Jazz cats unmasked : revealing tales/tails of jazz education, musicians and teachers

New Zealand jazz education has come of age in the last 30 years.  The presence of a jazz curriculum in schools and universities has reflected students' desire to study this vernacular music and an adherence to international shifts in music education.  Yet, the Jazz genre commands the least market share in terms of record sales and concert attendance worldwide.  Now often described as America's true 'classical music', the cogent questions would seem to be 'why jazz', 'why now' and 'why here'?  This book explores these questions through the narrative of two New Zealand-born jazz educators who have made considerable contributions in post-secondary settigns.  It takes a critical look at their musical lives, and the influence that experience, context  and self-perception has ontheir teaching philosophies.  Stripping back the layers created by predominant binaries of musician/educator, glocal/global, history/genealogy, formal/informal and generalist/specialist, thsi book makes liberal use of a range of  arts-informed methodologies to unmask the main actors in jazz education adding to the ongoing broader international discussion of future directions of the art.

Children’s preferences for group musical activities in child care centres : a cross-cultural study

This paper reports on a cross-cultural research study of children’s preferences for group musical activities in child care centres. A total of 228 young children aged 4–5 years in seven child care centres in Hong Kong and in the Adelaide City of South Australia participated in the study. Both qualitative and quantitative data were collected via a mixed method approach. Result showed that dancing/moving was children’s most preferred musical activity in centres. Significant differences were found between children’s cultural contexts and their preferences for three activities: (1) Singing; (2) Listening; and (3) Playing instruments. Qualitative data further revealed the social phenomena of these two cultural contexts which influenced children’s preferences. Implications for the curriculum planning of early childhood music education arising from these findings are discussed.

Music, in early childhood education : teachers' levels of confidence and happiness

This paper presents the results of a study which investigates early childhood teachers’ levels of confi dence
and happiness in conducting music activities with young children. A sample of 284 in-service and preservice
early childhood teachers in Hong Kong participated in the study. Two new research instruments
entitled Teachers Music Confi dence Scale (TMCS) and Teachers Happiness Scale (THS) were designed for
data collection to answer the research questions. Results showed that early childhood teachers have the
highest and the lowest level of confi dence in singing and composing/improvising respectively. In-service
teachers showed higher confi dence and happiness levels in conducting several musical activities with
young children than pre-service teachers. There was also a statistically signifi cant relationship between
these two variables. Implications for engagement in music are discussed in the paper.

A study of children’s musical preference: A data mining approach

Musical preference has long been a research interest in the field of music education, and studies consistently confirm the importance of musical preference in one’s musical learning experiences. However, only a limited number of studies have been focussed on the field of early childhood education (e.g., Hargreaves, North, & Tarrant, 2006; Roulston, 2006). Further, among these limited early childhood studies, few of them discuss children’s musical preference in both the East and the West. There is very limited literature (e.g., Faulkner et al., 2010; Szymanska, 2012) which explores the data by using a data mining approach. This study aims to bridge the research gaps by examining children’s musical preference in Hong Kong and in South Australia by applying a data mining technique – Self Organising Maps (SOM), which is a clustering method that groups similar data objects together. The application of SOM is new in the field of early childhood education and also in the study of children’s musical preference. This paper specifically aims to expand a previous study (Yim & Ebbeck, 2009) by conducting deeper investigations into the existing datasets, for the purpose of uncovering insights that have not been identified through data mining approach.

Fostering cultural diversity in Australia: a case study of teaching, learning and assessing African musical arts

Australia is forged by ongoing migration welcoming a range of cultures, languages and ethnicities thus celebrating a diverse range of musical arts. In this multicultural society, music and dance may serve as a positive medium to transmit and promote social cohesion. I argue that the inclusion of innovative and immersive practice of African music in particular where authentic teaching and learning is facilitated may help foster understandings of culture in educational settings and the wider society. As a migrant forming part of the African Diaspora in Melbourne, I am strongly connected to my ancestral homeland (South Africa) when teaching African music to Australian tertiary students. Having gained ethical clearance to undertake the two research projects at Deakin University in Melbourne (Attitudes and perceptions of Arts Education Students: preparing culturally responsive teachers and Pre-service teacher attitudes and understandings of Music Education), I discuss tertiary students experience in relation to the teaching and learning of African music within higher education courses. Drawing on interview, questionnaire, observation notes, anecdotal feedback and narrative reflection, I employ Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis to analyse and code the data into themes. By offering a discussion of assessment and evaluation, I explore and invite international dialogue in regards to how best we can prepare, assess and evaluate our students to improve the quality of musical arts education.