Educational standards movements have manifested in the widespread adoption of statewide educational standards in mathematics and literacy in the United States. Within this policy context, the National Coalition for Core Arts Standards published educational standards for four fine arts disciplines, including music. Drawing from critical theory, this essay understands the National Core Arts Standards in Music as a product of a hegemonic alliance between neoliberal and neoconservative interests that run counter to the National Association for Music Education’s mission of “promoting the understanding and making of music by all.” By linking music education to workplace skills, establishing uniform benchmarks to improve educational efficiency, and codifying long held Eurocentric epistemologies of musical value, the National Core Arts Standards in Music stand to exacerbate existing inequities in music classrooms. As an alternative to the contemporary common sense of schooling, the possibilities and challenges of a democratic music education for creating counterhegemonic spaces are explored.
{"title":"Music Education for Some: Music Standards at the Nexus of Neoliberal Reforms and Neoconservative Values","authors":"Jessica E. Mullen","doi":"10.22176/ACT18.1.44","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.22176/ACT18.1.44","url":null,"abstract":"Educational standards movements have manifested in the widespread adoption of statewide educational standards in mathematics and literacy in the United States. Within this policy context, the National Coalition for Core Arts Standards published educational standards for four fine arts disciplines, including music. Drawing from critical theory, this essay understands the National Core Arts Standards in Music as a product of a hegemonic alliance between neoliberal and neoconservative interests that run counter to the National Association for Music Education’s mission of “promoting the understanding and making of music by all.” By linking music education to workplace skills, establishing uniform benchmarks to improve educational efficiency, and codifying long held Eurocentric epistemologies of musical value, the National Core Arts Standards in Music stand to exacerbate existing inequities in music classrooms. As an alternative to the contemporary common sense of schooling, the possibilities and challenges of a democratic music education for creating counterhegemonic spaces are explored.","PeriodicalId":29990,"journal":{"name":"Action Criticism and Theory for Music Education","volume":"78 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76061998","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Authoritarianism and the Challenge of Higher Education in the Age of Trump","authors":"Henry A. Giroux","doi":"10.22176/ACT18.1.6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.22176/ACT18.1.6","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":29990,"journal":{"name":"Action Criticism and Theory for Music Education","volume":"7 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82433353","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper discusses the implementation of a university teaching module, based on Lucy Green’s (2008) informal music learning model. The synergy between Green’s model and Paulo Freire’s critical pedagogy is addressed through explanation of the module and its practices. The module was offered six times, from 2011 to 2016, as an action research project on a mixed-mode distance education undergraduate music program at the Open University of Brazil. The choices of technology in the module were aimed at promoting interactions in a dialogical, humanizing, and problem-posing approach to education in order to achieve conscientization (Freire 1970). However, the uses of technology and some of the practices of students led the author to ponder discourses of technological determinism.
{"title":"Informal Learning Practices in Distance Music Teacher Education: Technology (De)humanizing Interactions","authors":"Flávia Motoyama Narita","doi":"10.22176/ACT17.3.57","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.22176/ACT17.3.57","url":null,"abstract":"This paper discusses the implementation of a university teaching module, based on Lucy Green’s (2008) informal music learning model. The synergy between Green’s model and Paulo Freire’s critical pedagogy is addressed through explanation of the module and its practices. The module was offered six times, from 2011 to 2016, as an action research project on a mixed-mode distance education undergraduate music program at the Open University of Brazil. The choices of technology in the module were aimed at promoting interactions in a dialogical, humanizing, and problem-posing approach to education in order to achieve conscientization (Freire 1970). However, the uses of technology and some of the practices of students led the author to ponder discourses of technological determinism.","PeriodicalId":29990,"journal":{"name":"Action Criticism and Theory for Music Education","volume":"29 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81934151","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The purpose of this study was to examine communities of practice that contribute to undergraduate professional identity construction. Participants were music education, performance, and therapy majors in a university school of music in the southern United States. Each participant completed an online survey regarding their experiences in school of music communities and the extent to which these communities developed their professionalism. Descriptive and correlational analyses of data show strong connections between school of music communities of practice and self-concept as a music educator, performer, or therapist. School of music communities of practice influence students’ views of themselves and how they believe others perceive them. Within these communities, student interaction and collaboration with their professors in a variety of settings inspire students to organize concrete images of the knowledge, competence, and professional work needed as a professional.
