Changing Aspects of American Culture as Reflected in the MENC

Abstract

THROUGHOUT THE FIVE decades of its history, the Music Educators National Conference has reflected to a considerable degree the changes which have occurred in music education and in education in general. Back of the modifications in school objectives and programs lie forces in the social, economic, and political realms. This article will suggest some of the relationships between the activities of the Conference and various movements outside the Conference, on which its work and growth depend. The Conference always has been the meeting point for general education and music education, reflecting the motives of general education in the field of music in the schools. These include the religious, political and nationalistic, utilitarian, and mass education motives that have been dominant in the history of American edu-