The Music Education research area at UW–Madison is a center of leadership and creativity and has been home to some of the finest music education scholars and teachers in the world. It was among the first graduate programs in music education to embrace interpretive (qualitative) research, and its current faculty continue a tradition of innovation in research paradigm and theory, specializing in the emerging areas of revisionist history, ethnography, critical textual and discourse analysis, semiotics, iconography, policy studies, and action research. The following research areas are of particular interest to the faculty:
- Policy issues and their influence on music education
- Equity issues (i.e., issues concerning gender, race, social class, sexuality and ability/disability) in music education
- Revisionist historical analysis of music education in the United States
- Relationships between popular culture and music education
- Philosophical questions in music education