Journal of Popular Music Education - Current Issue

This study measured the environmental perception (EP) of higher music education in the United States through the Higher Music Education Organizational Adaptation Survey. Music leaders were surveyed (n = 100) using items adapted from EP research in other disciplines. Diverse music units were found to exhibit moderate levels of EP and organizational complexity was found to be a significant factor in EP level. This study is highly significant for academic leaders in music due to the rapid evolution of the music industry and the need for higher music education to understand the complexity of its environment. Results also hold significance for all creative fields in higher education as a measurement of the relationship between academia and industry.

In the face of looming environmental catastrophe, music educators have an obligation to support students in finding ways to navigate and respond to environmental change through their practice. Data from a survey of popular music students in an Australian higher music education institution showed that while students held serious concerns about environmental threats, they did not feel empowered to address these through their music and could not envisage a role for music education to support them to do so. It is proposed that a praxial pedagogical framework informed by critical pedagogy, and supported through the Students as Partners approach, would help popular music students to develop their musician activist identities and empower them to respond to the challenges of a changing climate through their art.

This article presents some of the data gathered in a study on popular music education in Hong Kong, which was marginalized in local schools until recently. The study was conducted between April and December 2021 to explore possible policies that could promote Hong Kong popular music via education. It adopted a mixed-method design that consisted of a survey questionnaire, ten in-depth, semi-structured interviews with popular music education stakeholders and fifteen focus-group interviews with participants in various popular music education programmes. While the research findings are based on a small amount of data about a short period, from them I hope to offer a modest suggestion on how to draft policies that promote Hong Kong popular music, a genre that is generally agreed to be declining in the new millennium, through education in the future.

Western popular music began to dominate the Chinese music market after China implemented the open-door policy in 1978, which led to its introduction in schools in 2001. Popular music remains common outside of the classroom while occupying a small portion of school curricula. This study explores the influence of popular music in primary and secondary schools in Xi’an City, Shaanxi Province, China. A combination of questionnaires, interviews, observations and an examination of the author’s teaching experience was used to gather data on issues affecting students’ and teachers’ acceptance of popular music and the relationship between popular music and music education. Findings indicate that popular music can be integrated into the curricula, improve teaching effectiveness, make learning more attractive for students and relate to the students’ everyday lives.

The creation of connections between learning spaces is a central dimension of music learning. However, these connections do not arise automatically, but require specific efforts from the learners. In this article, we look at these efforts, focusing in particular on the conflicts that can arise, often due to the association of places with certain genres. As an example, we attend to a classically trained cellist participating in the Wacken Music Camp, a learning space for heavy metal music. Among other things, our findings can help music educators to understand the alienation many students feel from school music lessons, and we also offer perspectives on how to address this alienation productively.