As music educators are faced with an increasing number of students with various exceptionalities, their ability to differentiate instruction for those with special needs becomes paramount. The purpose of this survey was to investigate how music teacher preparation programs addressed the topic of differentiation for exceptional populations at the undergraduate level. Specifically, the survey asked if NASMaccredited universities that granted doctoral or master’s degrees in music education (a) required a course, (b) offered a course, or (c) in some other significant way systematically addressed the topic of teaching music to special populations. A link to a brief online survey was e-mailed to representatives of 212 institutions. Of 109 respondents, 29.6% required a course in teaching music to special populations, 38.9% indicated that this type of course was available, and 59.8% reported purposefully integrating the teaching of exceptional populations throughout their coursework. Respondent comments led to further literature review and discussion of the lack of consistent instruction with regard to this topic in undergraduate music education programs.

The first content standard of the National Standards for Music Education requires that students sing, alone and with others, a varied repertoire of music. Although state and district elementary music curricula vary widely, many are based on the National Standards for Music Education and therefore include singing as a primary content area and method of teaching and learning music. However, classroom assessments of singing voice achievement and development vary widely, and information about reliability and validity of these assessments is rarely reported. The purpose of this article was to identify and discuss measurements of singing voice achievement for elementary aged students that have been used in research studies from dissertations and refereed music education journals since the publication of the National Standards for Music Education in 1994. The author describes each measurement tool, discusses its validity and reliability, and evaluates the practicality of each measure for classroom use by elementary general music teachers. Finally, recommendations for how one of these measures might be used to improve instruction in an elementary music classroom have been made.

This quantitative study examined access to school music instruction with regard to race in two urban areas: Detroit, Michigan, and Washington, DC, in 2009-2010. We found significant differences in the provision of music instruction between schools with high and low proportions of nonwhite enrollment, in categories including curricular offerings, extracurricular offerings, and resources. In the Detroit area, only 31 percent to 60 percent of schools with high percentages of nonwhite students offered any music instruction at all. We contrast our findings with those of a National Center for Educational Statistics report to demonstrate how regional and national averages can obscure information that should guide policy, such as the influence of location and racial demographics of schools on the provision of public school music instruction. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications of using flawed data in the creation of policy and suggestions for more comprehensive and accurate data collection and analysis.

Given the shifting demographics in American education, the rising likelihood of students with special needs being taught in inclusive classrooms, and the increasing openness with which students are challenging gender and sex norms, social justice has become a prevalent research topic in music education. This survey sought to investigate the perspectives of music teacher educators with regard to social justice, music education, and music teacher education. Many of the 361 respondents indicated engagement with social justice and shared methods for addressing social justice topics in music teacher education as well as describing limitations that prevented them from doing more. However, about 50% of respondents defined social justice in “difference-blind” terms. A further 10% to 15% of respondents rejected the need to address social justice topics in music teacher education, stated it was not their job, and/or described social justice as a waste of instructional time that should be spent on content. In contrast, 10% to 15% of respondents expressed a desire for assistance understanding more about social justice in school music settings and/or suggestions how to teach about social justice topics in undergraduate music teacher education. This article concludes with a discussion of these findings and suggestions for future research.

Although elementary general music specialists teach students with a variety of exceptionalities every day (Chen, 2007; Hahn, 2010; Hoffman, 2011), many music teacher preparation programs do not adequately address exceptionality (Salvador, 2010). Articles regarding "strategies that work" appear perennially in the professional literature (e.g., Hammel, 2004), but these strategies have seldom been the subject of empirical research in peer-reviewed literature, and none of these articles pertain to how music teachers modify instruction to meet the needs of students with moderate to severe cognitive impairments (CI) who attend music with their self-contained categorical classes. This qualitative study details the practices of an elementary general music teacher with regard to music instruction of students with moderate to severe CI, both when these students were included with their fourth-grade peers and also when they attended music with their self-contained class.