Examining international education as a model of cultural sustainability: A critical discourse analysis of the IBDP Music Curriculum

• In Event: Evidence-based decision making in education
  In Refereed Round-Table Session: Self and other, here and there: challenging notions of space, culture, and belonging

Proposal

The International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP) Music curriculum positions itself as a more culturally sustainable program than traditional music curricula (van Oord, 2007). Although the IB curriculum does not use the word “sustainable,” it claims to be more responsive and respectful to cultural difference than mainstream music curricula in the United States. U.S. school music curricula have historically privileged the so-called Euro-American high art music canon, believed to represent humankind’s highest musical accomplishments.(1) Scholars have extensively exposed this tradition’s classist, racist, patriarchal, and ethnocentric roots (Gustafson, 2009). Contrary to traditional school music, IBDP Music presents itself as a world-class curriculum that values all musical cultures as equals (International Baccalaureate Organization, n.d.; Fabian, 2015).

Attracted by IBDP Music’s promises, U.S. private and public schools alike dedicate significant time and money to become authorized IB schools and offer this curriculum. However, the extent to which IBDP Music embodies a radical departure from traditional approaches to music education has not been thoroughly investigated. Only ten scholarly publications focus on the international K-12 music curriculum (Addo, 2009; Field, 2010; Ho and Law, 2009; Holmes and VanAlstine, 2014; Robinson, 2009a; Robinson, 2009b; Robinson, 2010; Robinson, 2011; VanAlstine, 2011; Wang, 2012). Of these, six publications study IBDP Music (Ho and Law, 2009; Robinson, 2009a; Robinson, 2009b; Robinson, 2010; Robinson, 2011; Wang, 2012). Scholarship on IBDP Music not only is insufficient, but it also lacks analytical depth and presents potential conflicts of interest. My paper addresses this gap, contributing to a better understanding of IBDP Music’s functioning and effects.

Using the notion of musical culture as a focal point, I investigate IBDP Music’s promises of cultural sustainability and, by extension, its status as a radically new curriculum reform initiative. To that end, I analyze how the notion of musical culture operates discursively in IBDP Music’s most recent curricular guide (International Baccalaureate, 2009/2014). Drawing on Michel Foucault’s notion of power-knowledge, I approach IBDP Music’s curriculum as a culturally and historically situated field of discursive practices that shape acceptable forms of knowledge and ways of being in school music (Foucault, 1980). I critically examine the cultural and historical premises of IBDP’s concept of musical culture, as well as the power dynamics it produces. Throughout the study, I consider the extent to which IBDP Music’s curricular promises and practices support or contradict each other.

I begin by describing how IBDP Music’s notion of musical culture operates discursively in IB’s curriculum guidelines (International Baccalaureate, 2009/2014). I then situate IBDP Music’s notion of musical culture socio-historically to evidence this construct’s Euro-American-centrism (Maldonado-Torres, 2007; Markus, 1993; Miller, 2010; Willinsky, 1999). I argue that, although IBDP Music’s definition of musical culture acknowledges music’s contextual features, in other places the guide downplays the importance of music’s context. This discursive ambivalence calls into question musical culture’s potentially decentering power effects vis-à-vis musical formalism—a modern, Euro-American conception of musical meaning as entirely determined by the sound, without regard to context (Kerman, 1985). Finally, I interrogate IBDP Music’s emphasis on musical cultures as distinct, yet comparable. My analysis of musical cultures as comparable exposes IBDP Music’s reliance on a modern, Euro-American conception of music as a universal language. This standpoint masks Euro-America’s privilege to create analytical concepts according to which all cultures ought to be analyzed (Castro-Gómez, 2007). By analyzing IBDP Music’s conception of musical cultures as distinct, I evidence this curriculum’s reliance on a nineteenth-century, Euro-American conception of cultures as fixed and discrete. This position objectifies and fixates cultures, also characterizing borderline cultural practices as corrupted (Abrahams, 1993; Robinson, 2010).

My analysis points to important contradictions between IBDP Music’s claims of cultural sustainability and its actual curricular practices. By failing to acknowledge its favoring of Euro-American discursive practices, IBDP Music perpetuates Euro-American thought’s worldwide expansion and dominance, further marginalizing alternative systems of musical thinking. That is, IBDP Music perpetuates Euro-American epistemic imperialism—a centuries-old process of imposition of a Euro-American epistemic framework over alternative systems of thought (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1999; Shiva, 2015).

By pointing out some of IBDP Music’s discursive limitations, this paper calls into question the curriculum’s popularity as a model of music curricular reform. Furthermore, it creates openings for radically innovative and potentially less Euro-American-centered school music curricula. These alternative curricular initiatives will not only critically interrogate their underlying epistemic assumptions, but they will also enable spaces for other epistemic traditions to take center stage. By relinquishing universalist pretenses, acknowledging their socio-historical situatedness, and embracing diversity in both musical content and epistemic outlook, new international music education curricula can overcome IBDP Music’s inherent contradictions and embrace cultural sustainability more resolutely.

(1) I acknowledge that the concept Euro-American high art carries imperialistic connotations (Chakrabarty, 2000; Gans, 1999).

Author

• Antia Gonzalez Ben, University of Wisconsin-Madison