School music education in Australia was described as being in crisis in the 2005 Federal Government Report. Many children have little or no access to quality music teaching. A few, mostly private, schools are centres of musical excellence, but the majority offer little but popular music. Meanwhile, children are 'educating' themselves through their iPod, internet, and mobile phone. Few are learning to play an instrument or to sing properly. Instead the majority are merely passive consumers who, when they mature and leave behind the teenage hyperbole surrounding pop music, will have no conception of music as a profound art.

A Concise Survey of Music Philosophy helps music students choose a philosophy that will guide them throughout their careers. The book is divided into three sections: central issues that any music philosophy ought to consider (e.g., beauty, emotion, and aesthetics); secondly, significant philosophical positions, exploring what major thinkers have had to say on the subject; and finally, opportunities for students to consider the ramifications of these ideas for themselves. Throughout the book, students are encouraged to make choices that will inform a philosophy of music and music education with which they are most comfortable to align. Frequently, music philosophy courses are taught in such a way that the teacher, as well as the textbook used, promotes a particular viewpoint. A Concise Survey of Music Philosophy presents the most current, prevalent philosophies for consideration. Students think through different issues and consider practical applications. There are numerous musical examples, each with links from the author’s home website to online video performances. Examples are largely from the Western classical canon, but also jazz, popular, and world music styles. In the last two chapters, students apply their views to practical situations and learn the differences between philosophy and advocacy. "Hodges has written an excellent resource for those wanting a short—but meaningful—introduction to the major concepts in music philosophy. Applicable to a number of courses in the music curriculum, this much-needed book is both accessible and flexible, containing musical examples, tables and diagrams, and additional readings that make it particularly useful for a student's general introduction to the topic. I especially like the emphasis on the personal development of a philosophical position, which makes the material especially meaningful for the student of music." —Peter R. Webster, Scholar-in-Residence, Thornton School of Music, University of Southern California, USA

Pornography is seen as morally problematic for a variety of reasons: coercion, exploitation, harm and the promulgation of inequality. The book looks at various ethical and political discussions concerning the production, exchange and consumption of pornography to propose a radical new approach centering on the concept of objectification.

In The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy in Music Education, editors Wayne D. Bowman and Ana Lucia Frega have drawn together a variety of philosophical perspectives from the profession's most exciting scholars from all over the world. Rather than relegating philosophical inquiry to moot questions and abstract situations, the contributors to this volume address everyday concerns faced by music educators everywhere. Emphasizing clarity, fairness, rigour, and utility above all, The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy in Music Education will challenge music educators all over the world to make their own decisions and ultimately contribute to the conversation themselves.

Intellectuals and policy analysts might appear to inhabit two different worlds. Intellectuals aspire to articulate issues of universal concern; policy analysts attend to the detail of specific measures and programmes. How far do these common assumptions match up to reality? What happens when intellectuals engage with cultural institutions and the machinery of government? And how far is cultural policy connected to a history of ideas? The essays brought together here attempt to answer these questions. From the English Romantics to Lenin’s wife, from Plato to Herbert Schiller, this book offers new insights into how intellectuals from Europe, Canada and North America have sought over time to assert their cultural values in public life.

What price would you be willing to pay for your child's education? If you knew you were opening Pandora's Box the first time you asked your child's teacher a question, would you do it? Was the PTA originally meant to be a money machine? How can you tell if your child really has ADHD, and why would teachers want your child to have it? There's more to public education than meets the eye. While her children were going through the education system, the system was Educating Shelly.

This is an important work that addresses the complex issues surrounding musical meaning and experience, and the Western traditional justification for including music in education. The chapters in this volume examine the important subjects of tradition, innovation, social change, the music curriculum, music in the twentieth century, social strata, culture and music education, psychology, science and music education, including musical values and education. Additional topics include the origins of mania, aesthetics and musical meaning related to concepts that are well-known to the ancient Greeks and Romans, which are compared to contemporary life. The rise of studies of musical behavior by social psychologists has been an important feature for the last two decades, and the relevance of this development to music education is explored. Articulating the difference between education and entertainment has been central to discussions and debates about the role of music in education since Plato and Aristotle first examined the problem. Many of the questions and issues raised by these two Greek philosophers in ancient Greece about the nature of music and its role in education are highly relevant today, and these are examined in the context of the twenty-first century. The writer stresses that music is a product of specific cultural ways of thinking and doing, and its inclusion in education can only be justified in terms of the importance a particular culture places on its music as a valued art form. The implications for music education are that those teaching music should focus in the ways musicians employ special cultural ways of thinking in their compositions and performance practices, whatever the genre. (Contains 28 illustrations and 2 tables.).