Music Education: Historical Contexts And Perspectives

Music Education: Historical Contexts and Perspectives provides a comprehensive exploration of public school music in the United States. It reviews the history of music education in America from the 1600s through the present, offers a working philosophy of music education, examines the role that this philosophy plays in developing and implementing music curricula, and presents a thorough discussion of music teaching and learning. Chapter instructions suggest relationships between the topics presented in the text, and study and review questions at the end of each chapter promote investigation, synthesis and critical thinking. The final chapter encourages readers to use information presented in the text as the basis for speculation about the future of music education in the United States.

This introduction to the historical and philosophical foundations of the music teaching profession is designed to fill the gap between books that are either too simplistic or too advanced. It explores major events and ideas that have shaped the current status of the profession and that point toward its future, and encourages readers to continually consider how the concepts covered relate to their own experiences. It also explores people, places, events, and ideas in the history of music in American schools and the general or non-musical events influencing its development from the Colonial Period through 1980.