Introduction

Abstract

Abstract Music educators, like visual art, dance, and theater teachers, find themselves in a paradoxical age. Music education thrives in schools, performance standards continue to rise with each new generation of students, and the demand for new music teachers increases each year. The paradox is that, in this time of plenty, a belief in the nonmusical power of music education has spread throughout the country, persuading politicians, education policy-makers, and the general public that children who study music tend to perform better in other subjects. There is a research base that supports this belief. There is also a research base that contradicts it. In any case, the belief in nonmusical values of music instruction has added a new facet to music education, one that is good for the profession and that, ironically, threatens the core belief of many music educators who are adamant that the principal benefit of their profession lies in the development of aesthetic sensitivity to music. Nonmusical values of music education have guided the profession throughout Western history. For well over 2,000 years, music education has played many roles, including supporting religious, intellectual, and physical aspects of life and promoting community, whether in the form of nationalism or ethnic society. Music educators have proven during this long history that music can indeed do these things. It was not until the 20th century, however, that the profession of music education began to argue that the true value of the study of music was in the music itself and how individuals respond to it. Regardless of what people believed, it was not until recently that research findings related to psychological and neurological responses have allowed music educators to offer a rationale based on solid scientific support.