ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explores the role and function of music in society in all its comprehensiveness, invites a wide definition of music education. It argues that cultural codes required for achieving full membership within the music audience community of western, classical music, jazz, or world music also represents a kind of musical learning. The book describes the social and societal conditions and consequences of music education makes it necessary to analytically distinguish between three different approaches, in order to see how they fit in with each other at the end of the day. It concerns the relationship between music education and society, by which the social consequences of music education can be studied without further references to sociology. The book provides significant empirical information for further elaborations within the second and third approach.
