This project examines the work of four elementary music educators who strive to challenge the dominant paradigm of music education. I employed the methodology of a multiple case study (Merriam, 1998; Yin, 2009) to consider the discourses, practices, and philosophies of these four educators. I observed in each school for an eight-week period for two full days each week, conducting semi-structured interviews at the beginning, middle, and end of each observation process. At each school, I followed an observation protocol, in addition to completing three interviews, and keeping a journal. In this work, I mobilize a tri-faceted lens that combines the theoretical frameworks of anti-colonialism, anti-racism, and anti-racist feminism toward counterhegemonic goals.
The teachers' diverse practices include critically engaging with issues of social justice, studying a broad range of musics, introducing multiple musical epistemologies, creating space for students to own the means of cultural production, contextualizing musics, considering differential privilege, and subverting hegemonic practices. In many ways, these four individuals interrupt the traditional Eurocentric focus on Western classical music to explore different possibilities with their students. However, within this work to subvert, there were moments in each classroom where the dominant paradigm was reinscribed. These subversions and reinscriptions are instructive to music education and carry broader implications for the discipline.
Ultimately, this thesis argues that a truly radical music education involves shifting from a liberal to a critical paradigm. Many values and strategies traditionally found in liberal education can be reread radically, and doing so puts forward tenets of a radical music education. Within these four classrooms, there were myriad examples of this shift from a liberal to a critical orientation. However, this work also raises questions of positionality and asks explicitly which bodies are able to do radical anti-oppressive work in music education, acknowledging that it is possible to unintentionally reinscribe dominant power relations while working to subvert them.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TORONTO/oai:tspace.library.utoronto.ca:1807/43593 |
| Date | 09 January 2014 |
| Creators | Hess, Juliet |
| Contributors | Magnusson, Jamie Lynn |
| Source Sets | University of Toronto |
| Language | en_ca |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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