During our research and reading, we came across several different theoretical principles that seemed to draw on important portions of our wonderings. During the semester, we each read one chapter of Marginalized Voices in Music Education (2016), a book that gave vignettes of several different individuals’ stories being marginalized people in music. Furthermore, we completed an annotated bibliography from which we were aiming to create a greater understanding of the topic of music education. These readings informed the way we thought about how to approach music education in an anti-racist and culturally relevant manner. Through a thematic analysis of the literature, we were able to draw three major takeaways to guide how we conceptualized a music education program at Jubilee House.
1. Boundaries are created societally and can be broken strategically
One chapter of Marginalized Voices in Music Education described boundaries and boundary objects and how they impacted music learning for a Black, low-income, female harpist, Dorothy. These boundaries and boundary objects are created by society and have different meanings in different spaces. In this case, the boundary object was a harp which kept Dorothy on the periphery of musical spaces (Hendricks and Dorothy 2016). In the case of our research, though, we saw strings as a boundary object and often brought up the idea of how to approach strings in a manner befitting of the situation of the people and families of Jubilee House. Breaking these boundaries gives those outside of these privileges spaces a sort of in to different spaces (Gallacher et al. 2002). This said, these breaking boundaries were emphasized with the idea of peripheral participation in which someone is on the edge of a group, which can have both a positive and negative result depending on the context (Hendricks and Dorothy 2016, 93). This said, it answers a question that we have been asked during this project: why not just send the families of Jubilee House to West Hartford to get a strings education there? They would sit in periphery participation there and not feel completely a part of that world. Boundaries like the boundary of strings education should be broken, but this needs to be done in a way that does not throw the people involved to the edge of a community that they may not feel accustomed to and may not feel as though they can break this boundary in.
2. Understand who you are teaching
Another main point brought up in multiple of our readings was that teachers need to understand their students and who they are in their entirety. In “You Got To Know Us”: A Hopeful Model for Music Education in Urban Schools” (2013) , the author, Talbot Martignetti, recommends that music teachers in urban public schools understand who they are themselves and who their students are and how that impacts their experience with music education. In addition, he recommends understanding your students’ goals with their music education, not every student is aiming to be the next Mozart so music teachers need to be conscientious of these students’ wants and needs accordingly. In addition, in the chapter of Marginalized Voices about Carlos Castañeda Lechuga it describes a student who excelled at the western style music that was most commonly played at school. What his music teacher did not know and understand was the double life that Carlos was living outside of school. He was a huge fan of mariachi music and loved playing it, but his teacher did not know this until seeing one of his performances (Schmidt and Lechuga 2016, 90) This leads to the theory of different types of bicultural identity including separated, identifying with ethnic identity, blended, a mix of both ethnic and American culture, and alternating, identifying with different cultures and switching between these cultural codes (Schmidt and Lechuga 2016, 90) . To teach students, you must understand who they are and how they operate to understand what is right for them in terms of a music education.
3. Strings are scary, but they do not have to be
Strings are viewed largely as a part of the Western canon of music. Strings, though, are a lot more than Vivaldi and Mozart; Mariachi, a distinctly Latin American style of music, is also very string heavy, but rarely ever is it the first thought when discussing string instruments. These ideas of strings as soley pare of the Western music canon can make them “scary” to those who are not familiar with this type of music, typically reserved for high-income, high socio-economic status individuals who are familiar with this, allegedly, more refined, high class style of art. This is where pedagogy comes in. How does one teach strings in a way that is culturally relevant and anti-racist. In “Upping the “anti-“: The value of an anti-racist theoretical framework in music education”, there is a case study of three different types of pedagogical styles taken in order to decolonize music education (DeLorenzo and Silverman 2016) One was creating an equity agenda, where the teacher facilitates conversations with an anti-racist framework to dismantle white supremacist ideology (DeLorenzo and Silverman 2016). Another created emphasizes multicentricity by introducing various genres of music to her students and the other recognized positionality (Martignetti et al. 2013). These different types of teaching can be used to make strings a less “scary” concept.