Special Needs, Community Music, and Adult Learning ― An Oxford Handbook of Music Education

Special Needs, Community Music, and Adult Learning is one of five paperback books derived from the foundational two-volume Oxford Handbook of Music Education. Designed for music teachers, students, and scholars of music education, as well as educational administrators and policy makers, this fourth book in the set focuses on issues and topics that help to broaden conceptions of music and musical involvement, while recognizing that development occurs through many forms.

The first section addresses music education for those with special abilities and special needs; authors explore many of the pertinent issues that can promote or hinder learners who share characteristics, and delve deep into what it means to be musical. The second section of the volume addresses music as a shared, community experience, and the diverse and constantly evolving international practice of community music. The chapters in the third section provide evidence that the process of music education exists as a lifelong continuum that encompasses informal, formal, and non-formal methods alike. The authors encourage music educators to think in terms of a music learning society, where adult education is not peripheral to the priority of other age groups, but is instead fully integral to a vision for the good of society. By developing sound pedagogical approaches that are tailored to take account of all learners, the volume endeavors to move from making individual adaptations towards designing sensitive 'universal' solutions.


Contributors
Carlos R. Abril, Mary Adamek, Kenneth S. Aigen, Chelcy Bowles, Mary L. Cohen, William M. Dabback, Alice-Ann Darrow, John Drummond, Cochavit Elefant, David J. Elliott, Lee Higgins, Valentina Iadeluca, Judith A. Jellison, Janet L. Jensen, Patrick M. Jones, Jody L. Kerchner, Thomas W. Langston, Andreas C. Lehmann, Katrina McFerran, Gary E. McPherson, David Myers, Adam Ockelford, Helen Phelan, Andrea Sangiorgio, Laya H. Silber, Marissa Silverman, Rineke Smilde, David S. Smith, Kari K. Veblen, Janice Waldron, Graham F. Welch

Gary E. McPherson studied music education at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, before completing a master of music education at Indiana University, a doctorate of philosophy at the University of Sydney, and a Licentiate and Fellowship in trumpet performance through Trinity College, London. He is the Ormond Professor and Director of the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music at the University of Melbourne, and has served as National President of the Australian Society for Music Education and President of the International Society for Music Education. His research interests are broad and his approach interdisciplinary. His most important research examines the acquisition and development of musical competence, and motivation to engage and participate in music from novice to expert levels. With a particular interest in the acquisition of visual, aural and creative performance skills he has attempted to understand more precisely how music students become sufficiently motivated and self-regulated to achieve at the highest level.


Graham F. Welch holds the University College London (UCL) Institute of Education Established Chair of Music Education. He is elected Chair of the internationally based Society for Education, Music and Psychology Research (SEMPRE), a former President of the International Society for Music Education (ISME), and past co-chair of the Research Commission of ISME. Current Visiting Professorships include the Universities of Queensland (Australia), Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and Liverpool (UK). He is an ex-member of the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council's (AHRC) Review College for music and has been a specialist consultant for Government departments and agencies in the UK, Italy, Sweden, USA, Ukraine, UAE, South Africa and Argentina. Publications number over three hundred and fifty and embrace musical development and music education, teacher education, the psychology of music, singing and voice science, and music in special education and disability. Publications are in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Swedish, Greek, Japanese and Chinese.