Music education in the United States is in the throes of critical public re-evaluation which appears to have been brought in primarily by two concurrent forces, both of which are still strongly affecting our lives today. During the past five years, large increases in government and private monies have forced public and private educational systems across the country to make major adjustments in the curriculum; from elementary grades to master's degrees, decisions have had to be made as to which subjects will be offered to students and which will not. In addition, the slow and steady deification of technology and its myriad offspring has effected a subtle yet very sure excommunication of the arts from mainstream society. In this article Dr Meadows draws attention to the threats posed by educational budgetary cutbacks, and argues the case for continuing recognition of music's importance in the school curriculum.

An accountable program of elementary classroom music must have an educational function. In other words, it must perform an educational service. This involves more than the singing of songs or the attempt to hold the interest of children with ‘fun’ activities.

The educational assumption behind most elementary classroom music programs is that the children through their musical experiences in the classroom will somehow learn to ‘appreciate’ music. The term ‘appreciate’, however, is vague and means different things to different people. Does it mean that children will learn to love the music of the masters by listening to great music on recordings and being told stories about the meaning of the music and the lives of composers? Does appreciating music mean identifying instruments and labeling the form? Does it mean identifying the composer and the period of the music from hearing it? Does it mean naming a certain number of composers and a certain number of the works of each? Does it have anything to do with preference for and liking of the music of the masters?

This discussion develops a perspective on the current relationship between music and the school curriculum in North America. The gap between rhetorical support for music education and the reality of educational and societal commitments is traced to fundamental philosophical dilemmas facing education in particular, and society in general. Several ‘new keys’ are offered for the future of music education including a radical proposal for ‘deschooling’ music education and a practical guide for ‘networking’ excellent programmes.

A multicultural imperative has emerged in American educational philosophy and practices of the last decade. Never before has there been such an emphasis on multicultural understanding in the school curriculum. The changing philosophy of education as expressed in the literature suggests that the melting-pot theory is outdated; instead, the various ethnic groups present a rich tapestry of American national culture while maintaining their distinct identity. In this article Dr Shehan examines the relationship between these developing educational attitudes and the music teacher's task in helping to expand students' musical understanding and taste.

A challenge was issued, in the first International Journal of Music Education, to find ways to achieve a principle of music education which progressive music educators and traditional African music education have in common:‘an all-round development of the child’. This paper takes up this challenge by exploring the idea that creativity is an essential part of western education. Even though this idea receives the unprecedented support of widely respected western educators of the 20th century and of the Tanglewood Symposium, ‘…those with creative potential are neglected, if not discriminated against, at all levels in American education’ (MacKinnon, 1978, p. 169.) To ascertain why this is so, socio-economic studies are presented which reveal how closely linked the issue of creativity in education is to issues which are beyond the realm of music education or of education in general. The suggestion is that these connections adversely effect the all-round development of the child.

During the past several years Dr Harvey has presented seminars on ‘Music and the Brain’ throughout the United States and Canada. In the course of a weekend seminar in 1985 he was, once again, particularly impressed with the power of music to affect individuals in many different ways; musical performances (live and taped) evoked responses as diverse as excitement, tears, loneliness, increases in pulse rate, changes in breathing rate, spontaneous body movement, memory recall and imagery experiences. To understand just how the brain produces both biophysical and psychological responses to music requires a basic understanding of the human brain, the areas of the human personality affected through brain processes, and an awareness of the interactions of musical elements affecting us. In this article Dr Harvey outlines some of the directions of recent research.

Children, who otherwise would not have had music teachers, experienced music though ‘Project Experience’, a co-operative music education laboratory designed by the University of New Mexico Department of Music and the Albuquerque, New Mexico, Public School District. ‘Project Experience’ provided university music students with the opportunity to teach music to children prior to student teaching practice; raised the consciousness of parents, teachers, and students about the importance of music in the schools; and assisted in easing the pinch upon a school district forced to tighten its financial belt.

Music education at present suffers from a dilemma that few in the field seem to realise or appreciate. To put it in perhaps overly simple terms, the issue involves whether the music teacher should teach music or concepts! In this day of growing interest in cognitive psychology, few would deny any longer the involvement and relevance of concepts and conception in any form of musical functioning. But the writers of methods texts and materials, and theorists of teaching alike, often give evidence of being woefully confused about the process of conception, the nature of its ‘products’ and therefore of the precise involvement of concepts in musical functioning.

By developing techniques for describing the varieties of behaviours and experiences in a college-level Dalcroze Eurhythmics class and by using those techniques to record practices in two semesters of Eurhythmies classes, this study addressed both the need in the arts for systematic procedures for documenting the nature of arts experiences and the need to codify features in a Dalcroze Eurhythmics class.

The findings yield a description of regular practices in one particular classroom which may provide a base for future research. The findings also suggest that description of surf ace phenomena does not capture all that we need to know about the instruction process, and it may not yield an understanding of what occurs in a Eurhythmies class.