Popular Music Education

A study conducted by researchers at the University of Tasmania observed a gender disparity among guitar students in Australian tertiary popular music programs. The study's data suggests approximately ninety percent of Australian tertiary popular music guitar students identify as male. Further research was conducted to investigate how this phenomena compares to communities located in Florida and if such disparities are anomalous or consistent with global trends in guitar Communities of Practice (CoPs). This paper presents both quantitative and qualitative data from the study conducted at the University of Tasmania. It also contains as further netnographic quantitative data collected from educators and online CoPs located in Florida, and global communities, to gain estimates of gender dispersion in these communities. The further data found a similar gender imbalance is present in online communities. However, the gender imbalance was found to be less pronounced in the private guitar tuition sector. Data collected from educators in the U.S.A, the U.K., and Australia revealed a 36.5% quota of female guitar students among the global sample. Data

Coaching a Popular Music Ensemble is a comprehensive guide for the music teacher striving to meet the changing needs of their students, the university music educator examining our current music education paradigm, and the band director trying to expand their school’s music program. Using his experiences as an educator and Memphis musician, Holley details the approaches and methods he used to create this one-of-a-kind, award-winning, student-driven music program. Some of the concepts described include the roles of the musicians in a popular music ensemble, explanations of a variety of rehearsal techniques, and how to go about creating a leaner-center rehearsal environment. Whether you believe the goal of music education is to produce more professional musicians or nurture more musical professionals, this book will help you and your students achieve that aspiration.

Edited by Gareth Dylan Smith
Foreword by John Kratus

Musicians are acknowledged to lead complex working lives, often characterised as portfolio careers. The higher music education research literature has tended to focus on preparing students for rich working lives and multiple identity realisations across potential roles. Extant literature does not address the area of work-life balance, which this paper begins to explore, as the authors seek to better understand potential challenges around combining music graduates’ multivariate ambitions, commitments and identities as musicians in the world. Rich data are presented, following interviews with professional musicians in London, UK, discussing health, portfolio careers and family. The authors conclude that more research is required to gain a deeper understanding of work-life balance for musicians, and that pedagogical approaches in higher music education could more effectively help students to prepare for their futures in a more holistic way.

The Bloomsbury Handbook of Popular Music Educationdraws together current thinking and practice on popular music education from empirical, ethnographic, sociological and philosophical perspectives. Through a series of unique chapters from authors working at the forefront of music education, this book explores the ways in which an international group of music educators each approach popular music education. Chapters discuss pedagogies from across the spectrum of formal to informal learning, including “outside” and “other” perspectives that provide insight into the myriad ways in which popular music education is developed and implemented. The book is organized into the following sections:
- Conceptualizing Popular Music Education
- Musical, Creative and Professional Development
- Originating Popular Music
- Popular Music Education in Schools
- Identity, Meaning and Value in Popular Music Education
- Formal Education, Creativities and Assessment
Contributions from academics, teachers, and practitioners make this an innovative and exciting volume for students, teachers, researchers and professors in popular music studies and music education.

