Despite calls from The National Standards Curriculum (NSC) to incorporate music that reflects the wider society of Jamaica, the opinions and cultural systems of youth often go unnoticed in the classroom. This can create a disconnect between the established curriculum, students’ culture system, and how they are taught in the music classroom. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine how secondary school music teachers practiced culturally responsive teaching by functioning as cultural organizers, cultural mediators, and orchestrators of social contexts for learning when student learning was (a) related to their preferred music, and (b) related to cultural systems beyond their preferred musical culture. Three music teachers from three public secondary schools in the city of Kingston, Jamaica, participated in this research. Using an instrumental case study design (Stake, 2006), I observed each teacher’s lesson online on three separate occasions and conducted three semi-structured interviews with each teacher. The data collected were analysed and used to describe the themes that emerged. The findings from this study suggest that culturally responsive teaching does not only support ethnically diverse student populations but can function effectively with music teachers supporting students in Jamaica’s postcolonial environment. The teachers’ understanding of Jamaican culture did not necessarily align with students lived popular culture but learning about students’ preferred music and employing contextual teaching and learning was beneficial to the students. Understanding students’ cultural background, including their popular culture experiences, and including historical aspects of their culture to broaden their understanding of their own heritage, were critical to how teachers operated. Their teaching strategies included students’ preferred music and the teachers’ selected music, both used to develop a broad-based music curriculum aimed at engaging and expanding the students’ knowledge beyond what they already know.

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The purpose of this study was to examine the teaching behaviors exhibited by novice and expert band directors who taught in both beginning band and high school band rehearsal settings. In this study, teaching behaviors consisted of three categories: 1) verbal teacher behaviors (directives, questions, information, and feedback), 2) non-verbal teacher behaviors (modeling), and 3) student performance activities (full ensemble play, sectional play and individual play). I compared the differences between novices and experts by analyzing video recordings of rehearsals. The questionnaire, consisting of both open ended and multiple-choice items was designed to obtain background information regarding the participants to establish whether they were classified as a novice or expert. It was also designed to obtain information regarding the band program such as scheduling and length of classes, student groupings (e.g. grade level, ability grouped, instrument family, etc.) Data were also collected by having the participants both video and audio record two rehearsals of both beginning band and high school band on the same day, twice during the same week. I identified rehearsal frames containing two or more student performances, categorized the instructional targets, and analyzed specific teacher and student behaviors using SCRIBE to determine the frequencies, durations, and proportions of time devoted to verbal teacher behaviors (directives, questions, information, and feedback), non-verbal teacher behaviors (modeling), student performance activities (full ensemble play, sectional play and individual play). Of particular interest in this study was identifying the ways in which novice and expert band teachers modify their instruction to accommodate the wide ranges of instructional settings, learner ages, and ability levels. Findings reinforced the idea that teaching beginning band students differs greatly from teaching more advanced students (in this case, high school band students), both in the methods of instruction and the use of time. Results illuminated the idea that the beginning band setting is more of a lesson than a rehearsal; less conducting and more modeling/demonstration/coaching. Regardless of whether novice or expert, there was more verbal instruction, positive modeling, general positive feedback, and more student performance and for longer periods of time in beginning band (BB) rehearsals versus high school band (HB) rehearsals. Although the percentages of student performance were higher in BB rehearsals, student performance consisted of other types of engagement (count/clap/tap, finger/name, etc.) in addition to having students perform on instruments. Results from this study also reinforced the differences found between novice and expert teachers from previous research, although there were striking individual differences among the teachers in both categories. Novices tended to focus more on the pedantic aspects of teaching, and they talked more than experts. Experts tended to be more intuitive and adaptable according to the lesson or of the ensemble, using tacit knowledge and their efficiency and intuitiveness in decision-making when solving rehearsal problems. Regarding the differences among each of the teachers, regardless of years of experience, this study reinforced the notion that time spent teaching does not necessarily equate to expert teaching skill acquisition.