{"title":"Communities of Practice that Contribute to Undergraduate Identity Construction: A Case Study","authors":"E. McClellan","doi":"10.22176/act17.3.30","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.22176/act17.3.30","url":null,"abstract":"The purpose of this study was to examine communities of practice that contribute to undergraduate professional identity construction. Participants were music education, performance, and therapy majors in a university school of music in the southern United States. Each participant completed an online survey regarding their experiences in school of music communities and the extent to which these communities developed their professionalism. Descriptive and correlational analyses of data show strong connections between school of music communities of practice and self-concept as a music educator, performer, or therapist. School of music communities of practice influence students’ views of themselves and how they believe others perceive them. Within these communities, student interaction and collaboration with their professors in a variety of settings inspire students to organize concrete images of the knowledge, competence, and professional work needed as a professional.","PeriodicalId":29990,"journal":{"name":"Action Criticism and Theory for Music Education","volume":"47 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81199361","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper discusses two projects that use practice as research to explore learning that takes place in liminal spaces—within the university but not formally in the classroom, while bridging discursive fields. In each project, university faculty participants and student participants in the fields of music, dance, and education, came together to collaborate on creating and performing new works. Participants worked with traditional techniques of composition in one project and storytelling and improvisation in the other. Both projects involved students and faculty working together on a voluntary basis. This paper documents how informal learning and creative thinking benefit from taking place in a liminal zone—within the university and its extended community, but not constrained by fixed discursive practices such as course expectations, assessment, or credit requirements—and allow for both students and faculty to learn from each other and to take creative risks.
{"title":"Teaching for Creativity and Informal Learning in Liminal Spaces","authors":"Terry G. Sefton","doi":"10.22176/act17.3.79","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.22176/act17.3.79","url":null,"abstract":"This paper discusses two projects that use practice as research to explore learning that takes place in liminal spaces—within the university but not formally in the classroom, while bridging discursive fields. In each project, university faculty participants and student participants in the fields of music, dance, and education, came together to collaborate on creating and performing new works. Participants worked with traditional techniques of composition in one project and storytelling and improvisation in the other. Both projects involved students and faculty working together on a voluntary basis. This paper documents how informal learning and creative thinking benefit from taking place in a liminal zone—within the university and its extended community, but not constrained by fixed discursive practices such as course expectations, assessment, or credit requirements—and allow for both students and faculty to learn from each other and to take creative risks.","PeriodicalId":29990,"journal":{"name":"Action Criticism and Theory for Music Education","volume":"2009 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82584490","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In post-revolution Grenada, explorations of identity often reveal a generational divide. This generational divide is frequently expressed through music (Sirek 2013, 2018). In this qualitative case study I use an ethnographic methodological approach to examine Grenadian calypso and soca music, analyzing data collected from observations and participant observations, interviews, investigation of media/social media; as well as calypso and soca music and lyrics. Drawing from Tönnies’ (1887/2017) constructs of Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft, I explore the ways in which calypso and soca musicking (Small 1998) and music education initiatives construct and articulate the generational divide in Grenada.
{"title":"“Until I Die, I will Sing My Calypso Song”: Calypso, Soca, and Music Education Across a Generational Divide in Grenada, West Indies","authors":"Danielle Sirek","doi":"10.22176/ACT17.3.12","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.22176/ACT17.3.12","url":null,"abstract":"In post-revolution Grenada, explorations of identity often reveal a generational divide. This generational divide is frequently expressed through music (Sirek 2013, 2018). In this qualitative case study I use an ethnographic methodological approach to examine Grenadian calypso and soca music, analyzing data collected from observations and participant observations, interviews, investigation of media/social media; as well as calypso and soca music and lyrics. Drawing from Tönnies’ (1887/2017) constructs of Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft, I explore the ways in which calypso and soca musicking (Small 1998) and music education initiatives construct and articulate the generational divide in Grenada.","PeriodicalId":29990,"journal":{"name":"Action Criticism and Theory for Music Education","volume":"46 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80661277","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Artistic Citizenship: Escaping the Violence of the Normative (?)","authors":"Deborah Bradley","doi":"10.22176/ACT17.1.71","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.22176/ACT17.1.71","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":29990,"journal":{"name":"Action Criticism and Theory for Music Education","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87835678","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Faith, Hope, and Music Education","authors":"Vincent C. Bates","doi":"10.22176/act17.2.1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.22176/act17.2.1","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":29990,"journal":{"name":"Action Criticism and Theory for Music Education","volume":"464 1","pages":"1-21"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83011122","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Moving Beyond Orthodoxy: Reconsidering Notions of Music and Social Transformation","authors":"Kim Boeskov","doi":"10.22176/ACT17.1.92","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.22176/ACT17.1.92","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":29990,"journal":{"name":"Action Criticism and Theory for Music Education","volume":"109 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78087489","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}