Gender at stake – a study of secondary school students’ ‘musicking’
This doctoral thesis is an investigation of gender constructions in Norwegian secondary school music education. With the high influence of popular music and band instrumentation in the classroom, the study questions how students imitate gender figures from popular music and how they use music to perform gender and to negotiate between different gender discourses in music cultures, in school and in the society surrounding them.
The research question is twofold. Firstly: How is gender constructed in students’ ‘musicking’ in Norwegian secondary school, in how they articulate their ‘musicking’ and how the music teacher facilitates ‘musicking’?
Secondly: What implications can such gender constructions have for the production of knowledge in the discipline of music?
The neologism ‘musicking’ is borrowed from the musicologist Christopher Small. The concept includes both musical performance, listening to music, arranging a concert, selling tickets, and so on. In other words Small operates with a very broad cultural understanding of musical activities. Though the concept of ‘musicking’ is central in the dissertation, this is not a musicological study, but rather a music pedagogical study that views music education as a discursive practise. This theoretical approach is especially inspired by the latest texts by Michel Foucault on discourse, power and knowledge. The Foucauldian understanding of the social world as discursive practices and orders is grounded in a social constructionist science theoretical paradigm. By using the concept gender constructions, this theoretical approach to gender and musical practice is indicated. It has therefore been important to collect statements from the field of music education in Norwegian secondary school and to identify constructions of gender in relation to music.
To Foucault, statements are both practical and verbal. The data generated from an ethnographic inspired perspective therefore consists of both classroom observations of music activities and interviews with students and their music teacher. The fieldwork took place in two urban lower secondary schools in one of the larger cities of Norway in four different music teaching practices. Beside the observations and interviews teaching material that has been used in the field observed, such as textbooks, internet pages, song repertoire and curriculums (national and local) provide supplementary data.
The main finding of the study is that band instrumentation has a huge impact on the music educational practices I have been visiting. The hegemonic status of band playing is connected to gender. Both verbally and practically band playing and rock music are constructed as masculine activities. Even though the band instruments are very popular both among boys and girls, it is mainly boys that play in the band when they are given the opportunity to choose. Girls more frequently choose to sing, Dance or play pop ballades on the acoustic guitar or the piano, even though they find the elguitar or the drums “cool” and fun to play. Such paradoxes between speech and action indicate that students in secondary school are negotiating between different gender discourses. On one hand they are growing up with politics of gender emphasising equality between boys and girls. Oppositional gender-stereotypes from popular culture have a huge impact on the teenagers. This conflict can be recognized in the students’ action and speech.
A second finding is that gender is at stake when hip-hop music is brought into the classroom. It seems to be a clear view among students in the study that you have to be male to do rapping in an authentic way. Still, my observations show that girls are the most active rappers when hip-hop music is used in two of the practices I visited. Girls also show a huge interest and competence in hip-hop dancing, not as break-dance, but as a sort of choreographed line dance. The dominant interest of band playing among the boys in the study is also prevalent when hip-hop is the genre. To hide behind an instrument seems to be a comfortable place for boys to be. How students perform hiphop in the classroom show how they negotiate between the gender discourses in hiphop and other gender discourses that strongly govern their action. The teacher’s conditioning position in the negotiation is also analyzed.
To understand why gender is constructed the ways found in the data, I draw on Judith Butler’s theory about gender performativity. According to Butler we imitate already existing gender figures in our culture to make sense of ourselves and others. In the data pupils mostly take their imitations from artists performing stereotyped gender figures in rock, pop and hip hop. In my analysis I relate this to the power relations governing the students’ gender performativity.The aim of the study has been to highlight the taken-for-granted gender relations in music education, and to see how they influence learning and formation processes. In the last chapter I therefore discuss the findings in relation to the knowledge Production in the music subject. What is made possible and what is excluded from the subject? Informal learning strategies from popular music have become important in Music education. I question the gendered effects of such learning strategies and also the teachers’ role in informal learning. The findings also contribute to the discussion of a “feminized school”. The study shows that the music subject offers certain masculinities from rock and hip-hop that appeal to boys. In that sense, the music subject stands counter to the so called “feminized school”. I also discuss potential knowledge production of the findings in relation to aesthetic formation, and ask if music education in secondary school contributes to a stereotype gendered aesthetic formation instead of opening up for a larger variety of gender performativity.

This article explores the potential role of popular music studies when integrated into popular music practice programmes in higher education, and proposes that purely theoretical popular music studies could inform creative practice in the education of popular music practitioners. In bringing popular music studies and popular music practice together under the banner of popular music education, it is proposed that popular music practice educators should consider the study of popular music from a sociocultural perspective as well as a practical one. The argument is informed by two field reports that map higher education in popular music in the United Kingdom and in Australia, respectively, supported by responses of students to the integration of popular music studies into an Australian popular music practice programme. The findings show that students of popular music practice benefit-ted from the inclusion of popular music studies into their curriculum through the development of critical listening skills and songwriting ability, expansion of a range of vocational skills and a stronger sense of purpose within the music industry.

