Journal of Music Teacher Education

The purpose of this collective case study was to examine a collaborative teacher study group (CTSG) that explored narratives of race and dis/ability in music education. Participants were eight public school music educators from across the United States. The group met 11 times in Fall 2021, completed three individual interviews, and wrote in a private online journal. Initially, participants displayed a broad spectrum of agreements and dissonances between their words and actions regarding race and ability. At the end, participants described changes resulting from participation in the CTSG, including becoming more aware of the ways that racism and ableism operated in their teaching and personal lives. Primary factors that contributed to change were building connections with other music teachers, experiencing emotional intensity, space and time to grapple with difficult materials, as well as the structure of the CTSG. I offer implications and recommendations for practice.

In this article, we analyze a course type common to music education degree plans: the “introduction to music education” (IME) course. Known as “intro to music ed” or by a variety of other names related to “foundations” and foundational thinking, this course type is ubiquitous. However, the aims, content, and possibilities are rarely interrogated. We first situate IME courses in broader discourses around teacher preparation and then discuss historical developments around IME coursework in music teacher education. Next, we describe empirical findings related to IME courses. Then, we discuss curricular options for IME and make specific recommendations for how IME courses accommodate progressive concerns of the field related to teacher socialization, philosophy and sociology, and diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB).

The purpose of this multiple case study was to describe how music educators with ADHD believed that their condition shaped their approach to teaching music in secondary ensemble settings. One band, one orchestra, and one choir teacher participated in interviews, observations, and reflective journaling to share their perspectives on how they accommodated their own needs, how they tailored instruction to the characteristics of their students with ADHD, and how they approached inclusion of other neurodivergent students. Emergent themes included intrapersonal knowledge of ADHD, professional success through self-support, and supporting students through empathy-based strategies. The experiences and perspectives of these music educators demonstrated the value of including neurodivergent voices in efforts to ensure that music educators are prepared to provide equitable instruction for neurodivergent students.

The purpose of this study was to explore preservice music teachers’ (PSMTs) perceptions of teaching contexts. Specifically, I examined the experiences and beliefs PSMTs (n = 91) had related to rural, urban, and suburban settings for student teaching and future employment. Findings revealed that most PSMTs preferred teaching contexts that were similar to those of the P–12 schools they attended which were predominantly suburban. There were, however, stereotypes and misconceptions about teaching contexts that likely influenced participant responses. Despite preferences, most PSMTs indicated they were open to student teaching and employment in any context and believed they could be successful teachers in any context. A concerning finding that emerged included fears of specific contexts related to issues of race/ethnicity, sexual/attractional orientation, and gender. Implications for the profession include more diverse course content and field experiences beyond what is most familiar to PSMTs in addition to challenging biases.

In this article, we propose a framework for a critical pedagogy of popular music for teacher education to better prepare music teachers to enact anti-racist praxis within their classrooms. Although a growing body of literature in music education addresses issues of racism within the field, fewer scholars have studied this within teacher education. Drawing from critical pedagogy, our framework centers popular music as a means for music teacher educators to interrogate issues of identity and power and (re)contextualize pedagogy, considering the socio-political contexts and communities from which music practices originate. These processes facilitate reflection on how racisms shape taken-for-granted practices within music education by centering the socio-political contexts of popular music. Through our framework, music teacher educators could prompt pre-service music educators to consider the multiple racialized epistemologies of musical value students and teachers bring to the classroom, working toward the possibility of enacting a multicentric approach to music education.