Due to the changing demographic factors and as demanded by the governmental policies and regulations, schools in Victoria, Australia, are expected to foster multicultural educational programs that address the diverse needs of students. Research has found that school teachers in Victoria struggle to provide the aspired to multicultural education…

The City of Melbourne's ArtPlay is open to children and young people aged 3-13 years, and provides a wide range of artist-led programs that serve a broad community within and outside the municipality. Its sister facility, Signal, caters for young people 13-22 years. An Australia Council of the Arts funded Creative Community Partnership Initiative,…

Musical Futures is a music learning program that was established in the United Kingdom in 2003. It aims to make secondary classroom music more relevant to young people through engaging them in the informal learning practices of real world musicians, recognising that the way in which popular musicians learn is quite different from the pedagogy of…

This paper reviews latest research findings on practising in an attempt to encourage studio music teachers to trial new approaches. Literature shows that expert performers begin learning an instrument at an early age, and sustain and increase their deliberate practice over at least 10 years. A certain amount of practice hours is needed to achieve…

This article investigates parental involvement in the musical education of violin students and the changing role of the parents' across the learning process. Two contexts were compared, one emphasising the Suzuki methodology and the other a "traditional" approach. Students learning "traditionally" are typically taught note reading from the…

Significant research has been conducted into the positive effects of arts education on social and intellectual development of students across the ages of 10-15 years. Teacher competence for teaching the arts however does not appear to be as positive. A worldwide trend suggests pre-service teachers exhibit low confidence and content knowledge for…

The House of Commons Select Committee on Education (2006) estimated that around 18% of all pupils in England were categorised as having Special Educational Needs (SEN). "Around 3% of all children (250,000) had a statement of SEN and around 1% of all children were in special schools (90,000) which represent approximately one third of children with…

This paper focuses on the category of electronic musical instruments described as "gestural controllers"--motion sensor technology and specially adapted switches--which are widely used in special education. The therapeutic benefits of this technology in emancipating children from their cognitive or physical limitations are increasingly…

The paper challenges some of the social and cultural attitudes to disability today and ways in which The Arts can be used to express and bring our dreams to life. It highlights issues relating to children who need special education, children who attend special schools, children who, for whatever reason, do not attend mainstream schools. It…