Highlighting various seminal studies in music education provides grounding for the necessity of connecting children's school music experiences with their daily lived music experiences. Allowing children to make more seamless connections between these two contexts heightens the possibility of creating increasingly meaningful school music…

Instrumental music education, as it evolved in the segregated African American communities and their educational institutions, remains an under-investigated area of historical research. As a partial remedy to that circumstance, this study sought to document one of the more noteworthy of such accounts, the history of instrumental music ensembles at…

For most students, classes in the arts are more than just a means of gathering credits, they are about getting involved in what the students like, at least for a period. They feel that the classes are a healthy escape, a time to recuperate and do what they do well. In the art classrooms, music studios, and video labs, students feel they are part…

There is a long history of debate over what opera is. Since it's more or less formal beginning in the sixteenth century as a reconstruction of ancient drama, opera as an art form has been controversial. The received understanding--emphasized by the genre's founders and in periodic efforts at reforming the standards of composition and…

To provide meaningful and motivating connections between students and ensembles, teachers must realize that students' prior experience profoundly affects learning. Many of these experiences are inextricably linked to cultural affiliation. Cultural affiliation is a powerful context for prior experience, and the fundamental principle framing this…

Each year in the United States, thousands of middle school and high school music students and their teachers participate in state or regional solo, ensemble, and large-group vocal activities. Students pursue involvement for various musically extrinsic and intrinsic reasons. Music educators report pressure from parents and administrators as a…

"Poor white trash" is likely the most enduring and degrading in a long line of "stigmatypes"--"stigmatizing boundary terms that simultaneously denote and enact cultural and cognitive divides between in-groups and out-groups"--such as "redneck," "cracker," and "hillbilly." Some people…

We aimed to identify positive parenting practices that set children on differential weight-trajectories. Parenting practices studied were cognitively stimulating activities, limit-setting, disciplinary practices, and parent warmth. Data from two U.S. national longitudinal data sets and linear and logistic regression were used to examine…

This article profiles Beth Gilbert, a veteran Arizona string teacher who finds inspiration in teamwork--and her students. Growing up in Ohio, Gilbert enjoyed participating in her high school orchestra. Nevertheless she entered the University of Arizona as a marine biology major, choosing a field of study that she had planned to parlay into a…

Aesthetics is commonly considered a complicated field of inquiry, particularly for students. Nevertheless, aesthetic experiences often raise questions about the nature of music which philosophical aesthetics is intended to answer. To bring students in contact with aesthetics depends primarily on the choice of appropriate methods. Case studies…

This 3-year longitudinal study investigated the associations of student (aged 9 to 10 years at the beginning of the study; n = 281; 51% girls) participation in extracurricular activities with teacher-rated socioemotional behavior and school achievement. MANOVA results showed that, after controlling for the grade level and the initial level of the…

While much is known about the critical importance of educative experiences outside of school, little is known about the social systems, community programs, and everyday practices that can facilitate learning outside of the classroom. "Thinking Comprehensively About Education" sheds much-needed light on those systems, programs, and…

Students with physical disabilities frequently are excluded from participation in instrumental music programs, yet the obstacles band directors face that preclude integration of these students have not been documented systematically. The primary purpose of this study was to measure Nebraska High School band directors' concerns regarding the…

The purpose of this study was to determine the attitudes of preservice elementary education classroom teachers toward teaching music and the importance of music in the school curriculum as they prepare to enter the field in an era of high stakes testing, state standards, and accountability. More specifically, responses to twenty-nine statements…

This work derives from a doctoral research study which looked at the differences in students' attitudes towards learning music in a Brazilian music higher education institution, while taking into account their different music learning backgrounds. The students' backgrounds (which consist of their set of musical experiences and music-learning…