Music and Music Education in People's Lives is one of five paperback books derived from the foundational two-volume Oxford Handbook of Music Education. Designed for music teachers, students, and scholars of music education, as well as educational administrators and policy makers, this first book in the set provides a framework for understanding the content and context of music education, and for future action within the profession. A broad examination of the philosophical, psychological, cultural, international, and contextual issues that underpin a wide variety of teaching environments or individual attributes is paired with 25 relevant and insightful commentaries from established scholars and music educators. Taken as a whole, Music and Music Education in People's Lives gives clear direction to how the discipline of music education can achieve even greater political, theoretical and professional strength. Contributors Harold F. Abeles, Nick Beach, Wayne D. Bowman, Liora Bresler, Patricia Shehan Campbell, Richard Colwell, Robert A. Cutietta, David J. Elliott, Sergio Figueiredo, Lucy Green, Wilfried Gruhn, David Hargreaves, Sarah Hennessy, Liane Hentschke, Donald A. Hodges, Christopher M. Johnson, Estelle R. Jorgensen, Andreas C. Lehmann, Richard Letts, Håkan Lundström, Raymond MacDonald, Clifford K. Madsen, Andrew J. Martin, Marie McCarthy, Katrina McFerran, Gary E. McPherson, Bradley Merrick, Dorothy Miell, Graça Mota, Bruno Nettl, Bengt Olsson, Susan A. O'Neill, Johnmarshall Reeve, Bennett Reimer, James Renwick, Huib Schippers, Wendy L. Sims, David J. Teachout, Rena Upitis, Peter R. Webster, Graham F. Welch, Paul Woodford

Music and Music Education in People's Lives is one of five paperback books derived from the foundational two-volume Oxford Handbook of Music Education. Designed for music teachers, students, and scholars of music education, as well as educational administrators and policy makers, this first book in the set provides a framework for understanding the content and context of music education, and for future action within the profession. A broad examination of the philosophical, psychological, cultural, international, and contextual issues that underpin a wide variety of teaching environments or individual attributes is paired with 25 relevant and insightful commentaries from established scholars and music educators. Taken as a whole, Music and Music Education in People's Lives gives clear direction to how the discipline of music education can achieve even greater political, theoretical and professional strength. Contributors Harold F. Abeles, Nick Beach, Wayne D. Bowman, Liora Bresler, Patricia Shehan Campbell, Richard Colwell, Robert A. Cutietta, David J. Elliott, Sergio Figueiredo, Lucy Green, Wilfried Gruhn, David Hargreaves, Sarah Hennessy, Liane Hentschke, Donald A. Hodges, Christopher M. Johnson, Estelle R. Jorgensen, Andreas C. Lehmann, Richard Letts, Håkan Lundström, Raymond MacDonald, Clifford K. Madsen, Andrew J. Martin, Marie McCarthy, Katrina McFerran, Gary E. McPherson, Bradley Merrick, Dorothy Miell, Graça Mota, Bruno Nettl, Bengt Olsson, Susan A. O'Neill, Johnmarshall Reeve, Bennett Reimer, James Renwick, Huib Schippers, Wendy L. Sims, David J. Teachout, Rena Upitis, Peter R. Webster, Graham F. Welch, Paul Woodford

Why do some children take up music, while others dont? Why do some excel, whilst others give up? Why do some children favour classical music, whilst others prefer rock? These are questions that have puzzled music educators, psychologists, and musicologists for many years. Yet, they are incredibly difficult and complex questions to answer. 'Music in our lives' takes an innovative approach to trying to answer these questions. It is drawn from a research project that spanned fourteen years, and closely followed the lives of over 150 children learning music - from their seventh to their twenty second birthdays. This detailed longitudinal approach helped the authors probe a number of important issues. For example, how do you define musical skill and ability? Is it true, as many assume, that continuous engagement in performance is the sole way in which those skills can be developed? What are the consequences of trends and behaviours observed amongst the general public, and their listening consumption. After presenting an overview and detailed case study explorations of musical lives, the book provides frameworks and theory for further investigation and discussion. It tries to present an holistic interpretation of these studies, and looks at their implications for musical development and education. Accessibly written by three leading researchers in the fields of music education and music psychology, this book makes a powerful contribution to understanding the dynamic and vital context of music in our lives.

The two volumes of The Oxford Handbook of Music Education offer a comprehensive overview of the many facets of musical experience, behavior and development in relation to the diverse variety of educational contexts in which they occur. In these volumes, an international list of contributors update and redefine the discipline through fresh and innovative principles and approaches to music learning and teaching.

Moving back through Dewey, Heidegger, Nietzsche, and Rousseau, the lineage of Western music education finds its origins in Plato and Pythagoras. Yet theories not rooted in the ancient Greek tradition are all but absent. A Way of Music Education provides a much-needed intervention, integrating ancient Chinese thought into the canon of music education in a structured, systematized, and philosophical way. The book's three central sources - the Yijing (The Book of Changes), Confucianism, and Daoism - inform author C. Victor Fung's argument: that the human being exists as an entity at the center of an organismic world in which all things and events, including music and music education, are connected. Fung ultimately proposes a new educational philosophy based on three key ideas in Chinese thought: change, balance, and liberation. A unique work, A Way of Music Education offers a universal approach engrained in a specific and ancient cultural tradition.

Why teach music? Who deserves a music education? Can making and learning about music contribute to the common good? In Humane Music Education for the Common Good, scholars and educators from around the world offer unique responses to the recent UNESCO report titled Rethinking Education: Toward the Common Good. This report suggests how, through purpose, policy, and pedagogy, education can and must respond to the challenges of our day in ways that respect and nurture all members of the human family. The contributors to this volume use this report as a framework to explore the implications and complexities that it raises. The book begins with analytical reflections on the report and then explores pedagogical case studies and practical models of music education that address social justice, inclusion, individual nurturance, and active involvement in the greater public welfare. The collection concludes by looking to the future, asking what more should be considered, and exploring how these ideals can be even more fully realized. The contributors to this volume boldly expand the boundaries of the UNESCO report to reveal new ways to think about, be invested in, and use music education as a center for social change both today and going forward.

Whatâe(tm)s So Important About Music Education? presents a new philosophy of music education for the United States, rooted in history and current perspectives from ethnomusicology. J. Scott Goble explores the societal effects of the nation's foundations in democracy and capitalism, the constitutional separation of church and state, and the rise of recording, broadcast, and computer technologies. He shows how these and other factors have brought about changes in the ways music teachers and concerned others have conceptualized music and its importance in education. In demonstrating how many of the personal and societal benefits of musical engagement have come to be obscured in the nationâe(tm)s increasingly diverse public forum, Goble argues for the importance of musical engagement in human life and for the importance of music in education. An ideal text for courses in music education foundations, the book concludes with recommendations for teaching the musical practices of the nation's cultural communities in schools in terms of their respective cultural meanings.