As we prepare for another school year, I thought I would let you know about some of the things that have been happening with regard to research this past year. Last March, NAfME sponsored the second National Conference for the Society of Research in Music Education and the Society of Music Teacher Education. This is crucial to the entirety of NAfME because this keeps NAfME the center of the dissemination of the new knowledge in Music Education. Without this conference, the members of the higher education community would need to seek new venues for their work, and music education would be marginalized as a profession. Thanks to the foresight of many in the organization, this new tradition has taken hold.

A recent development in the field is a new book. The Oxford Handbook of Music Education has now been published. To paraphrase the authors, this new two volume (1,616 pages) text updates and redefines music education as a discipline through innovative principles and approaches to music learning and teaching. The volumes discuss a range of issues such as music education for the special needs population, music learning in adulthood, and music learning through media and technology. These chapters help to broaden conceptions of music and musical involvement. Though not a pair of books everyone will have on their shelves, they are books every member might want to access through libraries. They certainly are special.

To start the new school year I thought I would look at the most recent editions of the top journals and bring you some abstracts from articles I found the most interesting. From the Journal of Research in Music Education, I liked an article by Sandra Howard titled The Effect of Selected Nonmusical Factors on Adjudicators' Ratings of High School Solo Vocal Performances. Her abstract reads: The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of differentiated performance attire and stage deportment on adjudicators' ratings of high school solo vocal performances. High school choral students (n = 153) and undergraduate (n = 97) and graduate music majors (n = 32) served as adjudicators (N = 282). Adjudicators rated recorded solo vocal performances displayed in audio-only and four audiovisual presentation conditions with differentiated combinations of performance attire and stage deportment. Performance quality ratings were affected significantly by soloists' performance attire and stage deportment and adjudicators' academic level. Significant two-way interactions were identified: adjudicator gender by academic level for comparisons of performance ratings assigned in four of the five presentation conditions and adjudicator gender by academic level when differentiated attire was isolated from presentation conditions. Adjudicators assigned significantly higher ratings to performances presented in the audio-only condition.

In Update: Applications of Research in Music Education I enjoyed an article titled Gender and Instrument Associations, Stereotypes, and Stratification: A Literature Review. Gina Wych wrote the following abstract: This literature review examines and synthesizes 30 years of research into the relationship between gender and musical instruments. Specifically, the review focuses on how this relationship affects instrument selection by grade school students entering a school music program. Topics include the gender typing of musical instruments, instrument preferences of young (preband or preorchestra) students, beliefs about which gender should play which instrument, gender influences during the instrument selection process, the status of gender stratification within instrumental ensembles, and perceptions of musicians in relation to their gender and instrument. Also discussed are theories as to why gender associations and stereotypes occur within instrumental music, including social role theory, and ways in which researchers have attempted to counteract gender as a factor in the instrument selection process. The review concludes with implications drawn from the body of research and direction for future studies.

The next issue of the International Journal of Music Education: Research will feature an article by Regina Antunes Teixeira dos Santos and Cristina Capparelli Gerling titled Ways of Knowing and Types of Knowledge: How do students approach a new piece of music? The abstract for this article reads: In an exploratory study lasting more than sixteen weeks, fifteen undergraduate and graduate piano students prepared a short piece by the Brazilian composer Guarnieri, Ponteio n° 22, without guidance from their piano teachers. The data that were collected included their performances, interviews pertaining to their practice and stimulated recall interviews. These data were analyzed in terms of the ways of knowing and types of knowledge that are articulated in Davidson and Scripp's (1992) Matrix of Cognition Skills in Music. The data were qualitatively and quantitatively analyzed. The production of representation (outside the actual performance) showed a structural relationship with the local and global information about the piece. In terms of perception, cognitive skills were essentially dependent on expertise levels. Concerning the ways of knowing as reflection, a number of students were able to identify problems outside of their own performance. However, the solutions to these problems were less often planned. In summary, graduate students tended to rely on procedural knowledge, while the undergraduates generally used declarative knowledge. The results suggest that graduate students are more likely to make tacit decisions rather than verbal decisions.