High school music education is not mandated by the Standards of Quality, the Virginia state educational law, and courses offered on the high school level vary among Virginia school divisions. This explanatory mixed methods dissertation study provides an overview of history of development of high school music education in Virginia, reveals what high school music courses currently offered in Virginia school divisions (N = 131), and surveys approaches to development of programs of studies of a representative sample of Virginia school divisions (n = 14). The study generated three major findings. First, 29 various courses are offered among Virginia school divisions on various levels, five performance type courses and five nonperformance type courses. Out of ten course types offered in Virginia, Band and Chorus are the only courses offered at significantly high rates, while Composition, Guitar, Music Technology, IB Music, Orchestra, and Piano are offered at significantly low rates. This is because Band and Chorus have traditionally been considered as basic high school music courses, and everything else is offered as school divisions can afford and what teachers employed in school divisions can teach. Second, larger Virginia school divisions, located in racially/ethnically diverse cities and suburbs offer more variety of high school music courses. This is because low school budgets and teacher shortages are detrimental to smaller and remote school divisions, as they can afford to hire only so many teachers to teach only so many subjects. Third, administrative approaches to developing high school programs of studies, particularly approaches to stakeholder engagement in program development, influence what courses are offered.

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The purpose of this study was to explore the role of self-efficacy sources in informing the self-beliefs, teaching practices, and commitment of rural music teachers. People’s efficacy beliefs affect what actions they take based on how they envision the expected outcomes. These actions include how much effort they will give, their resilience in the face of obstacles and adversity, how they respond to stressors, and what results they realize. Bandura’s (1997) self-efficacy sources (enactive mastery experience, vicarious experience, verbal/social persuasion, and physiological and affective states) provide a framework to understand how rural music teachers experience with these self-efficacy sources may contribute to their teaching practice and their commitment to rural music teaching. The study methodology was a multiple case study with cross-case analysis. There were six study participants who taught multiple grade levels and music subject areas in a rural public school in Maine. Each participant completed the Music Teacher Self-Efficacy Questionnaire (adapted from Zelenak, 2011 and Lewis, 2018); a focus group interview; individual interviews; and two written journal prompts. Results from this study show the importance to support rural music teachers’ self-efficacy for teaching through the four self-efficacy sources. The strengths of the participants’ perceived self-efficacy enabled them to persevere through music teaching challenges, especially those with out-of-specialty music teaching, which contributed to their resilience and commitment to teaching in a rural area. Helping music teachers to understand self-efficacy development and the cognitive processing of the four self-efficacy sources may motivate them to persist and improve their teaching practice through perseverant action, improve student learning, and strengthen commitment levels for music teaching in rural areas. Furthermore, fostering relationships and building connections of community with students, staff, parents, and members of the community may be important for developing rural music teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs and for supporting affirming rural lifestyle experiences. Rural music teachers may discover an enduring concept of teaching success when they co-create meaningful experiences with students and community members that celebrates the individual strengths and values of a rural area.

The purpose of this study was to investigate what adult singers find meaningful about their participation in a volunteer community chorus and to consider the implication of the choral place on participant sense of meaningfulness. The researcher collected data from four adult singers, their family members, and two conductors. Bridging the gap between science and art, the researcher used a qualitative research method called portraiture, wherein narrative portraits are developed and written by a researcher in a descriptive manner providing voice to understanding the phenomenon of interest, to create portraits of four adult singers. Portraiture researchers seek to discover resonant stories within the complicated framework of daily life. Semi-structured interviews with each participant provided data. In addition, adult singers kept personal journals for the researcher, and the researcher observed participant behaviors before, during, and after rehearsals. The researcher implemented axial, focused, and theoretical analysis during data analysis and interpretation to construct a narrative portrait of each participating singer reflecting the emergent patterns and themes. The two emergent themes were connectedness and achievement. Overall, connections with other people and achieving surmountable challenges were highly valued aspects of this study. Further analysis for the impact of sense of place on meaningfulness noted the impact of the choral place and the choral process on participants’ perceptions of meaningfulness.