This article is based on the lived experiences of the authors engaging with modern band and the organization Little Kids Rock (LKR). We approach this research as critical storytelling to highlight the importance of critique of music curriculum and pedagogy. We identify moments of cognitive dissonance we experienced with LKR and modern band and unpack them through theory. Data included review of LKR materials, journals, text-messages, reflective writing, and discussion around participation in LKR-sponsored events. We share our critical story through text messages and narration, through which we note issues such as neoliberalism and indoctrination; language mis(use) through educational buzzwords; identity reformation; and the manner in which teachers feel a need to cling to methodolatry or act as change agents. We illustrate the central role critique plays in music teaching discourses and practices to guide music teachers to accept vigilance of curricular resources and pedagogical approaches presented to them.

Music education takes place in socio-political systems that institutionalise cultural hegemony and social stratication through perpetuating symbolically violent practices and unconscious assumptions regarding the purpose of music and music education in society. Education systems serve to perpetuate class divisions and structures, excluding the music and aspirations of many people through the imposition of an increasingly neoliberal ideology. This article discusses the pedagogical approaches of Musical Futures and Little Kids Rock, and their orientations to democratising learning in the school music classroom through incorporation of practices and perspectives in making and learning popular music, focussed around learner-led teaching and learning.

From an autoethnographic perspective as a performer, educator and scholar, I consider constructions and presentations of success, what it means to be a popular musician in the 21st century, and how these issues are dealt with in the higher popular music performance education institution where I work. This position paper explores success as construed in music education and popular music studies in relation to changing contexts and practices in popular music. While popular music has a growing presence in music education and the literature of the field, institutions, scholarly publications, and mainstream media infrequently and inadequately address trends in popular music practice such as the widespread adoption of portfolio careers. Under- and mis-representation of popular music’s canon and practices, and ideas of success thus threaten to under-value the majority of popular music and popular musicians, a problem that should be addressed in higher popular music performance education and across the music education profession. Drawing also on literature from music business and economics, I call music educators to challenge traditional approaches and assumptions, engaging critically with the present in order to prepare for the future.

With the intent of understanding the music teacher’s experience in informal music pedagogy, the purpose of this study was to explore the processes, perceptions, and practices of music teachers as they participated in a professional development community (PDC) to discuss and implement informal music learning practices. This study also investigated the nature of the teachers’ participation within the PDC. While many studies have explored the characteristics and processes of students engaged in informal music learning, little research has focused specifically on the experience of music teachers who may have little or no experience with informal music learning practices. There is a need for research that explores how music teachers respond to exploring and implementing informal music pedagogy with their students and the role that a professional development community with other music teachers can play in this process.
This study was an instrumental case study using ethnographic techniques. In this study, the case was a professional development group (PDC) of four elementary general and choral music teachers who read research articles about, discussed, and implemented informal music learning. Data forms included video-recordings of PDC meetings, audio-recordings of semi- structured individual interviews, observations of music classes, comments from a private Facebook group, and collected artifacts. Data were coded and analyzed for emerging themes and trustworthiness was ensured through member checks, peer review, and data triangulation.
Themes emerged in four main areas: (1) “Applications and Perspectives,” (2) “Pedagogical Practices Supporting Informal Music Learning,” (3) “New Windows into Students’ Musicianship,” and (4) “The Professional Development Community.” The participants developed a variety of applications of informal music learning activities that they implemented in their classrooms, and they began to value the engagement, motivation, and independent musicianship that they saw blossoming in students, although they were concerned about the activities’ logistics and the perceptions of others. They employed several pedagogical strategies in implementing informal music learning activities; these strategies fell along a continuum ranging from having more teacher control to more student freedom. The teachers recognized the change in their practice and appreciated how their classrooms were becoming more democratic. As they stepped back to observe students’ “messy” processes, they valued the new windows they gained into students’ musicianship, including the development of unexpected student performers and leaders. Finally, in the PDC, the teachers developed a collaborative community, felt validated and encouraged by reading research articles, and enjoyed having autonomy in their professional development experience.
Based on the results, I recommended that informal music learning may serve as an approach for music teachers to support independent musicianship and develop a more democratic classroom, but they need support and validation when implementing these concepts. Music teacher education should continue to introduce informal music learning to undergraduates and find ways to help practicing music teachers explore these ideas, and PDCs may serve as a way for music teachers to have autonomy in their professional development, leading to more effective and long-lasting teaching change. Ideas for future research are also discussed.

