Recent studies in music education have investigated the ways in which different groups construe music and music education, and the ways in which these constructions are culturally bound.
A Cultural Psychology of Music Education explores the ways in which the discipline of cultural psychology can contribute to our understanding of how music development occurs in a range of cultural settings, and the subsequent implications of such understanding for the theory and practice of music education.

The book opens with an overview of the theoretical underpinnings of a cultural psychology of music education. Ten eminent music education scholars and researchers provide chapters that illustrate the application of this approach to key issues in music education; its theory and practice. These chapters provide opportunities to look more deeply into the practices of music education in order to understand the role culture plays in shaping children's musical learning and thinking, the learning and teaching of music teachers, the formal and informal institutions and structures within and through which learning and teaching occur, and, the intersection of these processes and structures in the development of musical thought and practice.

As the first major publication to explore a cultural psychology of music, this volume signals new directions for the study of music educational theory and practice, and the continuing transformation of the discipline. It draws together a number of music education researchers working within a cultural psychology framework establishing a basic reference in this developing field. A fascinating subject, this volume will be of interest to music educators, students and researchers of music education, and music psychologists.

About the Author:
Margaret S. Barrett is Professor and Head of the School of Music at The University of Queensland. Her research interests include the investigation of the role of music and the arts in human thought and activity, creativity and the pedagogy of creative thought and activity, aesthetic decision-making, young children's musical thinking and identity work in and through music, and, the meaning and value of the arts for young people. This research has been funded through grants from the Australian Research Council, the Australia Council for the Arts, and the British Academy, and has been published in the key journals and monographs of the discipline. Recent publications include Narrative inquiry in music education: troubling certainty (Springer 2009, with Sandra Stauffer).