Music performance anxiety is common among musicians, and sometimes it severely affects public performance. Many musicians are not able to perform their best as a result of an increased anxiety level. The specific aim of this research study was an in-depth description of how college piano majors in Taiwan dealt with issues of music performance anxiety (MPA), how MPA was experienced and discussed, and how these factors were associated with students’ debilitating symptoms of MPA. I also sought to identify if college piano professors used any coping strategies, methods and techniques in teaching private piano students and how they helped students to manage with MPA. Research questions included a number of issues related to MPA, such as musicians’ musical development, previous exposure to stressful performance situations, the levels of their psychological and physiological arousal, their approaches to learning and motivation, their social and cultural backgrounds, their coping strategies, and how these factors were associated with students’ debilitating symptoms of MPA. A qualitative research methodology was employed to conduct a multiple case study with questionnaires and interviews. The participants were 122 college piano major students from three universities located in southern Taiwan—Tainan National University of the Arts, Tainan University of Technology, and National University of Tainan. The data collection began with two self-report MPA questionnaires—State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) and the Performance Anxiety Inventory (PAI). After completion of the pre-screening questionnaires, the 20 participants with higher scores, which indicated greater anxiety levels, were selected for the semi-structured interviews. Findings from this study indicated that MPA was found to be a multidimensional construct, influenced by a variety of factors including internal factors (perfectionism, self-efficacy and confidence), external factors (evaluations and critical audience) and the cultural and societal factors (teachers’ and parents’ pressures). The majority of participants reported feeling low confidence about their abilities, sensitivity to fears of being compared and judged with others, and thus often interpreted their anxiety reactions and tensions as signs of vulnerability to poor performance, which significantly affect their confidence, self-worth, beliefs, focus, concentration, self-esteem, and severely diminished performance quality.

Due to recent demographic changes to the student populations in the United States, urban schools have experienced an increase in their proportion of culturally diverse students (Emmanuel, 2006; Fisher, 2008; Robinson, 2006), prompting music education researchers to address issues specific to urban schools. Yet, there still remains a paucity of research on urban music education, particularly in the field of singing and choral participation in the urban setting at the upper-elementary level. Responding to this gap in the research, the purpose of this study was to examine the influence of gender, choral membership, and ethnicity on students’ attitudes toward singing and choral participation in urban upper-elementary schools in a school district in the state of Florida. The following research questions guided the study: (a) How do gender, choral membership, and ethnicity influence urban, upper-elementary school students’ attitudes toward singing?; (b) How do gender, choral membership, and ethnicity influence urban, upper-elementary school students’ attitudes toward choral participation?; (c) How do gender, choral membership, and ethnicity influence urban, upper-elementary school students’ attitudes toward future choral enrollment?; and (d) Is there a relationship between urban, upper-elementary school students’ attitudes toward singing, choral participation, and future choral enrollment? I selected a convenience sample of four urban elementary schools and surveyed fourth- and fifth-grade students, both chorus and non-chorus members, from these four schools (N = 600). I utilized a researcher-modified version of Mizener’s (1990) questionnaire on singing interest and choral participation to measure attitudes toward singing, choral participation, and future choral enrollment. Results indicated that girls had more favorable attitudes toward singing, choral participation, and future choral enrollment than boys. Compared to non-chorus members, students in chorus had more favorable attitudes toward singing, choral participation, and future choral enrollment. Additionally, there was a significant positive correlation between the three dependent variables among chorus members. Ancillary analyses revealed tentative evidence that, among those enrolled in chorus, African American students tended to have less favorable attitudes toward choral participation than students of other ethnicities. However, the ethnic group with the lowest choral participation rate among surveyed students was that of Hispanics

Homeschooling is a growing phenomenon. Estimates are that 1.7 million children are homeschooled each year in the United States. Although a number of studies have explored various aspects of this phenomenon, little has been written concerning the musical experiences and practices of homeschoolers. I interviewed three families consisting of six parents and a total of 10 children three times each using semi-structured questions. I also observed each family’s school day a minimum of four times, and explored the motivations for homeschooling and musical instruction, the kinds of educational and musical activities each family evidenced, and then solicited opinions regarding musical style preferences, musical experience, and the use of music in everyday life. I analyzed and interpreted the data through a framework of concepts formulated by Bourdieu (habitus, cultural and symbolic capital, exchange, and economism). My findings suggest that each family’s decision to homeschool was an outgrowth of their Christian habitus, but with nuanced considerations that included ideology, pedagogy, and family. The parents’ decision to support musical learning and experience (each of the 10 children played at least one musical instrument, most of them two, and a few three) centered on a desire to learn music as an aid to worship. However, both parents and children noted non-musical benefits including self- discipline, time management, character formation, training in focus, and life-long usefulness. Parents and children approached educational and musical studies conscientiously. They also reported preferring classical and church music to music associated with youth culture. The families used music as a concentration aid, a mood regulator, and a teaching tool.