A Cultural Psychology of Music Education

Abstract

Recent studies in music education have investigated the ways in which different groups construe music and music education, and the ways in which these constructions are culturally bound. This book explores the ways in which the discipline of cultural psychology can contribute to our understanding of how music learning and development occurs in a range of cultural settings, and the subsequent implications of such understanding for the theory and practice of music education. The book opens with an overview of the theoretical underpinnings of a cultural psychology of music education. Ten music education scholars and researchers provide chapters that illustrate the application of this approach to key issues in music education; its theory and practice. These chapters provide opportunities to look more deeply into the practices of music education in order to understand the role culture plays in shaping children's musical learning and thinking, the learning and teaching of music teachers, the formal and informal institutions and structures within and through which learning and teaching occur, and, the intersection of these processes and structures in the development of musical thought and practice.