Historical Research on Music Education and Music Therapy: Doctoral Dissertations of the Twentieth Century

Abstract

Research articles in scholarly journals, papers presented at symposia and conventions, master's theses and doctoral dissertations, and books form the body of research in music education and music therapy. Scholars have examined this body of literature to identify traits and trends in research. In two studies, Cornelia Yarbrough identified frequency, topic area, and research methodology employed by authors of articles published in the Journal of Research in Music Education (JRME ) during its first thirty years (1953-1983) and first fifty years (1953-2002). For the thirty-year period, she categorized 17 percent of the articles as historical, and she deemed that 79.5 percent of those articles pertain to the history of music education. She categorized 21 percent of the articles on the history of music education as biographical studies. Yarbrough reported that historical methodology was used in 14 percent of articles published in the journal's first fifty years. She also reported that 42 percent and 37 percent of JRME articles published during the journal's first thirty and first fifty years, respectively, were based on the authors' doctoral dissertations or master's theses. (1) William R. Hall analyzed article content from Contributions to Music Education, which is published by the Ohio Music Educators Association. Eight of the 150 articles he examined were deemed to be historical, representing 5 percent of the total. Dennis Graham Stabler analyzed article content from the Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education during that journal's first twenty-two years (1963-1985). He categorized 7 percent of the articles as related to the history of music education, with biography constituting only 2.1 percent of articles in the journal. Marie F. McCarthy categorized articles in the twenty volumes of the Bulletin of Historical Research in Music Education (BHRME ) (1980-1999), but she used a different categorization scheme than those used by previous researchers. She reported that biography was the largest single category of articles (28 percent). (2) Jere T. Humphreys and Sandra L. Stauffer reported significant increases (p The percentage of women authors also increased over the BHRME's four five-year periods, from 0 to 28 percent, 56 percent, and 36 percent, respectively, with 36 percent overall. John Grashel reported that women contributed 30 percent of articles published in the JRME from 1953 to 1994, although the percentage varied widely from year to year. Steven K. Hedden found that the percentage of JRME articles authored by women increased from 33 percent in 1970 to more than 55 percent in 1990. In a different study, Hedden found that women wrote 52 percent of research papers presented at the 1980 biennial convention of MENC: The National Association for Music Education (MENC), a figure that dropped for the next biennial convention and then hovered around 40% for over a decade after that. (4) The founders of the JRME sought geographical representation on the editorial committee. (5) Although there were fluctuations in the percentage of editorial committee members relative to regional population percentages over the journal's first four decades, remarkable representation was achieved, both in the geographical region from which the members received their doctoral degrees and the institutions with which they were affiliated during their terms on the committee. …

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