Survey of local authority music services 2005

In 2001, the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) published the White Paper 'Schools: achieving success' within which the Government pledged to ensure thatover time, evey primary school child who wanted to would have the opportunity to learn to play a musical instrument. To deliver this commitment robust, current, data base was required which could be used to provide a baseline for wider opportunities in primary music, prepare the way for changes in Music Standards Fund allocations, enable national benchmarks to be established and complement the Music Services' Guidance as a tool for self-evaluation, development and target-setting

Gender differences in musical instrument choice

Historically, there have been differences in the musical instruments played by boys and girls with girls preferring smaller, higher pitched instruments. This paper explores whether these gender preferences have continued at a time when there is greater gender equality in most aspects of life in the United Kingdom. Data were collected from the 150 Music Services in England as part of a larger survey. Some provided data regarding the sex of pupils playing each instrument directly. In other cases, the pupils’ names and instruments were matched with data in the national Common Basic Data Set to establish gender. The findings showed distinctive patterns for different instruments. Girls predominated in harp, flute, voice, fife/piccolo, clarinet, oboe, and violin and boys in electric guitar, bass guitar, tuba, kit drums, tabla and trombone. The least gendered instruments were African drums, cornet, French horn, saxophone and tenor horn. The gendered pattern of learning was relatively consistent across education phases with a few exceptions. A model was developed which sets out the various influences which may explain the continuation of historical trends in instrument choice given the increased gender equity in UK society

Evaluation of voices foundation primer in primary schools

Music education has an important role in contributing towards society's needs in relation to the culture industries and continued development of active and constructive participation in musical activities. In addition to its role in developing musical skills many claims have been made regarding the benefits of music education in relation to a range of transferable skills

Learning about what constitutes effective training from a pilot programme to improve music education in primary schools

The new primary strategy in England raised the profile of foundation subjects, including music, yet many primary school teachers lack skills and confidence in their ability to teach music. This research explores a year-long programme of training across 16 primary schools in England that sought to improve music education. The programme involved whole school in-service training, advisory teachers offering support within the classroom and further training for music co-ordinators. The implementation of the programme, the training received, lesson observations throughout the programme, difficulties arising and the longer term benefits were explored through questionnaires, interviews and school visits with participant teachers, and senior managers in the Local Authorities and schools. The findings indicated that the programme had been effective in improving teacher confidence, and musical understanding, and the quality of teaching. Factors contributing to the success of the programme were identified and lessons for the development and implementation of future programmes

Strategic Immunization and Group Structure

We consider the spread of a harmful state through a population divided into two groups. Interaction patterns capture the full spectrum of assortativity possibilities. We show that a central planner who aims for eradication optimally either divides equally the resources across groups, or concentrates entirely on one group, depending on whether there is positive or negative assortativity, respectively. We study a game in which agents can, at a cost, immunize. Negative assortative interactions generate highly asymmetric equilibrium outcomes between ex-ante identical groups. When groups have an underlying difference, even a small amount of inter-group contacts generates large asymmetries. We study the diffusion of a harmful state through a population. Immunity is available, but is costly. The state is meant to capture various kinds of choices or risky behaviors such as, for example, tobacco use, in which case immunity is interpreted as a commitment to avoid the temptation of smoking. The state can also capture the presence of an electronic virus on a computer network; in this case immunity represents the purchase of anti-virus software, or other costly measures taken to avoid the virus. But perhaps the most conventional interpretation is that the state represents human infection of various communicable diseases that spread through social contacts; in this case immunity captures a decision to vaccinate oneself

Correction-to-scaling exponents for two-dimensional self-avoiding walks

We study the correction-to-scaling exponents for the two-dimensional self-avoiding walk, using a combination of series-extrapolation and Monte Carlo methods. We enumerate all self-avoiding walks up to 59 steps on the square lattice, and up to 40 steps on the triangular lattice, measuring the mean-square end-to-end distance, the mean-square radius of gyration and the mean-square distance of a monomer from the endpoints. The complete endpoint distribution is also calculated for self-avoiding walks up to 32 steps (square) and up to 22 steps (triangular). We also generate self-avoiding walks on the square lattice by Monte Carlo, using the pivot algorithm, obtaining the mean-square radii to ~0.01% accuracy up to N = 4000. We give compelling evidence that the first non-analytic correction term for two-dimensional self-avoiding walks is Delta_1 = 3/2. We compute several moments of the endpoint distribution function, finding good agreement with the field-theoretic predictions. Finally, we study a particular invariant ratio that can be shown, by conformal-field-theory arguments, to vanish asymptotically, and we find the cancellation of the leading analytic correction.Comment: LaTeX 2.09, 56 pages. Version 2 adds a renormalization-group discussion near the end of Section 2.2, and makes many small improvements in the exposition. To be published in the Journal of Statistical Physic