Toward a Critical Race Theory of Musical Identity

• In Event: Critical Race Theory, Praxis, and Pedagogy in Music Education

Abstract

Introduction & Purpose
A great deal of literature focusing on musical identity construction exists. Despite the salience of race in identity construction, it remains under-theorized in the literature regarding musical identities. Building on prior scholarship in Critical Race Theory, the purpose of this paper is to: 1) critique the presence of race in music education scholarship and 2) propose a framework for musical identity inquiry that deepens our understandings and elucidates unheard voices.

Theoretical Framework

Holland et al. (1998) assert, “Figured worlds provide the contexts of meaning and action in which social positions and social relationships are named and conducted. They also provide the loci in which people fashion senses of self – that is, develop identities” (p. 60). By figured worlds, Holland et al. (1998) refer to, “a socially and culturally constructed realm of interpretation in which particular characters and actors are recognized, significance is assigned to certain acts, and particular outcomes are valued over others” (p. 52). According to Holland et al. (1998), “Perspectives are tied to a sense of entitlement or disentitlement to the particular spaces, relationships, activities, and forms of expression that together make up the indices of identity” (p. 44).

Critical race theorists assert that racism is a fixed, lasting aspect of society (Bell, 1992; Grant, 2006; Ladson-Billings & Donnor, 2005). As Ladson-Billings (2004) states, “the theory’s identification of racism as normal provides an important tool for identifying other such ‘normal, ordinary’ thinking in the society” (p. 58). In this paper, I ask what normal, ordinary thinking regarding musical identity construction might become enacted in the professional spaces that comprise our field.

Methods & Data Sources
I began this inquiry by reconsidering the presence of race in music education literature with a first reading of research published by music education scholars located in the United States (Music Education SIG abstracts, dissertations and theses, articles in JRME, The Bulletin, & ACT). During these first readings, I identified common themes (Miles & Huberman, 2004). I recorded these salient themes and then re-read the texts using a questionnaire to identify supporting thematic elements. I then conducted a third reading in which “specific related to these elements were recorded. These extracts would serve as the data for rendering possible narrative lines” (Selden, 2007, p. 169).

Findings
Lacking are the voices of teachers and students of color, as well as discussions of ethnicity and racialization beyond the binaries of Blackness and Whiteness. In fact, much of the literature situates the field as predominantly White; an in-group examining an Other.

Implications
Wenger (1998/2008) states, ‘membership in a community of practice translates into an identity as a form of competence… we know who we are by what is familiar, understandable, usable, negotiable; we know who we are not by what is foreign…’ (p. 108). To move forward music education research and practice, we must look outside of the familiar, using CRT as a new prism to provide a different perspective on who we are and who we serve.

Author

• Adria R. Hoffman, University of Virginia