Summary of Carrie Ann’s “Research in Music Education” presentation

Posted by on April 12, 2010 
Filed under Disciplinary Perspective Reports

What is research in Music Education?  Where has our field been in terms of research?  Where are we now and where are we going in our scholarship?  This is what I will be discussing with our class on Tuesday, April 13th.  In order to present this topic, I will be referencing Bennett Reimer’s Senior Researcher Award Speech from 2008.  Mr. Reimer, a preeminent scholar in the field of music education, seemed the best way to show the progression and evolution of research in my particular field.  Though all aspects of music, including the philosophy of the arts (aesthetics), we must make the connections to teaching, learning and basic musical practice.

Research in music education is a fairly young discipline, beginning towards the middle of the twentieth century.  Therefore, our research in our field is just as young and is still evolving.  There has been a switch in recent years from a qualitative approach in music education research to a quantitative (evidence based) approach, due to political issues affecting our field.  Currently there has been a third approach to music education research; an arts based approach that builds on the aesthetic nature of music and the arts.

Lastly, Mr. Reimer brings to the fore a fundamental flaw in terms of music education research… a lack of unifying structure within which to carry out our work and how we are fragmented and directionless in terms of the central practice of research.  This is just another issue that needs to be addressed by the members of our field.

I will discuss these above topics in my presentation tomorrow, in addition to looking at what an arts based approach to research is based on.  Research in music education is evolving and we must, as researchers in our field know where we were, are now, and are going to be in the future.

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