A response to a book by David J. Elliott entitled Music Matters: A New Philosophy of Music Education (Oxford, 1995) presented at the University of Maryland, College Park in 1997. The response focuses on aspects of creativity as it relates to music teaching and learning, including the importance of task type and difficulty, as well as of cultural context. The response ends with a story about Ruby, the artistic painting elephant who resided at the Phoenix Zoo and was, at the time, "the biggest artist in the Southwest."

An investigation of musical aptitude and attitudes toward teaching among pre-service music teachers in Turkey (n = 42) and the United States (n = 35). Multivariate analysis revealed statistically significant differences by nationality in favor of the Turkish subjects on the tonal, rhythm, and total tests on the Advanced Measures of Music Audiation (AMMA) by Edwin Gordon. There were no significant differences by sex or for the interaction of nationality and sex. There were negative correlations between AMMA scores and scores on the Minnesota Teacher Attitude Inventory, which means that subjects with high music aptitude scores tended to hold attitudes that do not predict effective teaching behaviors. There were also significant differences by nationality on a questionnaire about attitudes toward various music instructional activities in schools.

An overview of music education research in the United States, divided into historical, philosophical, and empirical research modes and topics. Included are discussions of the major topic areas investigated, publication venues, and the relative size of each enterprise. Research efforts are limited to some extent by lack of agreed-upon goals for music education, and there has been relatively few attempts to develop sociological research in music education. Also needed are more cross-cultural, international efforts in music education, starting with sharing results.

An overview of music education research in the United States, divided into historical, philosophical, and empirical research modes and topics. Included are discussions of the major topic areas investigated, publication venues, and the relative size of each enterprise. Research efforts are limited to some extent by lack of agreed-upon goals for music education, and there has been relatively few attempts to develop sociological research in music education. Also needed are more cross-cultural, international efforts in music education, starting with sharing results.

The purpose of this study was to examine relationships between school music participation and a composite measure of academic achievement in American schools. The authors examined the first (baseline) year of a longitudinal study commissioned by the National Center for Education Statistics, conducted in 1988 (NELS:88/94 Data Analysis system, with Additional Systems for High School and Beyond and the National Longitudinal Study of 1972, NCES, 1996). The data set contains information on more than 23,000 American middle school students, and is thought to be representative of the national as a whole.

Several previous researchers employing causal modeling techniques have found relationships between extracurricular activities and education attainment as measured by standardized academic achievement tests. In music, students with school band and orchestra experience make significantly higher grades in high school mathematics, English, and social science than do non-performing students, and instrumental music instruction seems to improve scores on tests of spatial-temporal ability, which is thought to correlate with ability in mathematics.

The present study confirmed previous findings on relationships among music participation and academic achievement. Significantly more students in school music choral or instrumental groups ranked above the 50th percentile in academic grades than did other students (p < .05). For instrumental students, these results held true for all four socioeconomic quartiles, for both boys and girls, and for all races/ethnicities. For choral students, only students in the third and fourth quartiles and Caucasian students ranked significantly higher than other students.