In spite of centuries of experience and experiment, the practicalities and benefits of general education (schooling) remain uncertain. Can we sustain the spread of subjects that now make up the curriculum? In particular, can we justify time spent on music, which to many would appear to be a specialised study for the talented? The evidence of past practice suggests that the content of classroom music teaching has not done much to help the majority of people to understand music. Yet making music is manifestly an important feature of our humanity. Are there principles at work deep in the nature of music which explain this, and can those features be exploited as the basis of a musical education which will have value for everyone?

The article uses methods of philosophical enquiry and historical research to clarify questions surrounding the epistemological basis for music education. It critically examines the idea of ‘music as aesthetic education’ in the context of evolving policy and practice within the English National Curriculum. It argues for broadening the concept of aesthetic education as a necessary antidote to an impersonal curriculum where an undifferentiated notion of knowledge distorts the character of goals, pedagogy and the valuing of musical endeavour.

Two parallel samples of secondary music teachers in England, taken from 1982 and 1998, reveal similarities and differences in their evaluations and uses of twentieth- and pre-twentieth-century Western classical music, folk music, popular music, jazz and ‘world’ music. Least change occurs with relation to folk and pre-twentieth-century classical music; most with relation to popular and world music. The status of classical music is high in each of the two time periods, but in different ways. By the end of the century, teachers' views of musical value had, overall, shifted radically towards more global perspectives, and their classroom approaches included far more integrated practical work involving performing, composing and listening, with an emphasis on cross-stylistic comparisons and musical universals.

In Scotland, assessment procedures tend to dominate the teaching and learning of music. Teachers are concerned that the recording and measuring of pupils' output against set criteria are achieved at the expense of engaging them in meaningful, creative experiences. The authors have proposed elsewhere (Byrne & Sheridan, 2000) that music educators should consider the use of Csikszentmihalyi's ‘flow’ model (Csikszentmihalyi, 1992) as a possible reflective tool for monitoring, regulating and assessing learning in music.

Despite pockets of excellence, singing in British secondary schools is not only weak but in a state of continuing decline. The unpopularity of singing is well documented but the reasons for that unpopularity are less certain. Through interviewing adults between the ages of 20 and 40 about their school days, the authors located the principal sources of most people's unease with singing, and also the seat of pleasure among those who enjoyed it. Some differences between age groups and the sexes emerged through the study. Unexpectedly, all interviewees were united in the view that singing should be retained as a worthwhile element of the secondary school curriculum.

This article originated from a research project examining pupils' perceptions of the GCSE Music examination (for pupils aged 15–16) in one large secondary school in the United Kingdom. The research explored the hypothesis that pupils considered it necessary to have additional instrumental or vocal tuition outside class music lessons in order to secure a high grade in the examination. The research also hypothesised that, despite the egalitarian philosophy underpinning the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) examination system, the music course was still viewed by pupils as being élitist. It was concluded that although there were some very positive comments from pupils, GCSE Music was still not the intended examination for all.

This research was carried out as part of an extensive investigation into why some music teachers were experiencing difficulties teaching music to Muslims in their classes. For some Muslims, music is pronounced haram and is forbidden in Islamic law due to its associations; it has frequently been linked with sex, drugs and alcohol and has been ‘tarred with the same brush’. For many more Muslims it is seen as mubah, indifferent in relation to law, but for cultural reasons they would still prefer their children not to take part. Some forms of music are more acceptable than others, and some are acceptable under certain conditions, but of course most non-Muslim teachers are unaware of these. This article reports on observations of music lessons in a school with a high proportion of pupils from Muslim backgrounds. Interviews with pupils and several relevant adults are included. A report of the background to this research, and other aspects of it, can be found in the suggestions for further reading.

The writer has conducted an extensive historical investigation into music in the Irish primary school system. One individual, Peter Goodman, Ireland's first music inspector, emerged as being a character central to the introduction of music to primary schools in 1900, and to the subsequent in-service education provided for teachers. This paper outlines Goodman's work in this area, and traces his promotion of the Curwen sol-fa system, and his contribution to the promotion of church music. Goodman wrote prolifically describing his work, and his reports were included in the annual Reports of the Board of Commissioners of National Education. From these archival sources emerges a picture of an individual full of enthusiasm and zeal for his mission, and with some ideas and aspirations that are just as valid today as when he first conceived them a century ago.

This article, based on research for an MA (December 2000), investigates the connections between the private teacher and music in the National Curriculum. In the process present perceptions and practice are explored to gain a clearer understanding of the situation as it is today. Various ways of improving communications between schools and private teachers are looked at, with a view to helping the pupil feel that school and private lessons are working in harmony. From the research it has been found that an awareness exists of the need to develop teaching philosophies that relate the private lesson to music in the National Curriculum.

This article examines the impact of analysis teaching on performance by documenting the progress of 12 students who took part in an advanced undergraduate class in music analysis. Each class participant was asked to keep a diary of their performances, both during practice time and in instrumental lessons, and these are documented and analysed. Finally, the students were given oral viva voce examinations. The data from this short qualitative study shows a variety of results that illustrate the extent to which individual students react to the teaching of music analysis in different ways.

