Uprooting music education pedagogies and curricula

Becoming-musician and the Deleuzian refrain

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2932695
AutoresElizabeth Gould (0000-0002-8358-0236, University of Toronto, autor de correspondencia)
Año2012
Volumen33
Número1
Páginas75-86
Fecha de publicación2012-02-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaDiscourse Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0159-6306 • E-ISSN: 1469-3739
EditorialInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/01596306.2012.632168
OpenAlexW2028784840
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas1
Referencias citadas25

Based on the British choralism movement of the nineteenth century, the historical legacy of music education in Canada and the US is one of social control. By the twentieth century, North American music educators used choral singing and music listening to teach music literacy skills to groups assumed to be in need of 'improvement': the working class, immigrants, and school-age children. Deploying so-called good music to improve moral character and instill national pride, their goal was to create docile citizens content with their place in society and committed to hard work. Exclusions, stereotyping, and arbitrary standards in music education still construct acceptable musics and musical behaviours along lines of race, gender, class, and sexuality that support the status quo and maintain social order. Uprooting music education practices from these manifestations of the Deleuzian refrain that constrains the profession opens spaces for transformative musical and educational potentialities. Keywords: music educationpedagogiescurriculasocial controlDeleuzian refrainexclusions Notes 1. By which Deleuze and Guattari mean the refrain. 2. Curwen borrowed heavily from, adapted and popularized as his own Sarah Glover's Norwich sol-fa method (Bennett, Citation1984). 3. These discourses are not so different today. At the 2010 Race, Erasure, and Equity in Music Education Conference, hosted by the Consortium on Research on Equity in Music Education (CRÈME), keynote speaker Gloria Ladson-Billings spoke at some length about the 'humanizing' effects of music—as an argument not only for teaching it in schools, but for teaching it for those very effects which are assumed to be inherent in it. Her comments were met with rapturous applause from the audience comprised of mostly university music education professors and graduate students. 4. See, as well, websites of professional organizations such as Gender Research in Music Education-International (http://post.queensu.ca/~grime/), and the MayDay Group (http://www.maydaygroup.org/). 5. It is, of course, not by accident that the most memorable melodic material, commonly known as the 'hook' of most popular music is invariably the chorus (refrain). 6. See http://www.coalitionformusiced.ca/; also may be accessed (as of 13 July 2011) at the url, weallneedmusic.ca

Art · Curriculum · Music education · Musical · Pedagogy · Popular music · Singing · Sociology · Visual arts · Art Education and Development · Diverse Music Education Insights · Music History and Culture