Women in Music Education is the focus of the latest issue of Philosophy of Music Education Review. In “Women and the Work of Music Education,” the focus of volume 17. number 2, the fall 2009 issue of Philosophy of Music Education Review, women’s perspectives on the situations in which labor are examined. As Estelle Jorgensen, the editor of the journal, asserts in her introduction to the issue, “[T]he work performed by women is often under-appreciated, if appreciated at all, and they are rendered invisible when they focus on those things that are important to them but may not be regarded as significant by the gatekeepers of the profession….[T]heir work is often conducted on the fringes of what is regarded as most significant by the field.” The contributors to the issue posit divergent approaches to the work of music education. The lead article by Julia Eklund Koza, “My Body Had a Mind of Its Own: On Teaching, the Illusion of Control, and the Terrifying Limits of Governmentality,” is the first of a two-part study. In part one, she examines the moments in which the body seems out of control and in which “bodies seem to have minds of their own.” In addition, she addresses the lack of materials on issues of power and governance, considers the “limits of power and the incompleteness of control of either self or of others,” and suggests that the notions of control that dominate educational discourse are problematic and limiting.
In “Women Working in Music Education: The War Machine,” Elizabeth Gould describes the implications for university women when they challenge the prevailing beliefs and practices of academe. Alexandra Kertz-Welzel, in “Philosophy of Music Education and the Burnout Syndrome: Female Viewpoints on a Male School World,” considers the issue of female fatigue in a male-dominated environment and its resultant loss of teachers.
Other articles in the issue include Sondra Wieland Howe on “A Historical View of Women in Music Education Careers,” an examination of the invisibility of women in the historical record; and June Boyce-Tillman on “The Transformative Qualities of a Limited Space Created by Musicking,” an analysis of the transformative power of luminal spaces in musicking. Closing the issue is Mary J. Reichling’s review of Robert E. Innis’ Susanne Langer in Focus: The Symbolic Mind, which was published in 2009 by Indiana University Press, a review of particular significance to this issue of PMER because Langer’s philosophy concerning feeling is considered by some of her critics as “soft” and beneath serious philosophical notice.For order a subscription to the journal or to purchase a copy of “Women and the Work of Music Education,” please click here.

