Mpping Music Education Research in the USA: A Response to the UK

The research enterprise in the United States is a vast one, with at least 15 music education and two music therapy research journals. This is in addition to the multitude of papers presented at a myriad of state, regional and national conferences, including the hundreds of papers presented at the biannual meetings of the Music Educators National Conference (MENC): National Association for Music Education. Much of the USA music education research occurs in situ, such as general music classrooms and secondary ensemble rehearsals, and examines the impact of different aspects of teaching strategies on students’ attentiveness, attitudes and achievement, as well as studying informal learning. While common in the USA, it is unusual to see work in the UK that focuses on ensemble conducting or music classroom or ensemble management. Also, work in the USA can be classified under the titles used by the Special Research Interest Groups of MENC: Affective Response, Adult and Community Music Education, Creativity, Early Childhood, Gender Research in Music Education, History, Instructional Strategies, Learning and Development, Measurement and Evaluation, Perception and Cognition, Philosophy, and Social Sciences. Of late, there has been an increased interest in multicultural issues in research as well. There is a deficit of published philosophical inquiry, however.