Music education is a well-established and flourishing area of research and study. It is also a complex and contested area in which there is a considerable variety of published work, ranging from the justificatory to the critical, and from advice on pedagogical practice to provocative alternative paradigms. The proliferation and range of these publications stems from the complexity of music and music education itself. Along with multiple perspectives on the nature and value of music, music education is much more socially interwoven than most school subjects. It is also very complex organizationally, with multiple sources of funding.

This new four-volume collection from Routledge’s acclaimed Major Themes in Education series meets the need for an authoritative, up-to-date, and comprehensive reference work to make sense of the area’s voluminous literature. Indeed, the dizzying scale of the research output—and the breadth of the field—makes this new Routledge title especially welcome. It provides a one-stop collection of classic and contemporary contributions to facilitate ready access to the most influential and important scholarship.

Fully indexed and with an introduction, newly written by the editor, which places the collected material in its historical and intellectual context, Music Education is an essential work of reference. It is destined to be valued by specialists in music education and scholars working in related areas—as well as by educational policy-makers and professionals—as a vital research tool.