“You Can Only Choose From the Things You Know”: Engaging With Students’ Dark and Politicized Funds of Knowledge in the Music Classroom

Abstract

This article uses the lens of border crossing to consider the ways in which middle school music students and their teachers engaged with dark and politicized funds of knowledge. Through the development of music composition projects, students and educators shared, challenged, and problematized issues of race, immigration, and urban identity as they grappled with the complexities inherent in their knowledges and experiences. This article explores how these projects served as catalysts for dialogue that challenged unidirectional understandings of knowledge, encouraged dispositional reflection, and amplified the need for dynamic pedagogical practices that seek to connect learning practice with in-the-world experiences.

Keywords

urban education social justice critical reflection music education

Students’ lives are imbued with a wide range of experiences. Through these experiences, they amass skills, resources, knowledges, and dispositions, each of which is connected to sociopolitical and cultural-historic structures and processes. When curriculum is disconnected from these experiences, school can seem unrelatable and irrelevant to students (Gutstein, 2006). When connections are forged between curriculum and students’ life experiences, however, school can be a place of criticality where curriculum “builds upon the sociocultural realities of students’ lives, examines sociohistorical and political dimensions of education, and casts students as critically engaged, active participants in the construction of knowledge” (Salazar, 2013, p. 128).

The purpose of this article is to explore the ways in which middle school (Gr. 6–8, ages 11–14) students and educators in the United States aimed to connect interactions in the general music classroom to larger issues of social and political concern through a soundscape music composition project. Specifically, I consider how students drew upon their own diverse funds of knowledge (Moll et al., 1992) as they manipulated, created, and sampled sounds to explore the complex ways in which they understood their world. While funds of knowledge can span the gamut of experiences, skills, and dispositions students accumulate in their lives, many of the students in this study drew specifically upon knowledges that scholars might classify as “dark” (Zipin, 2009) or “politicized” (Gallo & Link, 2015). This included topics relating to race, class, and immigration. While scholarship has explored both composition (e.g., Kaschub & Smith, 2009) and social justice (e.g., Benedict et al., 2015) in music education separately, few studies have considered the possibilities for compositional projects to serve as catalysts for engaging with knowledges that might be deemed contentious in the classroom.

Funds of Knowledge

The funds of knowledge educational model was originally intended to “develop innovations in teaching that draw upon the knowledge and skills found in local households” (Moll et al., 1992, p. 132). The goal was to challenge deficit and reductionist views of students by demonstrating the broad and diverse spheres of knowledge present in communities and to find ways to use such knowledges as the basis for curriculum development (González et al., 2005). In the process, students’ diversities were framed as “pedagogical assets” that could, and should, be central to the curriculum (Moll & Gonzalez, 1997, p. 89).

This model has since been expanded and applied in a variety of educational contexts, though most frequently in urban environments and with youth from historically marginalized communities. It has been utilized in empirical studies across subject areas, leading to findings that suggest that this approach can support teachers’ use of community resources for pedagogical purposes (Andrews & Yee, 2006; Kinney, 2012) and can help students connect learning practice with in-the-world experience in a variety of settings (Bouillion & Gomez, 2001; Marshall & Toohey, 2010). When linked with critical pedagogy, scholars argue that this framework can also help students develop sociopolitical awareness and challenge institutional limitations (Garcia, 2017). In addition, utilizing funds of knowledge can help music educators, in particular, avoid essentializing students’ musical traditions (Liu, 2020) and develop awareness of multiple forms of meaning-making through the arts (Varga-Dobai, 2018).

Scholars have also critiqued the funds of knowledge approach, noting that practitioners need to engage in ongoing reflexivity so as not to impose their own “well-intentioned, cultural arbitraries” on learners (Oughton, 2010, p. 63). Such well-intentioned practices often led to the maintenance of false illusions and a series of assumptions regarding the funds of knowledge held by students. Furthermore, scholars also argue that too often funds of knowledge curricular strategies focus on “light” funds of knowledge, thus limiting and potentially devaluing students’ experiences deemed “too controversial” for school (Gallo & Link, 2015; Paris & Alim, 2014; Zipin, 2009). As a response, scholars suggest a need for the implementation of curricular practices that both acknowledge and help students activate “dark” or “politicized” lifeworld knowledges. Though they derive from different scholars, the terms “dark” and “politicized” refer to “the real-world experiences, knowledges, and skills young people deploy and develop across contexts of learning that are often positioned as taboo or unsafe to incorporate into classroom[s]” (Gallo & Link, 2015, p. 361). This includes, among others, knowledges related to inequity and oppression as well as topics such as race, class, and violence.

I want to be clear here that the terms “dark” and “politicized,” both as I am using them and as I believe they were intended to be used by Zipin (2009) and Gallo and Link (2015), are in no way meant to suggest that such knowledges and experiences place students at a deficit. Rather, these terms imply that these knowledges and experiences have been kept out of the classroom, relegated to shrouded exchanges in hallways and cafeterias rather than deliberately and actively embedded within classroom curricula. A call for an increased engagement with such understandings is meant to articulate that all knowledges, not only those with which we may be comfortable, have a place in the classroom where they may be considered and problematized.

