“I’ve Sat in Your Seat Before”: A Study of the Experiences of Three Black Women Music Educators

Abstract

This descriptive collective case study explored the experiences of three Black women music educators through the framework of community cultural wealth. Analysis of data collected through Seidman’s three-stage phenomenological interview model revealed three themes. The first, “path to teaching,” represented the formative experiences that shaped participants’ development, including a deep level of embodied musical knowledge in multiple genres and the development of resilience. The second, “navigating the academy,” represented the experiences of participants during their collegiate programs, including mentorship and support they had received, perseverance through difficult challenges, and intersections of their experience with existing and often problematic structures in music schools. The final theme, “pedagogical approach,” represented the ways that participants wove aspects of their individual capital and experience into their pedagogical approach, including knowledge of families and community, ethnoracial representation for their students, culturally responsive approaches to pedagogy, and passing along tools for navigational success to their students. Alignment of the data with the framework of community cultural wealth is discussed, emphasizing participants’ prominent uses of both navigational and resistant capital and the development of “Black musical capital.” Implications for music education are discussed.