TOPICS Themes, Opinion, Policy, Innovation, Curriculum, and Strategies for Music Education Praxis
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The new MayDay Group publication, TOPICS, is intended to fill the gap between music education scholarship and practice (praxis, understood in its ethical and pragmatic sense). In particular, it focuses on the “practice” (practical, praxial, pragmatic) side of the “theory into practice” and “practice into theory” problematic by publishing papers, articles, documents, and other texts that make a contribution to teaching praxis and praxial theory. Thus, the focus of such scholarly articles will be on issues of relevance to music education praxis internationally, and the intended audience will be music education students, school music, community and private music teachers, and professors largely engaged with preparing and supervising undergraduate and master’s level music education students. These articles will also be of interest to doctoral students, who may also author them as part of their important bridging of the worlds of practitioners and professors. All articles will be aligned or consonant with the Action Ideals of the MDG, as published on its website
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TOPICS is prepared to be media rich, and, thus, will accommodate video, audio, and graphic features.
It is altogether likely that many submissions will involve more than one of the above categories.
Submissions should be accompanied, though, by an indication of which categories are stressed, and reviewers will be alert to the degree to which these categories are at stake, and how successfully they are accommodated
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General Criteria Submissions will be expected to be well-written, well-conceived, and to exhibit both (a) a coherence with one or more MDG Action Ideals and (b) an acknowledgement of existing theory and research findings relevant to the topics at hand. Thus submissions will draw upon relevant scholarly research and findings, and will be largely concerned with helping put such research and theory into practice, or of promoting practices that can inform or validate theory. TOPICS is intended, therefore, to be a platform for experienced, creative, and successful music teachers, in-service graduate students, and music education professors to share their ideas in ways that can stimulate and inform the thinking of teachers and professors elsewhere, including internationally. Moreover, it is intended to give voice to teachers who are in-between successful teaching careers and university teaching; namely, to doctoral students whose theoretical papers and practical knowledge too often go untapped. TOPICS will thus be an opportunity for them to get feedback from teachers in the field, from professors other than those at their own institutions, and, of course, from reviewers.
The few papers that previously have been listed under “Resources” on the MDG website as “Theoretical Papers” will be archived as part of TOPICS. But newly published articles will set the tone and meet the purposes set out for TOPICS. It is also worth noting that many of the submissions for ACT that are not appropriate for publication there as “scholarship” often would make very appropriate contributions to TOPICS: these papers often deserve to be read but, given the present status of publishing in music education circles, too few outlets exist. Similarly, “provocations” from MDG colloquia that are not appropriate for ACT or other journals might well meet the above criteria of TOPICS.
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Editorial Board
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A board of experts who have records of both (a) accomplished scholarship and (b) who are engaged directly in preparing school music teachers for the ‘realities’ of school music praxis, will review submissions. The Board will be sufficiently large that each submission can be reviewed by 3 reviewers without unduly burdening members: 15-18 would be a target size. An open call to members for applications to this board is offered below in which applicants indicate their backgrounds and interests. Reviewers will generally: recommend acceptance, acceptance with revision(s) (as recommended), rejection, or re-submission with revision (as recommended). Criteria and feedback will be in accordance with the above-stated guidelines. |
Publication
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Publication will be on a site with a separate URL from, but also linked from the MDG webpage (www.maydaygroup.org), as ACT is at present. Production values will be to ACT standards though the ‘look’ will be distinct. Authors will be required to submit (or reformat) according to a set of format criteria. Volume numbers will be according to year, with all articles published during a given year being in the same volume. As articles are accepted and prepared, one at a time, each will be posted as part of the year’s issue. Each article will have consecutive numbering between articles per each yearly volume. Accepted articles should require very little copyediting, formatting (etc.), and authors will be largely responsible for the overall quality and impression-mechanics, style, content (etc.)-of what is published. On the other hand, of course, articles that are weak in mechanics, thinking, content (etc.) will not be accepted for publication.We hope that a dialog feature can be associated with TOPICS – either from the TOPICS site or the MDG site – that will afford the opportunity for readers to comment on articles, provide critical analysis and feedback and, in general, that will promote communicative rationality which moves towards greater consensus and agreement on (or at least greater understanding about) the issues discussed. That remains to be developed. |
Editor
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For the start-up phase, Tom Regelski will serve as editor, passing on the responsibility as soon as the publication becomes normalized. Darryl Coan has agreed to serve as associate editor, and a production staff has been assembled that parallels that of ACT in its responsibilities. During this start-up period, discussion will be promoted concerning a policy for deciding upon a new editor, terms of office, and the like. As the project unfolds during its start-up phase, the need for more production edits will be noted and policies developed accordingly. But those who are interested in the ongoing agenda of the MDG, and who have time and interest to make the occasional contribution to the editorial process, please let us know. We and readers will be deeply appreciative. Without the volunteers who manage our website and ACT, and now TOPICS, we couldn’t make the impact that we have. |
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Call for Editorial Board Members
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This announcement is targeted at those MDG members who we hope will volunteer to serve on the Editorial Board. Given the intended audience for the journal, most ideal would be MDG members who have current contact with undergrads, supervision of student teachers, master’s students, and doctoral students working on “topics” that meet the intended purpose of this journal. Senior researchers who can either pose their theories in praxial terms or can build on theory from the perspective of effective praxis, are certainly welcomed as editorial board members or submitting colleagues.Therefore, we invite nominations and self-nominations of those who are interested in committing themselves to this new project. And by commit, is meant an abiding sense of connecting theory with praxis and praxis as feeding into theory! This includes school music teachers and professors whose main responsibility is teacher education. As mentioned above, special interest is devoted to doctoral candidates who are bridging the gap between their previous praxis and their scholarly research.Please send your indications of interest to me at tom.regelski@helsinki.fi, along with your particular field of interest within the TOPICS proposal (which, it seems by intention, applies to most).Once a list is compiled and in place, and seeing how many are interested, a proposal will be offered for terms of office, rotation of roles, and the like. Meanwhile, we hope enough will be interested to begin this project and make it as successful as ACT has been in its influence on the profession. |