Embedding opportunities to engage with dark funds of knowledge can be challenging. Educators may feel uncertain of how to enter and navigate such conversations, citing differences in experience and a lack of preparation in their preservice programs (Robinson, 2017). Furthermore, these knowledges are dynamic, fluid, and changing as students continue to engage in and with the world; a “fund” is never at capacity. This means that incorporating them into the classroom is often a complex endeavor. As a result, both educators and students can police themselves out of opportunities to engage with darker funds of knowledge, causing a fortification of boundary lines between learning practice and in-the-world experience (Zipin, 2009).

Scholars argue, however, that engaging with dark and politicized funds of knowledge can “offer fuller self-recognition” for students and are a “vital matter of social-educational justice” (Zipin, 2009, p. 330). In his work, Zipin (2009) found that educators often “backed off quickly” from projects as soon as students seemed uninterested in ideas deemed “controversial,” concluding that they were not yet mature enough and reverting to curricular strategies that “only thinly connect[ed] to lives beyond school” (p. 328). He noted that because curricula based on dark funds of knowledge often challenge institutional norms and students’ expectations of schooling, ongoing projects, and units that welcome and engage such knowledges over time, along with educator reflexivity and pedagogic dialogue with students, are necessary.

In Gallo and Link’s (2015) work with Latinx students who had recently immigrated to the United States, they explored hesitancies to engage with politicized experiences in the classroom. They noted the importance of opportunities for students to project their experiences through a creative medium as a way to help them explore and problematize from a distance. Projects that include storytelling, music-making, and art can help students navigate these issues in communal classroom spaces without feeling as though they are “divulg[ing] personal information” (p. 379).

Exploring Funds of Knowledge Through Composition

While scholarship has not explicitly examined the connection between the concepts of dark and politicized funds of knowledge and music education, scholars have considered the ways in which students’ sociopolitical experiences can be central as they produce media (e.g., Kaschub, 2009; Mantie, 2008). In these contexts, composition helped students grapple with social realities, build connections between learning practice and in-the-world experience, and “make an artistic statement in sound” (Kaschub, 2009, p. 281). Bringing diverse knowledges into the music classroom can also help students reflect on their own experiences and find ways to listen, hear, and honor the knowledges of others.

Soundscape compositions

Soundscapes have been defined by a multitude of artists, composers, educators, sound engineers, and audiologists. Schafer (1992) defined soundscapes as “the total field of sounds wherever we are” (p. 8) and suggested that they urge us to listen to the world with “greater critical attention” (p. 11). Expanding upon this idea, Hall et al. (2008) noted that soundscapes are not only audible sounds, but the ways in which we use the amalgamation of those sounds to tell stories, make meaning, and reflect on what and how we hear. Lashua (2006) called soundscapes “narrative compositions” and stated that they “are part of a dialogical process of speaking and listening, being and becoming – that is, as we make soundscapes, they in turn also partially construct who we are” (p. 407). The composition itself, then, is only part of the story.

Soundscapes have been used in empirical studies, as well as in practitioner curricular design. Cumberland (2001) used soundscape compositions to promote intersubjective listening in a Canadian middle school classroom. He argued that the listening skills students learned during compositional activities disrupted the dominant narrative of forced listening in the classroom, wherein one individual’s interpretation (often that of the educator) is understood as correct. His compositional projects were centered in dialogue where different students understand and represent similar spaces differently based on their own personal context and history. Not only did students learn to listen to each other, but they also learned that their voices, knowledges, and understandings matter both in and out of the classroom.

Brownell and Wargo (2017) used soundscapes in their #HearMyHome project to help preservice English teachers develop critical awareness of future teaching environments. Their goal was to engage preservice teachers in sonic composition that would help them “listen for and reflect on difference” in order to think through the lived experiences of their students (p. 2). They found that some preservice teachers used the soundscapes to “build connections to local communities,” while others “create[d] boundaries,” suggesting that the act of creating and composing was not enough and that further critical dialogue was needed (p. 7). Additionally, soundscapes have been explored as curricular engagements that help students develop critical literacy through cultural and political contexts (Imada, 2001); traverse social, economic, and racial borders between Year 10 students and incarcerated youth (Savage & Challis, 2001); and explore social and economically diverse communities (Freeman et al., 2011).

While the above studies illustrate how soundscape compositional activities have been used both in classrooms and community spaces to develop critical literacy and examine cultural, economic, social, and racial distinctions, scholars have not yet considered the possibilities of soundscapes as part of a learning project that seeks to productively disrupt and create spaces for border crossing in the music classroom. In this study, soundscapes served multiple, intertwined purposes. They were musical explorations that helped students attune to the sounds of their world; explore musical elements such as form and pulse as they shaped sounds into musical compositions; and also develop skills related to mixing through digital audio workspaces. There was also a narrative element in soundscape composition as students used soundscapes to “explore serious issues through music” (Hess, 2019, p. 9).

