts to music education, incorporating Deleuze and Guattari's concept of mapping as it…

The author of this article proposes an agrarian vision of music education that underscores fundamental, "down-to-earth" principles for human actions and interactions. An agrarian world-view encourages mass participation ("y'all come")--"musicing" is free and available to all and it is not treated as a…

"Meaning" fascinates Marissa Silverman. Partly because the question "What is the meaning of "meaning"?" is not only conceptually challenging, but also because a reasonable answer would be enormously helpful to her in the pursuit of "a good" personal and professional life. So, in probing…

On June 20, 2012, Professor John Kratus welcomed the MayDay Group to Michigan State University for "Colloquium 24: The Aims of Music Education". On behalf of all members of the Mayday Group, the author wishes to extend his deepest gratitude to Professor Kratus and his colleagues at Michigan State for their extremely gracious and…

In his book, "What's So Important about Music Education?" (2010), Goble J. Scott argues from a foundation of C. S. Peirce's pragmatist philosophy that school music education that enables students to understand and engage with the musical practices (or "praxes") of different cultural communities in terms of their…

Several years ago, the author's relocated their work as educators from middle and high school music classrooms to positions in teacher education at two Canadian universities. Recognizing that working in initial teacher education demanded a new level of theorizing their practices of music education, they questioned their professional…

There are some striking parallels between the critical theory concept of second nature as the product of reified ideas and some of the more radical work done in the area of metaphor theory. This discussion is an attempt to synthesize some of the ideas from these two fields of study and to explore their implications for music education. In this…

In this article the author's examine, through the cases of Finland and Cambodia, expressions of constructive patriotism in educational policy, curriculum documents and music teacher actions and reflections. This study is part of a broader cross-cultural exchange project: "Multicultural Arts University", between researchers and music…