This is a rather different Editorial. It marks the end of five years of editorship. So, a few valedictory remarks will begin and end this piece. When we first took over co-editing the British Journal of Music Education in 2007–2008, from the distinguished editorship of Stephanie Pitts and Gordon Cox, we introduced ourselves alongside contributing authors in the editorial for Volume 25 with articles in a series tackling the contribution of music education research and theory to practice and so signalled our intention as an editorial team to strengthen further the remit of the journal. In this Volume 29, four years on, we feel very pleased to report a significant increase in submissions to the British Journal of Music Education and a welcome further internationalisation of contributions. We now web publish and feature teacher-researcher and school-based research in each issue. The British Journal of Music Education is now featured in the Thomson Reuters Arts & Humanities Citation Index and the Social Science Citation Index. We both feel privileged to have been given the opportunity of working for this highly regarded journal whose reputation has continued to grow and strive to strengthen connections between research and practice, and offer informed and passionate engagement with music education research for empowerment and advocacy.
In this final issue of Volume 29, a bumper one for reasons perhaps too obvious to need expressing, the articles in the recently established practitioner section of the journal, are from invited contributions from new entrants to the profession which tackle school-based and highly relevant research issues. Writing on the concept of capabilities within music, Kate Cameron, a music teacher at a secondary school in Suffolk, explores a particular theoretical framework and its implications for education whilst Drew Cyster shares insights on the transition from becoming to being a ‘beginner’ secondary music teacher. Drawing on her recently completed MA in Music Education, Sinae Wu problematises the role of ‘world musics’ in music education.
The collection of six articles that follow is written by contributors from the contexts of England, Italy, New Zealand and Turkey. Two separate articles from New Zealand authors target deliberate agendas for change in secondary school-based research in New Zealand contexts. In an article on ‘Curriculum change in senior secondary school music in New Zealand’, Graham McPhail make a cogent case using a social realist critique of curriculum development ‘to ensure students have access to knowledge generally considered ‘powerful’ within the discipline’. Writing from a Heideggerian philosophical perspective, Christopher Naughton (New Zealand) discusses how teachers need to reconsider compositional activity in terms of process and product.
The next article is by Michele Biasutti (Italy) who invites us into the particularities of a case study of an Italian rock band while composing. We recognise the importance of broadening understanding of music specialisms through recognition of group composing strategies within a rock band. The context changes to England with Tim Robinson in an article which demonstrates the influence of informal learning as popular musicians on how they ‘subsequently teach’. The next article, by Serkan Perkmen, Beste Cevik and Mahir Alkan (Turkey) draws on fascinating empirical evidence from pre-service music teachers in Turkey on their vocational satisfaction upon becoming a music teacher.
The remaining contributions pick up on the concern with the need for time to tackle some of the tensions arising in music teaching and learning in one-to-one instrumental lessons and classroom-based teachers' action research. In a methodologically precise observational analysis of interpersonal behaviour in one-to-one instrumental lessons, Andrea Creech (England) shares valuable insights on styles of teaching and interpersonal interaction.
The final article, on ‘Paradigms in music teachers' action research’ by Tim Cain (England), a methodological contribution, powerfully argues for a proper ‘warranting’ in paradigms of educational research where classroom-based action research is accompanied by a transparency of methodological practice and that will also deliver development of theory.
Each contributor in this issue offers music educators, researchers and researcher-practitioners an understanding of the social and cultural interfaces and contexts in which teaching and learning music occur. Each article offers ways of attuning to and reflecting on the critical dimensions of music learning, teacher practice and curriculum change.
Finally, our editorship would not have been possible without our hardworking journal administrator, Alison Buckler, or our Editorial and International Advisory Boards. We conclude by welcoming the new editors, Regina Murphy and Martin Fautley who are well positioned and committed to leading forward on contribution of the British Journal of Music Education to research and practices in all aspects of music education.