Funds of Knowledge as a Pathway to Border Crossing

This study was framed through the lens of border crossing. Theories surrounding the concepts of borders and border crossing have permeated critical theory (Giroux, 2005), cultural theory (Anzaldúa, 1990), and sociology (Lamont & Molnár, 2002), among others. Central to each of these is an understanding that “humanity is made up of social groups that are differentiated by practices, beliefs, and institutions” (Lamont & Molnár, 2002, p. 1). Borders and boundaries help us make sense of these differences and play a role in determining how we interact with the world. Borders can be symbolic, impacting how we understand practices and beliefs. They can be social and geographical, influencing how we engage with and have access to diverse opportunities, resources, and ideas. They can also be political, as they inscribe and reinforce core narratives that perpetuate social struggles and inequalities. In a dynamic world of economic isolation, fear of difference, and increasing social conflict, there is a continued need to “understand how we create borders and. . .the social consequences of such actions” (p. 1).

Following my commitment to a critical pedagogical approach in this study, I chose to focus primarily on Giroux’s (2005) understanding of border crossing as a critical pedagogical process. This entails, firstly, recognition of the strengths and limitations of the “epistemological, political, cultural, and social” realities that “frame our discourses and social relations” (p. 20). Secondly, it involves the juxtaposition of those realities with others in order to help students “understand difference in its own terms” (p. 20). Finally, it entails the creation of spaces for “critical analysis. . .experimentation, creativity, and possibility” as students develop new dispositions that impact how they engage in and with the world (p. 151).

Within border crossing pedagogy, “students’ own voices and experiences become central to a process of creating new forms of knowledge” (Hayes & Cuban, 1996, p. 9). These experiences are then read dialogically from multiple perspectives, inviting students to “critically engage the strengths and limitations. . .that define their own histories and narratives” (Giroux, 2005, p. 108). Therefore, curricular endeavors that are grounded in border crossing pedagogy necessitate an engagement with students’ funds of knowledge, both as the source of texts and as central to dialogue and debate.

Dark and politicized funds of knowledge are particularly important in border crossing pedagogy. Giroux (2005) notes that “critical educators need to challenge those educational discourses that view schooling as a decontextualized site free from social, political, and racial tensions,” choosing instead to actively engage with the diverse experiences that have traditionally been left out of the classroom (p. 226). If border pedagogy is to have any meaning, he argues, it must engage with the complex and controversial realities of students’ lives.

Engaging in border crossing pedagogies does not require educators to abandon their own experiences or roles within the classroom (Giroux, 2005). Rather, just as students are asked to engage in self-reflection, border crossing also requires educators to recognize the partiality of their own understanding. As such, educators are challenged to develop opportunities and enact curricula in which “a single discourse [does] not become the locus of certainty and certification” (p. 179). Multiple narratives, both student and teacher generated, “legitimate difference as a basic condition for understanding” within the classroom (p. 146). Critical engagement with and on these multiple narratives can then be joined together to create a “borderland where multiple subjectivities and identities exist as a part of a pedagogical practice that provides the potential to expand the politics of democratic community and solidarity” (p. 146).

As with all critical pedagogies, scholars have cast doubt on the prospect that pedagogical practices in border crossing can open possibilities for a multiplicity of viewpoints. Broadly, scholars express concern that these approaches can box students into a particular way of thinking, arguing that an ideological obedience can occur (Ellsworth, 1989; Pinar, 2009). Others are concerned that border crossing can actually further strengthen unequal power relations if it is only deemed legitimate when introduced by an educator or researcher (Elenes, 2003).

There are no easy responses to these critiques, but with careful and collaborative construction of work that takes them seriously, embedding them into the fabric of investigative attempts is possible. Throughout the project, the participating educators and I worked to maintain awareness as to how our words and actions, as well as our silences and moments of inaction, impacted students’ engagement and choices. Equally important, we often deliberately shared our own experiences alongside students and aimed to make our own reflections and observations transparent through the study in an attempt to mitigate unequal power relations.

Methodological Considerations

The data presented in this article are drawn from a larger study that took place with students and teachers in two Chicago-area middle school general music classes in 2019 (Bylica, 2020). Central to this study was a project that was co-created by the researcher and participating educators with the goal of creating opportunities for students to problematize their own experiences and explore ways of knowing through both music and dialogue. To that end, the design of the learning project had three concurrent facets: (1) composing, (2) dialogue, and (3) critical reflection. Over a period of 5 weeks, students responded to the prompt, “How do I hear home?” The students, educators, and I began by exploring the ways in which music might be utilized as a response to the social world. Students then spent 2 weeks designing individual digital soundscape compositions that spoke to their experience and worldview. Soundscapes were then shared, prompting dialogue and reflection in both full class and small group settings. For the purposes of this project, soundscapes were defined as consciously designed musical compositions that utilized recordings and clips from both media and the environment. As a whole, this study considered the ways in which students drew upon varied funds of knowledge as they developed and discussed their compositions, the ways in which critical listening and authorial agency manifested through student and educator interactions, and the role that self-authorship and cultural production played as students and educators navigated their identities throughout the project. The data and analysis presented in this article specifically focuses on the first of these considerations. Therefore, while several research questions guided the study as a whole, this article is concerned with the following: In what ways (if any) did students conceive of their diverse funds of knowledge as being musically and personally relevant in their projects? In what ways did educators support, curtail, and/or consider these knowledges as spaces for critical engagement in the music classroom?

