Due to a significant separation in the development of the fields of music psychol­ogy and popular music research in Germany over the past 25 years, there are still few empirical studies focusing on popular music today. This is not neces­sarily detrimental, considering that it is the aim of psychology to produce sys­tematic findings that are universal and unbound to any specific musical culture. But in fact, ignoring examples from the realm of popular music (e. g. in the studies of performance, learning, development or composition) results in conclu­sions that are not of universal validity and, instead, imply a bourgeois ideology of highbrow culture. The reasons for the disciplines' isolation from each other partly lie in the individual researchers' socializations and in their increasing specialization. But most of all, both disciplines differ on the much more basic levels of epistemo­logical interest and sociopolitical ambitions. While it is the interest of music psychologists to discover nomothetic laws concerning music related behavior, experience, and cognition, research in the field of popular music studies tries to understand current developments in our culture by interpreting music as a social indicator. In contrast to the (supposedly) neutral methods of psychology, it sometimes does make value judgments and seeks social change. If the psychology of music is to remain relevant, researchers must consider the most common music of our time more closely and generally will have to increase their attention to music' s social and cultural aspects. On the other hand, popular music researchers should no longer hesitate to adopt empirical method­ology and should take more notice of the literature of music psychology. To increase our knowledge in fields like analysis, aesthetics, identity and distinction, gender or canonization the disciplines need to work together closely.

The transnationalism theory assumes transnational social and cultural relations in the context of migration. In German primary schools there is a growing num­ber of children with migrational background. Thus, music-cultural links to the land of the family' s provenance might be assumed in contexts of multicultural childhood. This study focuses the children with Turkish origins. Thereby, the differences between the occidental (Western music) and the oriental music sys­tems (Mid East, Turkish music) provide an interesting aspect. In urban multicultural environment, 267 Children at the end of the primary school education have been exposed to a selection of transnational, local and global music examples. Using a special programmed interactive software the listening times of the children with and without migration background have been measured, recorded and statistically analyzed. The first extracted factor by principal component analysis in the total sample represents the singularities of the oriental music system versus Western music. A geographical orientated group­ ing of the participants' language background (including probands without migra­tion background) revealed significant differences between the (family's) language background and the preferences as well as postferences for the respective geographically located oriental music system. The results suggest further investigations and a sensible attention in music psychological, sociological and pedagogical research as well as in the childhood studies.

The Hypothesis of open-earedness assumes that younger children are more open to unconventional music than older ones. This contribution is motivated by two studies on this hypothesis (Schellberg & Gembris, 2003 and Kopiez & Lehmann, 2008) that have been conducted in Germany and showed different results on first glance. The data these studies were based on is reanalyzed. For each pair of classroom communities a statistical test of homogeneity is performed. lt can be shown that the preference-distributions of different classroom communities differ more often than expected under the assumption of identical distribution. The statistical differences between the two different studies, however, are not larger than the differences between the classroom communities within both of the studies. Therefore the classroom community seems to be an important factor in the development of musical preferences.

The interaction and influences between linguistic and musical abilities in pre­ school time are still in focus of research. Therefore the results of 4-5-year old children in a standardized language acquisition test with parts for perception, production and working memory were compared to music perception, music production and musical working memory. The comparison of musical and linguistic abilities in 4-5-year old children shows less correlations than expected; mainly in working memory tasks correla­tions can be observed. Furthermore the results give information about the de­velopment of musical abilities. Between the age of four and five an increasing in rhythmical abilities as well as in musical working memory tasks can be shown. In contrast to that no group differences can be observed for melodic abilities, for the ability to detect well known phrases of nursery rhymes and for the eval­uation of different singing parameters.

The Emotion-Metaemotion-Regulation Model is based on emotion psychologi­cal theories that consider cognitions - especially estimations and evaluations („appraisals") - as initial point or at least as central aspect for the constitution of emotions. This article aims at describing the process of emotion constitution, emotion monitoring, and emotion modification during music reception from a coherent appraisal theoretical perspective. This perspective opens up alternative explanations of inter and intraindividual differences in the emotional experience of music, as well as of the influence of social contexts during music reception, or the paradox of enjoying unpleasant music. Finally, the model offers an ana­lytical frame for both non-medial and medial music reception.