Music education is an eclectic field of study, and those concerned with questions of musical learning and teaching draw upon a variety of disciplines including psychology, sociology, history, philosophy, ethnomusicology, and music therapy. For this Special Issue, we have asked leading scholars within these disciplines to share insights on how their research area might contribute to a greater understanding of the learning and teaching of music. Our aim and theirs is to communicate recent developments in the disciplines to music educators, and hopefully to stimulate in the pages of BJME a dialogue with colleagues in related fields of interest.

The author presents an exploration of recent thinking in historiography as a basis for revitalising history in music education. An overview of developments in history and historical research in music education is followed by an examination of metaphors that illuminate the historical process and reflect a postmodern approach to ‘doing history’. The author then focuses on two issues that have been central to debate in historiography – history and narrative, and history and memory. She concludes with recommendations for revitalising history and historical research in music education, presented from three perspectives – dispositions towards history in the profession, the content of historical research, and methodological implications of the ‘new’ history.

This paper first outlines the focus of ethnomusicology as a discipline, pointing to its concentration on music examined as intersocial activity and identifying the methodological givens that follow from that assumption. It then looks at concerns shared with researchers in the field of music education, with references to the ethnomusicological literature. The concept of music and topics of musical transmission and ability are treated in depth, to show what ethnomusicological approaches offer to specialists in music education. A final section introduces the writing of ethnography, prior to the conclusion, which identifies further areas of mutual interest.

Starting from Hargreaves' (1986a) review of the relationship between developmental psychology and music education, we characterise the mid-1980s as a point at which the different main strands of music psychology – cognitive, developmental, and social – began to unfold. We move to the present day and beyond, suggesting that a major change has been the incorporation of a social perspective: it may now make more sense to talk about the developmental social psychology of music and music education. Four levels of social influence are distinguished – the individual, the interpersonal, the institutional, and the cultural – and we suggest that the concept of identity may enable explanations of social influence at the individual level. We review some research on musical style sensitivity as an exemplar of this general approach, and conclude by applying the social–cultural perspective to current developments in music education. This gives rise to two new conceptual models: of the opportunities that are offered by music education in the twenty-first century, and the outcomes that might be derived from it.

Music sociology has addressed the history of the musical canon, taste and social exclusion. It has also addressed issues of musical value and the perceptual politics of musical reputation. More recently, it has developed perspectives that highlight music's ‘active’ properties in relation to social action, emotion and cognition. Such a perspective dispenses with the old ‘music and society’ paradigm (one in which music was typically read as distanced from and ‘reflecting’ social structure) and points to core concerns in sociology writ large and to educational concerns with music's role as a socialising medium in the broadest sense of that term.

This article is divided into three parts. In Part I a brief description of a music therapy session will highlight some key features of a music therapy approach with children. The session will be used as a springboard for a short survey of some theoretical perspectives that underpin music therapy practice. Part II will outline the development of music therapy in the UK and the current range of work with children. Some evidence of music therapy's effective contribution to the development of the whole child will be drawn from published research and case material. Part III will place music therapy in wider social, musical and cultural contexts, outlining some contemporary challenges including closer collaboration with music educators and researchers.

My response to the question ‘What can philosophy bring to music education?’ is to offer a case in point. Three important tasks that philosophers can fulfil – clarifying ideas, interrogating commonplaces, and suggesting applications to practice – are illustrated through an analysis of musicianship. Doing philosophy is inseparable from the content of philosophy, and how the idea of musicianship is clarified, interrogated, and applied is of central interest to music education, as is the task of music education philosophy itself. The article highlights the crucial importance of teachers as participants in this work.