This ethnographic study investigated the interactions between the musical lives of adolescents and school music-learning culture in a suburban high school. Participants included two music teachers and seven adolescents. Framed within a symbolic interactionist perspective (Blumer, 1969), data were collected via methods consistent with qualitative inquiry, including an innovative data collection technique utilizing music elicitation interviews with adolescents. Findings emerged from the data via thematic analysis (Grbich, 2007). Findings indicate limited interactions between the musical lives of adolescents and school music-learning culture because participants portrayed and experienced a dichotomy between the musical assumptions and practices inside and outside of school. Interactions occurred when participants engaged in sharing musical capital that overcame segmentation among music learning, out-of-school experience, and elective participation in secondary school music programs. Supporting findings indicate that the school music-learning culture derived from teachers' negotiating between two major influences: 1) their own musical values, which were based on their musical backgrounds and the long-established professional tradition of formal performance emphases in school music programs; and 2) the musical values of their students. Adolescents self-defined their musical lives as largely informal musical activities commonly experienced outside of school. They expressed a wealth of personal musical knowledge and described their affinity for music across four dimensions: 1) expression and feeling, 2) relevance, 3) quality in artistry and craftsmanship, and 4) diversity. Three themes describe how adolescents’ personal relationships with music influenced their beliefs and choices regarding music participation and learning: 1) musical roots: nurturing personal and social connections with music, 2) motivated learning: seeking relevance and challenge, and 3) finding a voice: striving toward musical independence. Findings indicate that music teachers may enhance interactions between adolescents’ musical lives and school music-learning culture by acknowledging students’ musical engagement outside of school, honoring their personal musical knowledge and interests, and making them collaborators in developing music-learning models rooted in their affinity for, and personal relationships with, music.

In this study, the perceptions of 42 teachers—from the Stann Creek District, Belize—regarding the implementation and use of Intercultural Bilingual Education (IBE) as a language preservation tool in their schools were examined. Intercultural Bilingual Education (IBE) is a teaching method that aims at promoting the preservation of indigenous languages by integrating an indigenous language and culture into the academic curriculum, such that students can develop a better appreciation of their history and traditional practices. To examine the perspectives of teachers regarding IBE, Q Methodology was used to examine the research question: What is the range of perspectives teachers hold regarding IBE as a language preservation tool? From participant interviews and responses to an open-ended prompt centered on the research questions, the researcher developed a 40-item Q sample comprising statements that represented distinct perspectives on the use of IBE as a language preservation tool. Forty-two participants then sorted these 40 statements within a forced distribution grid that ranged from “most like my perspective” (+4) to “least like my perspective” (-4). These 42 Q sorts were then correlated; the correlations were then analyzed and rotated using PQ method software. Four factors were extracted from this process and they were converted to factor arrays resembling the same initial forced distribution grid. Based on an interpretation of the holistic configuration of these factor arrays and descriptive comments from participants concerning their sorts, these factors were named as: Strongly Supported IBE (Factor 1), Strongly Opposed but Conflicted about IBE (Factor 2), Cautiously Optimistic about IBE (Factor 3), and Supported IBE for Intergenerational Language Transfer (Factor 4). Implications from this study for administrators of similar programs include the importance of understanding teacher beliefs regarding their preparedness to deliver an IBE curriculum as well as their perceptions regarding the usefulness of such an approach, particularly given the additional instructional time needed to deliver it.