The frameworks of border crossing and dark and politicized funds of knowledge imply an epistemological belief that schools are spaces of critical engagement, wherein an exploration of power, exclusion, and purpose are central to teaching and learning (Kuntz, 2015). This belief led to a critical, qualitative methodological approach. A hybridized model of design-based research, case study, and critical educational action research served as the methodological framework for this study. Design-based research (McKenney & Reeves, 2012) was utilized to help develop a learning project in which students engaged in musical listening and the creation of digitally designed compositions. Further, as design-based research is an iterative process, it also allowed for engagement with the project in multiple settings over time, adapting to each context individually. Case study (Yin, 2014) was used to address the unique complexities of the heterogeneous, urban communities in this study. Critical educational action research guided the participatory nature of the project in that the researcher and participating educators collaboratively designed and implemented the project with the aim of producing pedagogical change in light of fluid social and political contexts (Kemmis, 2006).

Data Collection and Analysis

Semi-structured interviews with participating students and educators, student focus groups, student projects, and researcher field notes based on classroom engagements served as sources of data for this study. Ongoing member checks throughout the interview process helped promote democratic validity (Herr & Anderson, 2005), ensuring the inclusion of multiple voices in the research process. Throughout the study, my own continual dialogue, transparency with participants, and active awareness of the impact of my positionalities in relationship to the research process and outcome helped me engage reflexively (Berger, 2015).

Data for this project were organized by case and analyzed independently. This process was followed by a cross-case analysis that drew together commonalities and distinctive features of each case, allowing for comparison while also preserving individual fidelity (Miles et al., 2014). Two main cycles of coding, descriptive and pattern, generated themes and categories (Saldaña, 2009). Engagements with experiences that may be perceived as contentious in the school setting emerged as a key theme, and data were recoded through the lens of dark and politicized funds of knowledge (Gallo & Link, 2015; Zipin, 2009).

Participants and Setting

Two middle schools with similar profiles were chosen for this study: Edgewood and Forest Glen.¹ One class of 30 seventh-grade students and their teacher, Ms. Smith, participated in the study at Edgewood. Two classes of 15 sixth-grade students and their teacher, Ms. Green, participated in the study at Forest Glen. While I did not seek schools that specifically employed compositional experiences, project based learning, or critical approaches to education, I did use criterion selection (Patton, 2015) to intentionally choose middle schools that offered general music.² Further, the two schools in this study were also chosen as they are located in spaces of economic, social, and racial diversity in and near urban settings (Illinois State Board of Education, 2018). I did this because I was interested in how students and educators grapple with distinct and divergent ways of knowing that are not only personal but are also marked by experiences related to racial, cultural, and social identities. All research was approved by and conformed to institutional research board protocols, as well as those maintained by the schools in this study.

Findings and Analysis

Three main themes emerged during the coding process in relationship to students’ and educators’ engagement with dark and politicized funds of knowledge: (1) barriers to engagement, (2) embracing reflexivity, and (3) the complexity of knowing.

Barriers to Engagement

While both educators in this study articulated a strong desire to incorporate students’ dark and politicized funds of knowledge in musical engagements prior to this project, they also expressed uncertainty about how to do so. For example, in our first interview, Ms. Smith noted:

It’s frustrating. I mean, we talk about this as staff all the time. . .how do [we] relate to their experiences? How do we teach kids. . .who have experienced things that we could never even dream of experiencing? I think the students here feel such a sense of severe injustice. . .and that’s really matched by deep frustrations on the part of the faculty.

In my notes, I often made comments that acknowledged efforts made by faculty and staff to embrace the racially, culturally, and economically diverse student body at Edgewood. It seemed, however, that the focus was on “celebrating diversity” through games and team-building exercises. There appeared to be a disconnect between these activities and space to actually discuss and problematize the tensions that were causing the feelings of “severe injustice” and “deep frustration” articulated by Ms. Smith. Students recognized this same disconnect and spoke about it frequently in focus groups throughout the project, noting, “we don’t talk about [violence, inequity, race] because [teachers] are afraid of it, I guess. . .they think as soon as we talk about this kind of stuff, there’s gonna be a fight,” and “they just don’t take the time. . .there’s so much we don’t know. . .I don’t want to play another game. I want to do things in class that matter.”

Students’ compositional choices suggested that there was significant interest in engaging with topics that may be seen as contentious or otherwise absent in curricular projects. Of the 30 students who participated in the project at Edgewood, 18 composed soundscapes that dealt with topics that might be considered controversial. Edgar considered bullying and fighting; Bobby, Madison, Elijah, Semaj, and Jada all focused on racism and racial inequity; Blanca explored cultural stereotyping; and Asia, Jayden, and Dexter dealt with gun violence in their soundscapes.

