The Aims of Music Education: A Preliminary Excursion

by Estelle R. Jorgensen


In his essay, "Aims in Music Education: A Conceptual Study," Constantijn Koopman criticizes the lack of attention to the aims of music education and the confusion of aims and methods in some music education writing. Leaving aside questions relating to the philosophical merits or otherwise of blurring boundaries between aims and methods or the historical defensibility of Koopman's claim that music educators have not attended sufficiently to their aims, I should like to take up his challenge to re-examine music educational aims. In our time, music educators face intractable challenges that merit a thorough going analysis of what music education should be about and for. What follows is a preliminary sketch of the conceptual terrain of what might count as aims for music education in our time.