Narratives And Reflections In Music Education

This volume offers chapters written by some of the most respected narrative and qualitative inquiry writers in the field of music education. The authorship and scope are international, and the chapters advance the philosophical, theoretical, and methodological bases of narrative inquiry in music education and the arts. The book contains two sections, each with a specific aim. The first is to continue and expand upon dialogue regarding narrative inquiry in music education, emphasizing how narrative involves the art of listening to and hearing others whose voices are often unheard. The chapters invite music teachers and scholars to experience and confront music education stories from multiple perspectives and worldviews, inviting an international readership to engage in critical dialogue with and about marginalized voices in music. The second section focuses on ways in which narrative might be represented beyond the printed page, such as with music, film, photography, and performative pieces. This section includes philosophical discussions about arts-based and aesthetic inquiry, as well as examples of such work.

This volume focuses specifically on narrative inquiry as a means to interrogate research questions in music education, offering music education researchers indispensible information on the use of qualitative research methods, particularly narrative, as appropriate and acceptable means of conducting and reporting research. This anthology of narrative research work in the fields of music and education builds on and supports the work presented in the editors’ first volume in Narrative Inquiry in Music Education: Troubling Certainty (Barrett & Stauffer, 2009, Springer). The first volume provides a context for undertaking narrative inquiry in music education, as well as exemplars of narrative inquiry in music education and commentary from key international voices in the fields of narrative inquiry and music education respectively.

Margaret S. Barrett and Sandra L. Stauffer We live in a “congenial moment for stories” (Pinnegar & Daynes, 2007, p. 30), a time in which narrative has taken up a place in the “landscape” of inquiry in the social sciences. This renewed interest in storying and stories as both process and product (as eld text and research text) of inquiry may be attributed to various methodological and conceptual “turns,” including the linguistic and cultural, that have taken place in the humanities and social sciences over the past decades. The purpose of this book is to explore the “narrative turn” in music education, to - amine the uses of narrative inquiry for music education, and to cultivate ground for narrative inquiry to seed and ourish alongside other methodological approaches in music education. In a discipline whose early research strength was founded on an alignment with thesocialsciences,particularlythepsychometrictradition,oneofthekeychallenges for those embarking on narrative inquiry in music education is to ensure that its use is more than that of a “musical ornament,” an elaboration on the established themes of psychometric inquiry, those of measurement and certainty. We suggest that narrative inquiry is more than a “turn” (as noun), “a melodic embellishment that is played around a given note” (Encarta World English Dictionary, 2007, n. p. ); it is more than elaborationon a position, the adding of extra notes to make a melody more beautiful or interesting.

Personhood and Music Learning edited by Susan O’Neill is a scholarly but accessible exploration of personal action and experience across diverse music learning contexts. It offers interesting and challenging insights into persons making meaning and connections with music—critical for understanding choices and decisions that impact people’s lives. Perspectives and narratives by 25 authors from around the world focus on: musicians, composers and conductors; music teaching and learning with children and adolescents; music education research and professional practice. This book aims to recast theories of personhood in relation to music learning, reassert the person into multiple narratives, and restore the centrality of personhood to music education theory, research and practice. Students and researchers internationally, as well as music educators in all areas of professional practice, will find in these pages thought-provoking ideas with profound implications for envisioning the future of music education.

Noted music educator Bennett Reimer has selected 24 of his previously published articles from a variety of professional journals spanning the past 50 years. During that time, he's tackled: -generating core values for the field of music education; -the core in larger societal and educational contexts; -what to teach and how to teach it effectively; -how we need to educate our teachers; -the role of research in our profession; and -how to improve our future status. Reimer precedes each essay with background reflections and his position, both professional and personal, on effectively addressing the issue at hand. The opening 'Letter to the Reader' presents a valuable overview based on his deeply grounded viewpoint. The entire music education profession will benefit from Reimer's perspective on past, present, and future concerns central to the functioning of music education in Seeking the Significance of Music Education: Essays and Reflections.

This book focuses on the traumatic experiences within and through music that individuals and collectives face, while considering ways in which they (re)engage with their traumas in educational settings. The chapters delve into the physical, psychological, philosophical, sociological, and political aspects, as they relate to the reciprocal influences of trauma on musical practices and education. Readers are immersed in topics related to societal violence, physical injuries, grief, separation, loss, death, and ways of working through these in educational and artistic situations. In the introductory chapter, the co-editors draw attention to theoretical matters related to trauma through narrative inquiry in music education. The first section of the book, Separation Revisited, brings together notions of separation, focusing on how loss is emotionally and physically manifested when death, grief, and bodily injury are experienced. In the second section, (Re)Engaging with Lost and Found, readers are encouraged to imagine new possibilities considering trauma and loss in educational and musical spaces. These pieces offer deliberate ruminations moving the discourse toward (re)engagement in and through music education and artistic contexts. The co-editors conclude the book by drawing attention to narrative inquiry’s double-edged nature in stories of trauma and how the retelling of lost and found narratives offers a way to imagine lives otherwise—lives not smothered by grief and horror—through the conceivable reliving of unfathomable stories of experience. This book emerges from the 7th International Conference on Narrative Inquiry in Music Education (NIME7), October 2020, co-hosted by Brock University, Faculty of Education and the University of Toronto, Faculty of Music, Ontario, Canada.

Praxial Music Education is a collection of essays by nineteen internationally recognized scholars in music education. Each essay offers critical reflections on a key topic in contemporary music education. The starting point of each essay, and the unifying thread of this collection, is the "praxial" philosophy of music education explained in Elliott's Music Matters: A New Philosophy of Music Education (OUP, 1995). This philosophy argues for a socially and artistically grounded concept of music and music education, challenging the field's traditional "absolutist" foundations. Praxial Music Education is both a critical companion to Music Matters, and an independent text on contemporary issues in music education. Among the themes discussed are multicultural music education, the nature of musical understanding, early childhood music education, the nature and teaching of music listening, music curriculum development, and musical creativity. Praxial music education is a living theory. This unique collection will not only enrich discussions that already use Music Matters as their core, but will globalize current discussions and applications of the praxial philosophy and emphasize the positive and practical values of collaborative efforts in music education.

What values should form the foundation of music education? And once we decide on those values, how do we ensure we are acting on them? In Values and Music Education, esteemed author Estelle R. Jorgensen explores how values apply to the practice of music education. We may declare values, but they can be hard to see in action. Jorgensen examines nine quartets of related values and offers readers a roadmap for thinking constructively and critically about the values they hold. In doing so, she takes a broad view of both music and education while drawing on a wide sweep of multidisciplinary literature. Not only does Jorgensen demonstrate an analytical and dialectical philosophical approach to examining values, but she also seeks to show how theoretical and practical issues are interconnected. An important addition to the field of music education, Values and Music Education highlights values that have been forgotten or marginalized, underscores those that seem perennial, and illustrates how values can be double-edged swords.