This book is a contemporary analysis of children’s music education, combining theoretical insight with practical application. It examines how children engage with, and think about, music and how an understanding of this can empower rich approaches to teaching and learning.

Key topics include: an overview of music education as a field of study, musical imagination in thought and practice, musical worlds created with, and for, children and a range of perspectives on musicality and musical knowledge in childhood.

This is essential reading for anyone involved in music education with children, including music leaders working in community settings, and for primary school teachers, and those training to teach, seeking to deepen their own professional understanding.

Mary Stakelum is Area Leader, Music Education at the Royal College of Music.