This article looks at some of the issues surrounding the notion of a European dimension and ways in which it might be developed and applied in Music education.

One of the many roles of music teachers is to stimulate creative thinking and creative activity in their pupils. This obligation to help unlock latent musical talent in young people is no less applicable to the disabled than it is to the able-bodied. Music technology has a central place within this process. There are conditions for creativity, some of which may be precluded from the disabled. It is necessary, therefore, for the special needs music teacher to be aware of these conditions and the way in which a particular disability may bar access to any of them. Those involved in the design of either music hardware or software need to be responsive to these factors, through ongoing collaborative work. This paper was presented at a Conference of the Drake Research Project, University of York, November, 1990.

The Percussion Band method is part of our methodological heritage. The method was carefully based on contemporary educational theory and its advocates argued convincingly for its inclusion in kindergarten and school curricula. Critics of the method were heard from the first. This article seeks to examine the arguments for and against the method, the educational beliefs that underlie these positions and to note the influence of the method in the Australian school curriculum.

Musical sense is examined at two levels; in relation to human experiences or activity, and by virtue of its ‘form’. Reference in music to experience and activity is discussed in terms of its relationship to musical form. From an analysis of sense in language it is suggested that the social understandings of which music is a part are a source of sense. The origins of this social understanding are examined.

How does this sensible quality come to have aesthetic significance? Music may achieve significance from the way in which it refers to experience. Music that achieves sense by virtue of form is examined in terms of the way that it relates to intellectual needs.

There have been numerous calls for the use of qualitative research in music education. Music educators have been slow to heed these calls, despite the wide acceptance of qualitative methods in other areas of education research. This paper describes the place of qualitative paradigms in the gamut of research methodology and assesses the potential of the ethnographic techniques of participant observation and ethnographic interviewing for music education. In doing so it responds to Swanwick's (1984) critique of participant observation method by, (a) describing some of the techniques' philosophical bases, (b) citing several model ethnographies in other disciplines, and (c) reviewing some of the ethnographic research literature which, the author argues, has recognised the particular strengths and weaknesses of qualitative method and developed a strong philosophical and empirical rationale for its use. The author argues that ethnographic method has much to offer as we seek solutions to the problems of understanding music education in its social context in the late twentieth century.

In 1989 an Institute of Education was offered a sum of money through TVEI to fund a small-scale study which was to involve secondary schools within travelling distance of the Institute. The intention was to survey LEAs to find out TVEI contacts within local authorities and to identify school music departments which had some direct experience of bidding successfully for TVEI funds. In addition to gaining a general, overall view, a small number of case studies were to be written up illustrating the findings in more detail.

Abstracted from a conference report compiled by the West Glamorgan county Council TVEI Unit

Now in its ninth year, the Technical and Vocational Education Initiative (TVEI) has a complex history, marked by lively debate about the value and purpose of education itself, and about the role of central government in educational reform. At first seemingly unrelated to the arts, the scheme has gradually come to have a chequered impact on them. Whereas many music teachers have not been at all affected, others have been deeply involved. For them, it has brought distinct, sometimes radical innovation in both the form and content of the curriculum.

The Report of the Working Group for Music on the National Curriculum suggested that music teachers should incorporate music from non-Western cultures into their programmes of study. African Week proved to be an ideal opportunity to introduce the idea of music and dance from Africa to both students and the wider community in a predominantly white area, as well as to address the vexed problem of how to teach combined arts without diluting standards in the individual art forms.