Contemporary approaches to working with disabled persons/persons with disabilities (DP/PwDs) focus on mainstreaming, 1 assistive/adaptive technology, 2 differentiated instruction, 3 universal design, 4 working with support personnel 5 and special educational laws/policies. 6 While powerful in shaping equitable practices, these approaches to inclusion presume that a) DP/PwDs, generally, long to be included into settings built for and primarily by nondisabled persons/typical learners and that b) settings and practices for and by nondisabled persons are neutral, regular and/or the norm. Yet, DP/PwDs who are artists, musicians, poets, community leaders and scholars call for practices and settings built with them from the ground up that value the different approaches to music learning, experiencing music and music-making.

The article aims to highlight the dependencies and consequences that can be learned from the development of popular music education in Great Britain. The primary goal of this study is to understand the framework of popular music education and its history in Britain, as well as its limitations, and through that, ideally, the meaning of such phenomenon. Discussion will focus on issues that have impacted and still continue to influence popular music education and its framework in Great Britain, such as: the acceptance of popular music into academia, the methodology and approaches, historical framework and a brief overview of university courses offered in Britain at the moment, the problems definition, problems of studying popular music, issues of nomenclature, and future prospects concerning the efficiency and quality of preparation of both industry professionals and academic researchers of popular music. In conclusion this article will present a framework for a modern well-integrated and interdisciplinary popular music studies curriculum approach.

Popular music education is becoming firmly established as an academic field, in the UK and internationally. In order to help ensure that scholarship and practice within the field develop in reflexive and ethical ways appropriate to particular traditions, musics, people and institutional contexts, the authors advocate a discursive and iterative approach to the question of what it means to be “authentic” across higher popular music education (HPME). With reference to current research, policy and industry documentation, the authors present a discussion framed by theories concerning authenticity in the domains of the vocational and academic, employability, music, gender, and pedagogy. The authors conclude that institutions and individuals working in higher popular music education have a responsibility to place the issue of authenticity at the center of pedagogy, curriculum design, institutional strategy and disciplinary knowledge share, in order for the field to develop in ways that are beneficial to all involved.

Keywords: Popular music, Education, Employability, Gender, Pedagogy, Curriculum, Epistemology

The process by which this report was created stems from my passion for bringing current music to secondary music education in innovative and groundbreaking ways. From a methodology point of view, while we seek approaches to balance playing-by-ear and reading music, we are developing a flexible system to work for the needs and goals of the teachers and the students. One thing we encourage is learning styles originally as they were recorded and presented through PlayTheGroove's recording of selected songs. The styles of music present today speaks to the cultural diversity of the what is found in the classroom as well as in the world we live. It's another way we can connect positively with people of other nationalities as well as connect with out classmates better because of shared musical interests and experiences. We also encourage self-interpretations of the song as a way to emphasize creativity, reflective thinking, and as a way of incorporating personal interests and musical learning into a personalized experience – for the individual and group at large.

First, a general overview of the German institutional music teaching system is given, and pedagogical history and recent developments are described. After that the special situation and needs of higher education are illustrated. The article proposes alternating phases of analysis and reproduction of popular music as a reasonable way to introduce new students to their first year of studies. Using the hermeneutical helix as one basic idea, and the idea of style copies as a second, it can be shown that this works quite well. Students trained within such a framework are highly motivated, use both informal and formal learning strategies, and reflect on the processes, their groups, and their personal development. The argument is supported by data derived from a five-year study of written material.