Whereas Forest Glen students often boldly entered dialogical spaces during class, compositions presented at Edgewood were often met with long stretches of silence. When I inquired about this difference, most students just shrugged. Bobby, however, noted:

This is big talk that we never talk about in school. To tell you the truth, I was shocked on day one that you came in here and we were listening to songs and we were talking about race so quick. And I was like “Ok, aight. . .let’s see what we got here. Let’s see where this goes once we actually start making music.”

Despite their stated desire to “talk about this kind of stuff,” the culture at Edgewood, at least from Bobby’s perspective, seemed to prevent engagement in discussions about certain topics. Students often noted that they felt more comfortable engaging in critical dialogue during our focus group sessions because it felt separate from “doing school” and, specifically, from “doing school at Edgewood.”

Though students were hesitant to engage dialogically in the full group, their compositions, journal entries, and small group discussions illuminated the ways in which they were grappling with issues like racism, immigration, and violence. This led Ms. Smith to note:

I normally don’t get to know my students that well because. . .they do their stuff. . .but we don’t take the time to really engage. . .I do think we look at [music] critically, but I don’t ever really think about having them connect to their own lives. . .and this was a chance to see the gray areas, that things aren’t just black and white.

Ms. Smith seemed to reframe both her understanding of projects, as well as her conceptions of the knowledges and experiences of the students in her class. In her first interview, she articulated what appeared to be a deficit view of students’ experiences, as well as feelings of unpreparedness when it came to engaging with such experiences in the classroom. Her shift in language here, however, suggests that she may be expanding her views, recognizing and acknowledging the complexities that permeate her students’ identities, knowledges, and experiences.

Pedagogically, there are several implications that emerged from these experiences at Edgewood. First, critical pedagogical engagements take time (Martin & Brown, 2013). One of the limitations of this project was its short length. Despite this length, however, there were still visible shifts in the ways Ms. Smith conceptualized students’ experiences as well as the value of those experiences in the music classroom. Further, many students at Edgewood transitioned from exploring dark and politicized funds of knowledge only in their music and small groups at the beginning of the project to discussing these ideas more openly in class by the end. These shifts indicate that there may be a possibility for further or more sustained growth if this project were part of a larger curricular structure that prioritized criticality and created opportunities for students to utilize their own diverse experiences in their musical engagements.

These data also suggest that smaller, classroom-level pedagogical shifts likely need to be paired with larger, more significant shifts at the school level. Benedict (2012) notes that when critically engaged musical thinking is not tied to the larger, whole school context, these practices can “remain as disciplinary silos, effectively rendering them functional” (p. 157). While we saw small shifts in this project, they still existed in a school culture that students understood as “unjust.” We might then view these micro-level shifts in the music classroom as starting points for future interdisciplinary or school-wide projects that aim to help develop critical literacy throughout the school context.

Embracing Reflexivity

Forest Glen is home to many students who have recently arrived in the United States from Central America, Mexico, and Eastern Europe. Many speak multiple languages and the school is in close proximity to cultural enclaves that offer language schools, cultural restaurants, and heritage centers important to families who have recently immigrated. Aware of this context, Ms. Green noted in one of our early discussions:

I think we’re going to get a lot of soundscapes about culture or language or immigration. It’s such a huge topic among the faculty and we’re just very aware of the experiences that a lot of these kids have had or are having. I’m really excited to see how they frame their experiences.

Like Ms. Green, I also assumed these issues would be at the forefront of students’ soundscapes and discussions. In the first days of the project, such topics did arise as we discussed music’s role in shaping and responding to our social world. When Forest Glen students began composing their soundscapes, however, not one wrote directly about language, culture, or immigration.

In an effort to be transparent, Ms. Green and I sat down with the students after the students had composed their soundscapes and shared our reflections. I explained that we had made assumptions about what experiences they might choose to write about in their soundscapes. In the process, we had privileged a singular element of their identities. We were cognizant of the impact such assumptions could have had on their musical and creative processes, so we asked if they were willing to help us think through these ideas with us. They noted:

“That didn’t happen that almost no one wrote about immigration, or like language because everyone, I think, they’re accepted as who they are here.”

“Just in this class I counted six languages that we speak. And there’s only fourteen of us in class.”

“I mean, some of the teachers are mean or make assumptions. But that’s not most of them.”

“It could also be that people just don’t want to talk about that stuff here. Like we feel it, but maybe we don’t want to do that here. Maybe people have other things they want to talk about.”

The educators and I wondered if, as Zipin (2009) has noted, some students were keeping these “deeper dispositions. . .tamped down” as a protective measure, fearing disparagement that their experiences would not translate into a school context (p. 329). While this may have been true for some students, several also noted other reasons for choosing to focus their soundscapes on other topics. Many confirmed that their cultural identities, complex thoughts about immigration and citizenship, and linguistic experiences were a foundational part of how they saw the world. They pointed out, however, these identities were intertwined and entangled in their thoughts (and soundscapes) about bullying, mental health, and family dynamics. Their aim was to present their perspectives as complex and multifaceted, drawing attention to the multiple experiences and understandings that make up their individual funds of knowledge.

