International Journal of Music Education 

About: International Journal of Music Education is an academic journal published by SAGE Publishing. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Music education & Musicology. It has an ISSN identifier of 0255-7614. Over the lifetime, 964 publications have been published receiving 13328 citations. The journal is also known as: IJME.

The power of music: Its impact on the intellectual, social and personal development of children and young people

Abstract: This paper reviews the empirical evidence relating to the effects of active engagement with music on the intellectual, social and personal development of children and young people. It draws on research using the most advanced technologies to study the brain, in addition to quantitative and qualitative psychological and educational studies. It explains how musical skills may transfer to other activities if the processes involved are similar. It explores the evidence relating to the impact of musical skills on language development, literacy, numeracy, measures of intelligence, general attainment, creativity, fine motor co-ordination, concentration, self-confidence, emotional sensitivity, social skills, team work, self-discipline, and relaxation. It suggests that the positive effects of engagement with music on personal and social development only occur if it is an enjoyable and rewarding experience. This has implications for the quality of the teaching.

Popular music education in and for itself, and for ‘other’ music: current research in the classroom:

Abstract: This article considers some ways in which the school classroom enters into, changes and complicates musical meanings, focussing particularly on the role of popular music and how it relates to classical music. I suggest that in bringing popular music into the curriculum, educators have largely ignored the informal learning practices of popular musicians. Popular music has therefore been present as curriculum content, but its presence has only recently begun to affect our teaching strategies. I examine how the adaptation of some informal popular music learning practices for classroom use can positively affect pupils’ musical meanings and experiences. This applies not only to the sphere of popular music, but also to classical music and, by implication, other musics as well. Finally, the notions of musical autonomy, personal autonomy and musical authenticity in relation to musical meaning and informal learning practices within the classroom are discussed.

The impact of informal music learning practices in the classroom, or how I learned how to teach from a garage band

Abstract: This ethnographic study is an investigation of the environment that students create when making music that is meaningful to them. The initial purpose of the study was to describe a developing ‘rock group’, and the factors that contributed to its creation. The significance of the study may be in the discovery of ways to ‘counter mechanisms of dominance inherent’ (Fornas, Lindberg, & Sernhede, 1995, p. 263) in many formal environments. The author reflects on the lessons of informal music learning practices and the implications for her own classroom environment. A broader perspective on the informal/formal dichotomy may help teachers establish more diverse learning practices.

Garage rock bands: a future model for developing musical expertise?

Abstract: A commonly accepted assumption in music education based on the apprenticeship tradition is that teachers deliver their musical expertise using pedagogically relevant methods that will help them to have effective mastery and control over the process of learning. This article decentres the traditional notion of mastery and pedagogy. Rather, it is suggested that, in line with situated learning theories and research on expertise-based learning, garage rock bands and their informal ways of learning can exemplify how to develop knowledge-building communities and musical expertise in formal music education. However, this approach is not intended to question or replace the need for teachers.

Music Teacher Education as Identity Construction

Abstract: The research from which this report is extracted attempts to build a theory in the grounded tradition (Glaser &: Strauss, 1967) to account for the interaction of music education students in Canadian universities as they come to construct an identity as a 'musician'. The paper is based on a qualitative research initiative with data coming from participant observation and interviews with 108 students into the social world of music education students over a period of 36 months at five Canadian universities (Roberts, 1991a). The assumption taken here is that the meaning of 'musician' is a social construction (Berger &: Luckmann, 1966) for these students and that music education students interact on the basis of the meanings that they come to associate with this social construct. It can be shown that this construct is a pivotal component of the music education students' identity, in fact, an all-engulfing construct (Hargreaves, 1976, p.204) in the formation of their identity. Music education students appear to acquire an identity as a 'musician' which they seem to construct as having a core meaning 'performer', and this process of construction appears largely dependent upon social interaction in the fullest symbolic interactionist's and Meadean sense of both with 'other' and with 'self'. This occurs most particularly through societal reaction