The article presents a systematic review of studies on the construction of current policy on labor inclusion, highlighting the role of the arts in the international landscape. The aim of this article is to analyze studies that address inclusive labor policies, highlighting the arts as a labor sector in the international context. A systematic…

This paper addresses the current debates, anxieties, and perceptions around the idea of scholarly artistic research within doctoral studies, internationally and in South Africa. A common point of contention, both in South Africa and in the international arena, is the reluctance within institutional structures and external bodies to accept…

The past two decades have seen a growing de-professionalization of teaching. Combating this educational climate requires music teacher education programs to prioritize both critical pedagogical practices and policy knowhow in order to reestablish a focus on relational engagements and the navigation of the complex tensions lived daily in schools.…

Jazz arrived in mainland China as early as the 1920s. It has since been a popular music genre among the middle and upper classes. Similar to that in the West, jazz education in China has been increasingly formalized, with a growing number of universities and academies offering jazz degree programs or courses. Despite a few studies on jazz and its…

This article is a multiple case study of policy in Seattle, Washington and Portland, Oregon. Both cities have developed programs that utilize government funding to increase access to public school K-5 arts education. While each city used a different path for advocacy and policy change, there were common threads that could be used as a framework…

While high-stakes testing has influenced music teacher evaluation, evidence of music teacher agency influencing the policy process has been scarce. One notable exception is the Tennessee Fine Arts Portfolio Model (TNFAPM), designed by music teachers in Tennessee as an alternative to music teacher evaluations that have been based, at least in part,…

Transmitting traditional music for sustainability has been a common theme in global music education. Recently, the school systems of Hong Kong and Guangdong have been encouraged by governmental authorities to teach Cantonese opera aiming at enhancing the sustainability of the genre and promote a Chinese cultural identity within students. This…

This study examines the underpinnings of Japan's "programming education" in elementary school music, officially implemented nationwide in 2020. Through that reform, which has introduced "programming thinking" (a local version of computational thinking) in all areas of compulsory education, the country follows the international…

Classroom music teachers in England design their own music curricula for Key Stage 3 (11 - 14 year olds, 6th - 8th Grades). These curricula are designed in a context where policymakers define, regulate and legitimate curriculum formulations. This study traced curriculum development in England, where government has validated a policy driven…

The integration of the arts and humanities into the core of curriculum along with the sciences and technological disciplines is an emerging issue in educational research. This article seeks to contribute to this research and curricular approach, for which we analyze the emergence of the STEAM movement, its implementation in class, and its social,…

Though one of the first disciplines to incorporate national standards in its curricula, the field of music education has not traditionally shown much consistency in its assessments, with disparities in priorities on both local and national levels. Schools often allow teachers the freedom to cover whichever content standards they choose, whether…

This article explores the relationship between teachers and policymaking, and in particular a contradiction at its center: Teachers are needed to "people" policy, yet are conventionally named as its objects. As part of a two-year participatory study, fourteen teachers in three schools, including the author, sought to investigate policy…

This paper explores the declining trend of fine arts education in secondary schools. We examine mechanisms that may explain this phenomenon on structural levels of policymaking and policy implementation in different areas of the education system. What will be defined as the "selection device" refers to the structurally determined…

This paper reports on the evaluation of the In2 music project in Darlington, England. The project ran for seven weeks from January-March 2020 and involved Year 6 pupils from four primary schools (n = 103) and Year 7 pupils from one secondary school (n = 90), working with Back Chat Brass, a professional brass ensemble. The aim of the In2 music…

Traditional reviews of arts education have focused on why the arts are valuable for learning, but the arts' contributions to cross-disciplinary discourse remain undertheorized. In this article, we provide a theoretical review of the arts and learning to suggest a new way of thinking about how the arts contribute to learning across disciplines…