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…

In this article I discuss a case study of how a music teacher in a postcolonial context has addressed and resisted colonialist practices in education/socialization processes. The case study addresses preliminary findings from a broader ethnography on the social organization of music learning from the standpoint of music teachers. The ethnography…

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…

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…

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…

This article presents the author's response to the reviews of his book, "The Good Life of Teaching: An Ethics of Professional Practice." He begins by highlighting some of the main concerns of his book. He then offers a brief response, doing his best to address the main criticisms of his argument and noting where the four reviewers (Charlene…

The place of popular and multifunctional media in the musical life of young people has been addressed in several studies. Music can aid in understanding youth cultures through the identification of musical preferences: inform about new lifestyles, fashions, ways of acting, work as motivation for personal dreams and aspirations, and build…

The authors have chosen to move together in examining the issue of social justice because they both struggle with the pedagogical implications of what it means to be in this world. As the authors seek to embody the dialectic process of creating new understandings in their lives, and thus in their classrooms, they seek also to create this through…

In recent years, music educators have become interested in linking music education practices, programs and projects to issues of social justice. However, theoretical approaches to conceptualizing the problem or to developing strategic interventions have yet to occur within the field. In this paper, the author argues that to address social justice…

In this paper the author makes a short presentation of an ongoing longitudinal research project in Sweden. However, he wants to focus on the theoretical perspective he has found fruitful for his understanding of music teachers' professional socialisation, and on the question whether the music teacher must also be a musician in order to possess…

Since 1995, the author has been the university music educator responsible to a professional development partnership. Over an 8-year span, she has collected narratives of experience from approximately 100 pre-service music teachers, following, to some extent, the research model of Connelly and Clandinin. In developing their notion of "personal…

Educators face many challenges in the classroom. One of the most difficult challenges is structuring school success for students who do not meet the goals and objectives of the educational system. Enrollment of these students, generally referred to as "at-risk", has dramatically increased (more than 250%) over the past two decades (Franklin,…