This invited speech was about various aspects of the world of music education in the United States, including how European art music continues to be emphasized, how music educators think it is their job to improve people's taste in music, the folly of top-down curricular initiatives, especially federal ones, and more.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of school enrollment, distance to audition site, sex of auditionees, and instrument type on the results of the 1992-97 South Dakota all-state band auditions. Results include the following:

1. Total audition scores were better for students from larger schools and for those who traveled a shorter distance to the audition.
2. Female students' scores were significantly better than those of male students, but there was no significant difference in the percentages of successful auditions between males and females.
3. Scores differed significantly between instrument groups, with flutes and double reeds receiving the best scores, followed by saxophones, trumpets and French horns, low brass and string basses, and clarinets.
4. The variables of distance to audition site, instrument group, and sex accounted for 11% of the variance in total audition scores.

The purpose of this study was to examine selected characteristics of the editorial committee of the Journal of Research in Music Education (JRME) during the publication's first 40 years (1953-1992). Findings include:

1. The appointment of women to the committee increased significantly by decade but lagged behind female researcher productively in music education.
2. Committee members received their doctorates from and were affiliated with a relatively large number of colleges and universities.
3. Generally, geographical distribution of the doctoral-degree-granting and affiliated institutions was proportionate to regional populations.
4. Committee members' rate of publication in the JRME before appointment increased significantly by decade.
5. Female members published significantly more JRME article than did male members during one decade, but there was no significant publication difference between male and female members for the four decades combined.

The authors noted a possible trend toward dominance among doctoral-degree-granting institutions, but applauded the demographic representativeness of the committee over the four decades and continuing improvements toward the same.

The purpose of this study was to examine relationships between the membership of the Music Supervisors National Conference/Music Educators National Conference (MENC) from 1912-1838 and selected demographic and economic variables. The results include the following:

1. MENC membership grew considerably more rapidly than the nation's general and teacher
    populations.
2. Membership and membership as a percentage of the population differed significantly between
    MENC divisions.
3. Membership correlated with mean teacher salaries and with per capita education spending by
    state.
4. Membership by state correlated only slightly with geographical distance to convention sites. 
5. Women comprised a significant majority of the membership in each division, but a smaller
    majority than in the nation's teaching profession as a whole.
6. Implementation of the MENC"s biennial convention plan did not affect membership totals
    significantly.

We speculate that MENC membership as a percentage of music education may have differed between MENC divisions, and that such membership differences may have resulted from regional identification or other cultural factors not examined in this study. We recommend further application of quantitative sociological research techniques and cultural research approaches to the study of past and present practices in music and music education.

The purpose of this article is to describe the links between late nineteenth-century psychological research and the early musical aptitude research of Carl Emil Seashore (1866-1949). The primary link was the music-related research of the leader of the mental testing movement during the 1890s, Columbia University psychologist James McKeen Cattell (1860-1944). German psychologist Wilhelm Wundt instructed Cattell in the German scientific tradition, and English researcher Francis Galton encouraged Cattell's research on individual differences and introduced him to statistical methods.

During the 1890s, Cattell conducted a longitudinal study, the hypothesis for which was that tests of sensory discrimination ability, including musical discrimination, would correlate with undergraduates' academic grades. After his study failed to produce the expected results, the mental testing movement followed Alfred Binet and Victor Henri of France, and Cattell turned to other activities. However, in the meantime, Cattell influenced many other important psychologists, including Edward W. Scripture, Carl Seashore's doctoral mentor at Yale University, and eventually Seashore himself. Despite the mental testing movement's shift to Binet and Henri's cognitive-type testing, Seashore continued his conservative, sensory approach to the testing of musical aptitude.

The purpose of this study was to examine sex and geographic representation in two well-known books on the history of American music education: History of Public School Music in the United States by Edward Bailey Birge (1937/1966) and A History of American Music Education by Michael L. Mark and Charles L. Gary (1992). The number of different individuals mentioned, total number of mentions, and number of lines devoted to each individual were categorized by sex and geographical region. Photographic evidence was examined in a like manner. The authors of both books, published 55 years apart, provided statistically significant inequitable representation with regard to sex and region of the country. On the other hand, the two books are remarkably similar with regard to the variables examined. The researcher posits the "top-down" approach to historiography as the main reason for the inequitable representations.