The Color of Music: Resistance and Resilience in the Recital Hall

• In Event: 58.036 - Social Capital and Resilience: Transforming Practice to Achieve the Promise of Equal Educational Opportunity

Abstract

Objectives
The diversity gap between students and teachers in education is well known, with student populations rapidly approaching minority-majority status while the teacher workforce remains overwhelmingly white (81.9%: NCES, 2013). What is less well known is that the diversity gap in music education at all levels is even greater (slightly more than 86% white: Elpus, 2015). Recognition of this phenomenon is not new (Koza, 2006, 2008, 2009; Nettl, 1995), nor is it new to observe a link between curriculum and teacher corps (Cavicchi, 2009; Morton, 1994, 2001; Palmer, 2006; Wicks, 1998). Nevertheless, the gap remains. Given this context, what are the strategies students of color in music education use to cope with the overwhelming whiteness of the institution and its curriculum?
Theoretical Framework
This study works with critical race theory (Ladson-Billings, 1995) as that approach has been applied to music education (Koza, 2005, 2008, 2009) to consider the effects of exclusionary curricula. In particular, I consider the impediments music students face in employing their local funds of knowledge (Moll, Amanti, Neff, & Gonzalez 1992) as a base for resilience (Aldrich, 2012) within the racial politics in music education. To understand the complex lifeworlds (Habermas, 1981) that students bring to school, I use performance theory (Goffman, 1959; Turner, 1974) and practice theory (Bourdieu, 1977, 1979) to develop a picture of the strategic maneuvers building resilience through music.
Methods
This qualitative study of undergraduate students of color in music education in a large state university uses a life history approach (Lewis, 1961) to analyze the multiple, overlapping lifeworlds of the students. I use a combination of broad questions with a relatively large number of subjects, and detailed personal interviews with four subjects.
Data Sources
To examine the students’ narratives, I use observations in and out of classrooms and performances, formal and informal interviews, and academic assignments. I coded interview transcripts, observational notes, and course assignments using the procedures of ethnographic analysis.
Results
Preliminary results hint at the strategies students employ to cope with clashes between their lifeworlds. For example, several minority students indicated little interest in the music comprising the school’s official curriculum (western classical and jazz), while maintaining deep engagement with other music outside the official curriculum. Successful students coped with this clash of lifeworlds using various strategies, including compartmentalizing (study school genres at school, preferred genres outside school), rationalizing (western classical and jazz are important to study because they are “more sophisticated,” or “more rigorous”), bargaining (completing music history or analysis assignments using examples from preferred genres rather than the official curriculum), and resignation (“this music doesn’t mean anything to me, but I have to study it to get my degree”).

Scholarly Significance
This study demonstrates that supporting diversity is not as simple as occasional mentions of non-official curricular repertoire. Rather, by focusing on strategies of resilience, we can better structure music education programs to recruit and support music education students of color to begin to address the diversity gap at all levels.

Author

• Richard C. Miller, University of Nevada - Las Vegas