This paper describes what improvising came to mean to a group of 12-year-old children who, as members of a weekly lunchtime ‘Music Creators' Soundings Club’, were watched, listened to, and invited to reflect upon the process of group improvisation. Focusing on musical interaction as it emerged in the earliest stages of this work, this paper shows the relationship between children's actions and their reflective talk. It identifies emerging principles in a sequence of musical examples that portray children making music together and shows the nature of group improvisation as socially and musically inclusive. These children valued group improvisation most for its immediacy and continuity. Ways of delighting in how children behave musically and reveal their musical learning through conversation are discussed.

This paper is based on research carried out into the effects of ICT on musical composition in secondary schools. It is based on a series of interviews with students and teachers, and classroom observations in eight schools following questionnaire responses from 18 secondary schools in south-eastern England. The strategies suggested for effective use of ICT in composing in the classroom resulting from the research include differentiation and classroom management. In addition to teachers' subject knowledge, and resources and their deployment, it appears that the physical learning environment is another crucial factor.

This article discusses the first year of the Project for Introductory Piano Education (the PIPO project) at The Hague, a training programme for young pianists starting at age 5–6. The programme combines general music activities, aiming at the development of general musical skills, with piano lessons in small groups. Rather than working from notation, the project takes an auditory approach to piano playing. After having described the principal characteristics of the PIPO project, the article reports on the musical progress of the children, and concludes by discussing some major educational issues that emerged during the first year.

Motivational research in academic subjects has demonstrated that when students are interested in an activity and feel free to choose whether or not to do it, they are more likely to engage in higher-level cognitive functioning, find it easier to concentrate, persevere, and enjoy their learning. This case study of a young beginning clarinettist named Clarissa consisted of interviews and computer analysis of videotaped practice sessions. Clarissa's practice behaviour in teacher-assigned repertoire was compared with her work on a piece she chose to learn herself. Results show that when practising self-selected repertoire, Clarissa was more likely to engage in strategies that are typical at more advanced stages of development, such as silent fingering, silent thinking and singing. She also spent more time practising the piece, and persevered when faced with difficulties. Implications for instrumental pedagogy are discussed.

This report is the first stage of a longitudinal inCanto research project, the aim of which is to find out if children who receive an appropriate ‘musical education’, broadly speaking, from the 6th month of prenatal life onwards are able to sing in tune, and if they develop this skill earlier than the general population. In the stage presented here we try to establish the point at which children who have been musically stimulated 3–4 months before birth start to produce their first musical babbling, and analyse the musical content of their vocalisations. For these purposes we organised a weekly course of music for 68 mothers-to-be and for their children after birth. The amount and the quality of the vocalisations produced by the children in the experimental group were found to be higher than reported in previously published studies, and the analysis of the musical babbling revealed the presence of musical patterns belonging to our musical system.

This paper is the pedagogical embodiment of accumulated understandings drawn from discussions of postmodern and poststructuralist theory and suggests some forms that an ethical music education might take. Music education in the postmodern era calls for and revives an attention to the relations between music and cultural narrative. Students bring diverse locational and historical narratives to the classroom. Bearing this in mind, this paper examines difference in the context of a music education that is now charged with both obligations as a result of internationalism, and with a role in resistance to the homogenising forces of globalisation. It suggests music education as a possible site for a critical concept of knowledge and as a dynamic site of cultural narrative.

This article examines the debate over issues of musical intelligence, largely in a Scottish context, although it draws on recent international research in its discussion. It examines different perceptions of musical gift, and will relate these to factors which either release it, or constrict the release in different ways. Musical intelligence is then examined within the context of the multiple intelligences proposed by Howard Gardner, and is related to practical aspects of musical education.

What do the views of children, teachers and inspectors about the quality of a school's music provision have in common, or are they all different? A trained expert visited ten primary schools, and her judgements about the music provision for children aged 10–11 were compared with those of the teachers, the children's views about music at the school, and the judgements reported in the school's most recent published inspection report. It was the children, particularly the boys, who agreed most closely with the expert. The judgements of the expert and the inspectors were broadly consonant, but the generalisation in the inspection writing led to its requiring a careful read if weaknesses in some schools' provision for Year 6 were to be detected. While there was general agreement between the expert and the teachers over children's attainment in the more effective schools, the judgements of the teachers were seriously awry in schools that neglected an aspect of the National Curriculum, typically composing. At present, inspectors routinely survey the views of parents and carers, but not those of pupils. The Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED), the government department responsible for the inspection of schools in England, is currently considering some limited use of older secondary pupils' views as inspection evidence. The evidence of the research described in this paper is that younger children, in Year 6, could usefully be involved in providing inspection evidence. Indeed, it is possible that they may prove to be rather better ‘inspectors’ than older children, and also than some of their teachers.

The CD that accompanies this issue of BJME contains the recorded examples listed below. They are associated with articles in Volumes 17, 18 and 19, covering three years of issues.