YouTube has become the second most visited website in the world (Alexa 2018), with more adolescents using YouTube to listen to music than any other source (Nielsen 2012). It is imperative that educators understand how the medium influences music creation, listening and learning. By examining the creative processes of YouTube musicians and applying these practices to my classroom, I have developed instructional projects for students, based on my research participants’ experiences, and have found that some students find the practices to be intuitive. Music video projects allow those students the opportunity to fine-tune their technological tendencies, and provide opportunities for those who may not instinctively gravitate toward music video creation, to learn important skills; skills that relate to recording, editing, producing and publishing digital music, not to mention considering the visual representation adds to the audience’s experience of music video performance..

En los últimos años las músicas populares urbanas han ido consolidando su presencia en el ámbito académico a través de su inclusión tanto en los planes de estudio de diversas titulaciones de educación superior como en los foros de discusión e investigación de diversas áreas de conocimiento. En este artículo revisamos la evolución internacional de un proceso que cuenta con medio siglo de historia, al tiempo que abordamos algunos de los debates y de los retos que supone la consolidación y normalización de este campo de estudio en la educación musical.

Popular music education can ease or worsen the waste problem. Waste refers to things with "no value," and the Global North produces a lot of waste. Not limited to material, waste can be seen as a dominant metaphor in rock music. The guiding question for this essay is, what opportunity does rock music present for cultivating eco-literacy through music? Before we can find solutions though, we need to recognize rock's distinctive ecological challenges. Popular music is both implicated in the challenge of waste, and can help music educators explore opportunities for resistance. In music education, qualitative research suggests instrument-making increases knowledge, interest, creativity, and builds attachment to an instrument, in addition to reducing material waste. In our field's move to incorporate popular musics, instrument-making can be a part of eco-literate music pedagogy.

When asked about my first trip to Havana, Cuba, I’m often at a loss for words. How do I describe a trip which, quite literally, changed not only how I engage my students, but the foundation of how I teach? How do I elevate the conversation past questions of the embargo, the crumbling infrastructure, and la Revolución to help others better understand the Cuban people and their incredibly rich, diverse culture? In this presentation I'll discuss the methods employed within the Cuban music education system and pose how we might be able to better our pedagogy by taking cues from our Cuban peers.

Songs are the heart, soul and backbone of the music industry and therefore are at the heart of popular music education. Seemingly, anyone including young children and the musically untrained adult can create songs with good results, often spontaneously and in moments. It should, therefore, be a relatively straightforward matter to teach and to assess songwriting.
Higher education courses however, often struggle with the concept of songwriting as distinct from composition. There is little consensus as to what a song is, for example a musical product in a commercial marketplace, a track with or without words in a popular style, or a specific emotional communication combining words and music. Separating out songwriting from composition, from production and arranging, dealing with the specifics of lyric writing and also with the complexities of co-writing on assessed programmes are all major challenges when designing and delivering songwriting modules
Assessing songwriting is also highly controversial due to the high degree of subjectivity involved, the lack of any particular technical ability required to write songs, and the relationship of songs to an ephemeral market. For example, would the three chord and 16 word (mostly monosyllabic) ‘Love me do’ be acceptable on any level of a degree programme? Successful songwriting can be relatively simple, but it is rarely easy, and even with the simplest songs, while there may be little to teach, there is much to learn.
The research collates information on the aims, objectives, learning outcomes, schemes of delivery, assessment, resources and feedback methods in songwriting modules at various levels on key HE music programmes. This report maps what, and how, songwriting is taught and assessed on selected and key HE music programmes. It provides a reference point and a benchmark for the design and delivery of songwriting modules in H.E.

