In recent years, aesthetic education has increasingly become a consensus across society.What demands does aesthetic education pose for various art disciplines? What changes should or have taken place as arts education transitions into aesthetic education? What is aesthetic education? How is it possible? These questions have been central to scholarly debates.This paper argues that the core issue lies in the lack of discussion and analysis regarding the core educational objectives of aesthetic education and its sociological context.From a sociological perspective,based on Schiller's On the Aesthetic Education of Man in a Series of Letters and its sociological significance when introduced to modern China,this paper explores the three shifts of music education in the aesthetic educational goal re-proposed since the reform and opening up,namely,the aesthetic shift,the educational shift and the individual shift,to engage in this broader discussion.