Choirs are lauded for their psychological, physiological, and social-emotional benefits. For 2SLGBTQ+ people (two-spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and expansive gender and sexual identities), choir is a place to forge kinship, develop identity, and rally for political action, regardless of whether the choir labels itself as a…

The purpose of this philosophical inquiry is to problematize the assumptions underlying elementary music teachers' choice to both erase folk songs from their curricula and to replace lyrics with racist associations. Erasing is defined as a process in which music educators remove certain folk songs with racist origins entirely from their…

LGBTQIA+ choruses in the United States play an important role in the development of queer movement culture by providing safe spaces other than bars and clubs, by emotionally supporting queer people through extended political struggles and the AIDS crisis, and by presenting public counternarratives to anti-gay propaganda. Jon Sims, a music teacher…

This paper has two parallel components--one a storied prose account, the other a presentation of elements of the story compressed into six-word reflections to underscore or in some cases to expand on the narrative. Katherine Norman Dearden gathered data through means of serial interviews with the choir director and review of related media accounts…

White hegemony is pervasive in and through music education, demanding that teachers and scholars take deliberate social and political actions in order to address racial injustice. Such actions are often built upon propositional knowledge or knowledge that can be evaluated by conceptual reason and verified as true or false (Perry and Shotwell 2009;…

Dialogue surrounding gender and identity in choral ensembles is multi-faceted and complex. Although many gendered ensembles can serve as a safe space for singers, they can essentialize the experience of gender and ignore the intersectional nature of identity, thus marginalizing trans, gender-expansive, and BIPOC singers. In this paper, we…

In this article, I examine the potential of social media to meaningfully connect students and educators with First Nations popular musicians. Utilising yarning-as-method under the theoretical frame of storying, I present accounts of attempts to embed the practice in high school classes before exploring how the process was refined for an initial…

Drawing upon Maxine Greene's concepts of "wide awakeness" and "social imagination," I argue for the necessity of re-imagining "The Star-Spangled Banner" (U.S. national anthem) to account for a plurality of American perspectives and to de-legitimize ways in which racism and White privilege have dictated "correct…

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…

Being able to play the guitar and sing one's favorite songs is often an unrealized adolescent dream. Guitar Express is a group music making approach that aims to enable people to realize this dream and develop an identity of amateur musician regardless of age. This is achieved through the use of an alternate tuning of the guitar and a variety of…

Music teachers in the United States are grappling with educational policy changes that include Common Core implementation, standardized testing, and new teacher evaluation and certification models. The focus on assessment and measurement in education is set against a global backdrop of violence, xenophobia, political strife, and profound human…

In this paper, I advocate that culture matters in music education and should be a measure we consider when we assess the quality of music-making in the community. Community arts education can address a multitude of social issues that impact marginalized communities if viewed through an appropriate lens. I propose historical trauma as an…

This article explores the possibility of conceiving preschool music activities as a way of forming spaces of participation with society's youngest. The discussion draws on Hannah Arendt's ([1958] 1998) definition of public spheres, and the argumentation is closely linked to an empirical example from musicking events with 1-3 year olds in a…

This project examines the communal process of music learning as it occurs in a Byzantine chant learning group at a Greek Orthodox Church. The goal of this project was to investigate the act of music making, as situated in a particular sociocultural context, in order to address the question: Through what processes do individuals share music…

In this article I discuss children's everyday uses of recorded music (such as CDs, Mp3-files) in the light of sociological notions of "children" and "childhood". The discussion provides perspectives on musical engagement and musicality that supplement perspectives within developmental psychology. The study is based on…