The purpose of this study was to determine relationships among social identity, value of music education, musician-teacher orientation, selected demographic factors, and self-concept as a music educator. Participants (N = 968) were volunteer undergraduate music education majors enrolled at four-year institutions granting a bachelor of music…

Excluding Hip Hop culture and rap music from music education misses opportunities for addressing key aspects of popular culture, society, and students' lives. This article addresses intersections of Hip Hop, gender, and music education to forward potential Hip Hop praxis. After tracing related scholarship, I discuss and problematize…

Music educators have the potential to educate student musicians to be ethically involved citizens of the world. Educators can promote worldwide understanding by nurturing sensitivity and fostering sympathy within and between human beings and thus help students become agents in the creation of alternative globalizations. From an ethical…

Large ensembles (e.g., choirs-orchestras-bands) have become prominent fixtures in most secondary schools and university schools/faculties of music in Canada and the United States. At the secondary school level, large ensembles have become, in effect, practically synonymous with the words "music education." This article derives from the author's…

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 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…

This article examines how notions of freedom are linked to popular music practices in previous research literature. The author discusses how two competing discourses depict popular music practices on the one hand as "freedom," and on the other hand as "constraint," and how these ideas relate to gender. She also argues that unproblematized…

Elizabeth Parker's reflection on her experience as a musician educator working with children in an urban non-profit context is an uncomfortable read for me. In a courageous act, Parker makes public her private misgivings about her past experience and allows scrutiny of them in the form of two public commentaries as well as the private musings of…

In this article, based on the results of a larger research project funded by the Swedish Research Council (Ericsson and Lindgren 2010), the authors discuss and problematize the rock band context in music education in Swedish compulsory schools in relation to governance and knowledge formation. The empirical material on which the study is based…

At the turn of the century, there was a widespread perception on the part of pupils, teachers, and policy makers that a "problem with school music" existed, particularly at the secondary level. It was hypothesized that one contributory factor was the perceived authenticity of "school music" in relation to "music outside school," not least because…

In this article the author explores two aspects of his identity as an educator: (1) his identity as a classroom music teacher back teaching at Somerset Primary school; and (2) his identity as a music teacher educator upon his return to full-time university employment following six months of substitute teaching, including the block of teaching at…

This article examines the process by which the author came to accept music education as something that she does, enjoys, and respects. The primary data used for this inquiry were brief autobiographical narratives outlining two time periods of the author's life. The first described her musical experiences in public school and as a performance major…

For many individuals, engagement with the arts and music in later life plays a significant role in identity formation. Research indicates that music engagement facilitates successful aging. While participants may or may not establish identities as musicians, musical activities provide interactions and opportunities that facilitate their…

In the author's years working as a music specialist in English primary schools she encountered confident, experienced, professional teachers who expressed anxiety about teaching music in the National Curriculum. A number of generalist teachers seemed to believe that they were not competent to teach music to their classes, since they perceived…

Philosopher Richard Shusterman's book "Body Consciousness" is the most recent and most extensive addition to Shusterman's project of "somaesthetics," an area of philosophy dealing with experiences of embodiment. Shusterman distinguishes three aspects of somaesthetics. Analytic somaesthetics is a "descriptive and theoretical enterprise"; pragmatic…