ABSTRACT
At about the time that the aesthetic education movement was maturing, new developments in cognitive psychology and advocacy were also occurring.1
Howard Gardner, codirector of Project Zero at Harvard University, posed his theory of multiple intelligences, which has provided strong support for the unique value of arts education.2 Gardner was followed by several others who also identified artistic intelligence as a unique way of knowing.3 The new theories of learning fueled the advocacy efforts of the Music Educators National Conference, and the entry of neuroscientists into the study of the affects of music on students helped stimulate public support for the profession to a degree that was unanticipated only a few years earlier. The study best-known to the public and policy makers, and which music education advocates locked on to was “Listening to Mozart enhances spatial-temporal reasoning: Towards a neurophysiological basis” by Rauscher Shaw and Ky.4 It was this study that made the public aware of the “Mozart effect,” which indicated a relationship between listening to the music of Mozart and increased intelligence in children. This study helped trigger an increased level of public interest in nonmusical outcomes of music education.