Reflecting at the end of the project, Ms. Green noted that this moment of transparency seemed to be particularly powerful for students. She shared,

They were like “This is not how people in power talk to me!” It was like you were modeling your reflection for them in this critical and open way and they totally responded to that. It was as though that moment gave them permission to be reflective, too.

Indeed, after this conversation, it seemed as though the more Ms. Green and I modeled and engaged in reflective practice, the more the students did as well. Frequently, students drew connections between multiple knowledges and forms of identity, using the soundscapes as an opening to reflect on their own understandings of a variety of issues, including but not limited to culture, language, and immigration. As the project came to a close, Ms. Green reflected on the experience of the project as a whole and how her thinking had shifted over time:

Thinking about being critical helped me re-examine so many issues and trying to lead the kids to think about their world critically. . .it made me realize that there’s a big difference between. . . “Oh, I want my students to think critically about issues” and educators who are actually doing this kind of hard work, where you’re putting in the time and you’re having these moments of openness and thoughtfulness where you’re letting yourself be vulnerable, too. . .This was my big takeaway.

Pedagogically, there are several significant implications that can be gleaned from this experience at Forest Glen. First, explicitly modeling ongoing critically reflective practices as an educator emerged as important. While modeling is often used as a pedagogical tool in music education to introduce or reinforce musical concepts, this experience suggests that modeling might also be a strategy for helping students practice critical listening and reflection. In the middle school setting, modeling critical practices may help students understand what these practices can look and sound like when operationalized, helping them process their own thoughts and ideas in a critical manner. When engaging with dark and politicized funds of knowledge, educator modeling may also help students build trust and confidence that critical reflections on these knowledges are welcome in the music class setting, prompting them to find moments to share their own critical reflections. Finally, the ongoing nature of our modeling throughout this study also demonstrated to students that criticality is not a capacity to be achieved, but one that needs to be practiced over time. Our own reflective practices and assumptions demonstrated that these are perpetual issues that require ongoing engagements in critical thought.

This experience also highlights the importance of personal reflection on our own assumptions about students and the ways those assumptions potentially impact our pedagogical choices. Ms. Green and I had the best of intentions when we considered how students might embed cultural, experiential, and linguistic funds of knowledge into their compositions. We assumed that these were issues that students wanted to explore in class, and we were encouraged by their responses during that first week. Had we pushed this topic harder, we might have created a classroom community that was still predicated on our choice as educators of what/whose knowledge matters, thus potentially thwarting opportunities for multiple ways of knowing and border crossing. Creating curricular opportunities for students to utilize and problematize dark and politicized funds of knowledge does not entitle educators to choose which knowledges students interrogate. This is a challenging tension to navigate. The purpose of this project was to create spaces for students to develop their own artistic responses in sound and pigeonholing them into a soundscape about immigration and language would have been limiting at best and unethical at worst. Rather, by asking open, critical questions and inviting students to explore, we heard soundscapes that employed students’ knowledges about bullying, perfectionism, mental health, among others. Each of these soundscapes, in turn, then created spaces for new ideas and thinking about different experiences to manifest.

The Complexity of Knowing

As students began calling upon various dark and politicized funds of knowledge in the classroom, they often had particular ways of analyzing and presenting their own experiences. Edgar, for example, a student at Edgewood, created a composition that manipulated, juxtaposed, and combined sounds of teasing and laughter, heavy breathing, a composed instrumental track, and intense, driving beats from video games to create an experience that was suggestive of a horror film. He noted “I wanted to create music that makes people’s heart race like that. I wanted to get a reaction. . .to share that school can be scary. I want people to listen.” Drawing on his own experiences with bullying and fighting, Edgar was eager for his classmates to hear his experience through his soundscape. He noted, “It’s. . .the ‘new kids’ that are the problem. . .The ‘originals’ – the people who have been here forever – they don’t do anything bad.”

When discussed as a class, however, Edgar’s composition created openings for a conversation that problematized the origins of fighting and bullying. Stokeley, Edgar’s classmate, commented, “what if that’s just what they know? What if that’s what they assume school is supposed to look like. . .like it’s just what people do?” Blanca, another student responded with,

But they make the choice to do that. I don’t think that that’s really like their body is used to it. . .Because when they come to a new school, they have a decision: Start out fresh or become a brand new person. . .I don’t really think it’s because they already have that background that they just know it. I think it’s that they choose.

Stokeley went on to respond to Blanca and Edgar, challenging their viewpoints and calling for more complexity and criticality in how this experience is considered:

But can’t it be both? It can be a choice, but it’s also, like, they made that choice because that’s what people do in the world they live in. That’s their normal. Like, they make that choice. But you can only choose from the things you know.

Here, Stokeley seems to be expanding upon the ideas he introduced earlier in this dialogue. He is exploring how these knowledges are not just about content, but about a dispositional modality that is often associated with a darker knowledge (Zipin, 2009). He is no longer just talking about fighting or bulling or violence, but he is beginning to consider the “pedagogical transactions within [his classmates’] lifeworlds that have made [these issues] importantly thematic” in their lives (p. 328). Instead of stating “facts,” he is asking questions, utilizing Edgar’s composition as an opportunity to engage with processes that consider not just what we know, but how we know.