The purpose of this research is to analyze and present popular music education in 2006 and 2018 bachelor degree curriculums of Music Teacher Training Departments (MTTD) in Turkey. The research model is a case study which is one of the qualitative research models. The sources of this research are from course syllabuses of YÖK (Council of Higher Education of Turkey), course syllabuses of MTTD and instructors’ reviews in Turkey. The data have been collected by use of document analysis and interview method. Courses which included popular music education in 2006 and 2018 bachelor degree curriculums of MTTD are analyzed seperately as per their duration and content. The content has been analyzed by use of descriptive analysis. Analysis categories are “Popular Music as Consept and Content”, “Popular Music Genres”, “Popular Music Industry and Technology”, “Harmony of Popular Music”, “Popular Music Practises”, “ Importance of Popular Music in Music Education”. As a result similarities and differences between 2006 and 2018 bachelor degree curriculums of Music Teacher Training Departments (MTTD) in Turkey are determined.

The bass player is the foundation of any band. The relationship between bass and drums not only establishes the groove, but sets the tone for the band as a whole. If you have a solid rhythm section the possibilities are endless! This workshop will discuss everything from the bottom basics of technique, proper tone, setup, and stylistic differences that will help give you the confidence to support your developing bassist.

Public education in the United States is often woefully under-funded, especially in the arts, despite a federal mandate to provide music education for all. Where music programs exist in US schools, they tend to focus on teacher-directed large ensembles that afford students little agency or creative opportunity, playing music that alienates a majority of young people. Faced with the volume of evidence pointing to the benefits of including music in a well-rounded education, philanthropy-funded nonprofit companies such as Little Kids Rock step in to fill the vacuum in state provision. This paper is a descriptive, intrinsic case study that describes how Little Kids Rock provides culturally relevant music making experiences for young people in schools, through a learning approach called music as a second language and alternative music classes termed modern band. Little Kids Rock builds a nationwide community of innovative music pedagogues by training teachers, donating musical instruments and sharing original curricular resources.  This paper includes examples of two modern band teachers – one working in a rock band context, and the other a hip hop facilitator.  The work of these and other teachers is ever more urgent in an era in which the U.S. perpetuates an intense neoliberal capitalism that oppresses and marginalizes vast numbers of its own people. Little Kids Rock aims to foster artistic citizenship wherein music makers recognize social and emancipatory responsibilities with the aim of transforming lives for the better.

This article explores the tensions between 'doing gender' and 'doing popular music' within the context of informal popular music learning for one group of girls of age 12-14 in a Southwestern Ontario elementary school. Using the transposition of Bakhtin's concepts of monoglossia and heteroglossia to the performance of gender, the authors explore how members of Group G, an all-girl popular music band, perform heteroglossic gender behaviours, even while maintaining and presenting an outwardly monoglossic performance of gender in other respects. Furthermore, we explore how aspects of the girls' behaviours vacillated between traditional gendered discourses and traditional discourses of popular music. Finally, findings suggest that the girls of Group G may not have been deliberately transgressive in their performances of gender but that they may have produced heteroglossic gender performances as part of a process of exploring their own identities. We conclude by considering the informal popular music classroom as a space that may be conducive or constricting towards the possibilities of 1. Ontario Elementary schools often serve Junior Kindergarten-Grade 8 (ages 4-14). 2. All band, participant and school names are pseudonyms.

Despite decades of discussion, debate, and incremental gains, acceptance of popular music education in collegiate institutions is still in its inception. Higher education (and indeed, education in general) in the United States is rife with pervasive inequality and injustice, excluding large numbers of potential students on the basis of race, class, income, and cultural orientation. If music education is to continue and thrive in the 21st century and beyond, widespread curricular changes are needed in preservice music teacher education to move toward a model that is inclusive, equitable, diverse, and culturally responsive. The purpose of this paper is to illuminate several music programs across the United States as samples of the numerous collegiate institutions wrestling with curricular change. Though differing in size, scope, and population, these programs have one thing in common: faculty with a desire to enact change. Through the examples illustrated here, it is our hope that others wishing to initiate change may have some possible paths from which to choose on their journey toward making music education more accessible for all.

