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…

Studies on sociology and music education are important because they can enlighten how music education relates to social change. By studying how music education changes and is changed by society we enable ourselves to describe how it can contribute to the understanding of social change generally. This may lay the ground for us in contributing to…

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…

Digital forms of sound manipulation are eroding traditional methods of sound development and transmission, causing a disjuncture in the ontology of music. Sound, the ambient phenomenon, is becoming disrupted and decentred by the struggles between long established controls, beliefs and desires as well as controls from within technologized contexts.…

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…

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…

In recent years, several corporate leaders have lobbied for schools to promote studies in science, mathematics, and technology to better prepare students for the kinds of jobs these business leaders anticipate will exist in the future. This spring, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, called for "higher standards and accountability in schools…

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…

In this article the authors examine the history of a basic logic in educational thought, that of "teaching method," with the hope of relocating the teacher as a vital and ethical agent in the educational process. They use as a starting point John Dewey's view that when predictability or certainty are pursued as ends-in-themselves or as "a priori"…

In this article, the author proposes that now is a propitious time to consider developing one or more distinctive teacher education programs in music. Undergraduate education should prepare some educators for more than excellence in the classroom, the concern of Karl Gehrkens in the 1920s. Individuals considering doctoral work, those with an…

This paper presents a research that emerges from a set of community-based outreach activities associated with a large-scale, interdisciplinary project, Improvisation, Community, and Social Practice (ICASP), which focuses on the social and pedagogical implications of improvised musical practices. Working from the premise that musical improvisation…

In this article, the author aims to make evident how instructional practices could be modified or expanded in order that music education might have a "more clearly tangible and beneficial effect on the present and future lives of music learners, communities, and society at large." First, the author explains briefly how pragmatist philosophy and…

Music teachers may feel most comfortable teaching the music they know, in the way that they were taught and in the way that they were taught to teach it. Music and the teaching of music is a strong part of their professional musical identity. Adolescents have a passionate attachment to music but insist that this must be on their terms, which may…

In this article the author reviews needs theory as a field of research and scholarship, examines seven needs theories (including Nussbaum's capabilities approach), and synthesizes elements of all of these into a list he used tentatively and speculatively to analyze two common instructional practices in music education. The author's intent is to…