Such conversations continued and the door was opened for discussions about segregation, gentrification, and racism in urban settings as we continued to use Edgar’s soundscape as a catalyst for discussing local and global social struggles. While these conversations did not change Edgar’s experience with bullying, they may have helped both him and his classmates consider the structural and societal issues that can cause students to lash out in fear. Indeed, Edgar revisited his soundscape in an interview with me and noted, “I didn’t think about this like that. . .I was just thinking about bullies. . .I never made these connections.”

Many students at both schools had experiences that mirrored Edgar’s wherein their understandings of the complexities of their own knowledge grew through communal reflection. For some, space to interrogate soundscapes that appeared non-controversial often revealed connections to larger social struggles that may have otherwise been missed. Hunter, for example, developed a soundscape about summertime in Chicago. Utilizing the sounds of traffic, the lakeshore, and kids playing basketball, he painted a sonic picture of happiness and relaxation. When discussed in class, students shared experiences that helped us tease out issues of privilege and perspective in Hunter’s soundscape. For others, communal reflection helped them reframe a dualistic asset/deficit mindset. Scarlette, for example, developed a composition about perfectionism as a response to the pressure she feels to remain at the top of her class. Her soundscape prompted dialogue that recognized the complexities of “achievement,” reflecting upon how a competitive, high-pressure environment can be just as challenging for students who appear to be succeeding as it is for those who may not appear this way.

Complexity was also important for us, as educators, to recognize and consider. Gaztambide-Fernández (2011) notes that “critical educators often miss the multiple layers embedded in the productions of youth, and tend to easily dismiss what they can’t interpret, or what they deem not critical enough” (p. 34). There were moments throughout this project at both schools when, had we taken students’ compositions at “face value,” we likely would have dismissed the depth and criticality of each students’ creative process.

Tyler, for example, used video game soundtracks in his composition and initially responded to my question about his process by stating, “I just really like video games.” As we continued to reflect, however, Tyler began to articulate the pressure he felt to succeed at home and in school, and he came to realize that he enjoyed playing video games because it felt like a space where he had control. Bobby’s soundscape pieced together highlight reels from sporting events with an instrumental backbeat. When he shared the impetus for his composition, he explained that this was his response to a gang shooting that had claimed the life of his cousin a few years prior. His cousin had taught him how to shoot a basket and throw a football. He wanted this soundscape to demonstrate that many of the people who lose their lives to gun violence are mentors and friends. These and other examples suggest that it was not only the act of composing, but the creation of space for that composition to be repeatedly heard, discussed, and problematized that encouraged these conversations to manifest.

Experiences of students such as Tyler and Bobby suggest the importance of pairing artistic creation with opportunities to dialogue with students about their work in a one-on-one context. In these examples, students chose not to overtly engage with the darker side of their lifeworld knowledges through their compositions. Had we not spoken directly with them, we may have misinterpreted their soundscapes as simplistic or uncritical. Similarly, had we asked these students to write about their compositions or explain them to the class, they may have stopped at a point where they spoke about their favorite video game or why they love basketball. When we engaged in one-on-one reflective practice, we often learned about the critical and creative connections between their compositions and darker lifeworlds. Further, these one-on-one dialogues also served as a pedagogical strategy to help students think through the complexity of their own compositional choices and how they connect to broader funds of knowledge and issues of social and civic concern.

Discussion and Implications

Reflection and Dialogue as Both Necessary and Complex

Critical reflection played a complex and essential role in this project. Within border crossing pedagogy, opportunities not only to incorporate, but to challenge and problematize knowledges are crucial (Giroux, 2005). When used solely as a source of content for musical (or other) curricular engagements, lifeworld knowledges may be misconceived as singular and constant. When problematized and viewed as open for critical discourse, the complexities of such knowledges may be amplified, potentially illuminating them as perspectival, multiple, and interwoven. Problematization is important both to understand the underlying structures that produce such knowledges, but also to help students work to re-form their own understandings of the world to actively challenge such structures. It is in these spaces that knowledges may be recognized as far more complex than the labels of good/bad or light/dark that are often ascribed to them. Through analysis, connections can be made between knowledges and experiences, structures and narratives, producing “powerful learning and identity-building opportunities” for middle school students (Tucker-Raymond & Rosario, 2017, p. 54).

The data presented here also speak to a need to engage with reflection through multiple forums and modalities. Middle schoolers are often just beginning to explore how they want to shape their identity individually, among their peers, and in their larger community. This means that always beginning with large group reflection may be less likely to evoke productive dialogue. Rather, finding ways to help students reflect in one-on-one settings or small group contexts might help students build trust over time with their peers and educators. Part of an educator’s role when engaging with creative work, then, is to create opportunities to dialogue with students individually about their processes and products. While this can be challenging in a large class or short time frame, multiple forums may help facilitate this practice. Educators might utilize time as students are working on their compositions to meet with students in class, focusing not only on their musical decision-making, but also on their reflective processes. Not every conversation will illuminate connections between students’ musical work and critical thought, but if we do not create the conditions for them to occur, we, as educators, may over-simplify or mis-read students’ artistic endeavors. Through this dialogue, we may not only gain a sense of the complexities in students’ lives, but we may also help students critically think through these complexities and begin to build a sense of reciprocal trust.