Keywords: Popular music education, inequality, culturally responsive, accessibility

The purpose of this study was to investigate the meaningfulness of music education to middle school students in general music classrooms. A survey instrument was created by gathering students' responses to an open-ended question regarding the general music (non-performance) class in which they were enrolled. After pilot testing, the Music Meaning Survey (MMS) was administered to general music students in grades 6 through 8 (N = 762) from nine middle schools across 8 states. The results of the MMS were factor analyzed using principal components analysis and a varimax rotation.
According to the MMS, subjects did ascribe meaning to music education. The meaning derived from music education could be assimilated into four categories: Vocational (career-oriented outcomes), Academic (music theory and history), Belongingness (social interactions between students), and Agency (self-esteem, motivation, and emotional development). The primary conclusion that can be drawn from this study is that for middle school general music students, music class can be a meaningful and multifaceted experience.

https://www.press.uillinois.edu/journals/bcrme.html

Commercial/popular music education has grown from the need to not only teach our students music, but to instill in them life skills such as responsibility, professionalism, teamwork, attention to detail, and organization, among others. Through the consumption, rehearsal, study, and performance of multiple genres, the history surrounding the various styles, and the study of standard business practices, we endeavor to develop these skills in our students while, at the same time, introducing them to a variety of musical genres including R&B, soul, jazz, Afro-Cuban, pop, folk, and bluegrass, among others. This presentation is based on my 25 years of experience as a professional music and my role as the Producer for the Commercial Music Program at the Kent Denver School in Colorado.

Call for Papers

Journal of Popular Music Education
Special issue on Hip-hop

Hip-hop is a highly marketized, global cultural phenomenon, also experienced and created in local, regional underground scenes. It is individual, tribal, subcultural, marginal and mainstream. Hip-hip is cliché and iconoclast, rebellion and conformity. It is characterized by aspirations to individual wealth, as well as embodying and embracing movements for democracy and emancipation. It is about lyrics and beats, ‘brain and booty’, defamation, reclamation, provocation, subjugation and emancipation. It is masculine, homophobic, misogynistic and sexualized. It objectifies, reifies and empowers. The music is frequently highly dependent on technology, yet requires nothing but a human beat-box and articulate speech to succeed. It is music of the streets and the studio. Hip-hop is truly a world music.

Education in, through and about hip-hop is increasingly embedded in courses in school and higher education on literature, music history, performance, production and appreciation. It is also frequently excluded from ‘popular music education’ practice and discourse. Hip-hop can prove a relevant and powerful means of engaging, teaching and inspiring students at all levels. Like all musics, it is politically charged, and thus can also be difficult and divisive (Kruse 2016; Snell and Söderman 2014). Educators, educational institutions and learners – within and without formal teaching environments – can learn from studying and incorporating elements of hip-hop culture (Söderman and Sernhede 2015). With hip-hop musicians, dancers and visual artists embracing change faster than teachers and curricula can imagine relevant pedagogical approaches, new opportunities for education constantly emerge. This special issue of JPME invites colleagues to submit papers on topics including, but not limited to:
• Interplay and interdependence of elements of hip-hop culture (graffiti, break dancing, emceeing, DJ-ing, fashion);
• Hip-hop as a global and globalized, local phenomenon;
• Hip-hop and marginalization;
• Commercial hip-hop and popular culture;
• Hip-hop as radical / emancipatory praxis and process;
• Hip-hop and/as appropriation;
• Hip-hop and/as language;
• Authenticity and hip-hop;
• Pedagogy, hip-hop and activism;
• Dangers of hip-hop education;
• Music of the oppressed and marginalized;
• Hip-hop, gender, homophobia and misogyny;
• Music, technology and the hip-hop classroom;
• Negotiating performance, (social) media and intellectual property in hip-hop performance;
• Identity in hip-hop performance and production.
Please email manuscripts of between 6,000 and 8,000 words (double-spaced, Times New Roman, font size 12) for the attention of editors Gareth Dylan Smith and Bryan Powell to jpmejournal@gmail.com by 1 June 2017.