Ethnomusicology and Music Education: Crossroads for knowing music, education, and culture

Abstract

The influences of ethnomusicological theory and method on scholarly and practical aspects of music education will be considered here, as well as the nature of music education's impact on the scholarship and teaching by ethnomusicologists. An examination of books, monographs, journal articles, instructional materials, and conference proceedings is underway to determine ideas and practices of overlapping interest. The writings of John Blacking, Charles Keil, Bruno Nettl, Tim Rice, and the Seegers and the Lomaxes are among those scholars whose work is relevant to music education scholarship, and issues of mutual interest are emerging: cross-cultural perspectives of music cognition, the mind-body and music-dance dualities, children's music culture, the pedagogy of world music, and research approaches to the study of music, musical thought, and musical behavior. Following a description of the actual influences by each field on the other, discussion will shift to the potential of the fields to learn from one another and to construct deeper understandings of music in society and its schools.