For educators, the need to continually reflect is also key. Engaging with students’ dark and politicized funds of knowledge as an educator can be challenging, especially when there are significant racial and/or class-based differences between the teaching faculty and student body (Robinson, 2017). An ongoing practice of reflexivity, wherein teachers examine their “socialized cultural identities based on past experiences, knowledge base, and learned value beliefs,” as well as the ways in which those identities impact their pedagogical and curricular decision-making is critical (p. 13). Such a focus prepares educators to engage in agile practices that may help them recognize the connections between students’ funds of knowledge and the larger political, sociological, and cultural realities of the world (Benedict & Schmidt, 2014).

The Development of Critical Music Curricula

Utilizing and reflecting upon students’ dark and politicized funds of knowledge can also help music educators design curriculum that is both functional and critical. As students pull musical material from their own experiences (or potentially connect given material to their own funds of knowledge), modeling and inviting theorization about the strengths and limitations of each perspective can help students engage in critical practice and build critical dispositions. The purpose here is not for educators to play a role of substitute counselor, advising students on controversial issues in a therapeutic-oriented manner (Zipin, 2009). Rather, building a classroom culture of care and listening where critical “controversial” conversations are the norm can help students approach knowledge and experience with curiosity and examine their lives in relationship to social, historical, cultural, and political contexts (Noddings & Brooks, 2017). As they continue to grow in these understandings, the music classroom may become a space for students to artistically and critically reflect and enact change on their local environment.

Implications for Preservice Teacher Education Programs

Finally, both Ms. Green and Ms. Smith’s reflections suggest a continued need to examine how preservice educators are prepared to engage in the ideas and practices suggested above. Finding ways to develop curricula for preservice teachers that helps them develop dispositions and practical processes of implementation to engage with and reflect upon students’ diverse knowledges is clearly of importance. To develop such dispositions, music education programs might seek to help preservice teachers develop a “framing capacity” (Benedict & Schmidt, 2014). This framing capacity might help future educators recognize the connections between music education and the “political, curricular, pedagogical, sociological, and cultural demands of schooling” (p. 89). For teachers such as Ms. Smith, this might shape the way that they understand experiences as more multifaceted than deficit/asset, helping them find the “shades of gray” complexities in students’ experiences.

From a practice-oriented view, these examples suggest a need to help pre-service teachers draw connections between their reflective practices and the practical pedagogical realities of music teaching. For teachers like Ms. Green, opportunities to engage in multiple contexts and develop curricula that pairs critical questioning with musical engagements would be beneficial to help students draw upon and activate their diverse and complex funds of knowledge. To be clear, I am not suggesting that teacher education programs do not already prioritize these issues, nor that every musical endeavor must focus on engaging dark and politicized funds of knowledge. What is being suggested is that there might be entry points in music education programs that could help preservice teachers feel more prepared to raise and critically engage with these issues in the classroom, helping students draw connections between their musical learning practice and diverse in-the-world experiences. Music educators like Ms. Smith or Ms. Green, then, might be able to help their colleagues and school community build more critical school spaces.

Concluding Ideas and Lingering Thoughts

Engagements with dark and politicized funds of knowledge at each school were distinct. Students at Edgewood often used knowledge and experience related to racial tensions and gentrification as central elements of their compositions, but they were more hesitant to discuss these topics in large group settings. Students at Forest Glen were often interested in discussing these knowledges in class, but their connections in the compositions were less clear. Through time and ongoing critical reflection in multiple settings, the students at Edgewood seemed to become more open to discussing social struggles and personal experience in the classroom, and students at Forest Glen seemed to articulate connections between their compositions and local and global realities, eventually leading to spaces where border crossing was possible for students, educators, and myself.

Projects such as this, however, do not guarantee that opportunities for border crossing will continue to emerge after its completion. While smaller, classroom-level shifts such as those within this project may have served as an opening for impactful relational engagements in the moment, it is the ways in which those moments lead to pedagogical and curricular changes, larger school structural changes, and future action that can encourage enduring criticality. If we seek to reimagine the possibilities of how the music class setting might serve as a catalyst for these changes, a project such as this might serve as a starting point. The understandings of the complexities of knowledge, reflective practices, and artistic engagements may then serve to impact ongoing and future actions and relationships. In the process, these openings can generate trajectories of learning that would likely not have been possible with traditional unidirectional understandings of knowledge. Over time, engaging with darker lifeworld experiences may help students and educators recognize and problematize multiple viewpoints and connect learning practice with in-the-world experience.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Kelly Bylica

Notes

Author Biography

Kelly Bylica serves as Assistant Professor of Music Education at Boston University, USA. Her research interests include critical pedagogy, curriculum and policy, middle school musical experiences, and music teacher education.

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