Lesson 2: How Do Inequities Affect School Experience?
Learning Objectives
The participant will be able to:
- Provide examples of inequities that can impact a child's participation in school music programs
- Discuss and explain how issues of equity can negatively impact a child's participation and/or engagement in school music programs
Introduction
Now that you have gained an understanding of what can be considered an equity issue and how equity issues impact the education system, we can think more critically about how equity issues can impact a child's experience in a school music program.
Warm-Up Activity
- Add to our class Word Cloud about things that are necessary or helpful for learning and progressing on a musical instrument and read over what others have added (i.e. access to an instrument, quiet & safe space for practice, etc).
- On our Google Doc, add an equity issue that might restrict or eliminate an individual's ability to have what is in the Word Cloud (I have added a couple examples to start off).
- Reflection: Do you witness any of these equity issues with your own students?
How Can Equity Issues Affect Music Participation?
- Most students begin learning an instrument in elementary school, around 3rd-5th grade. Beginner level ensembles and lessons are not usually offered in secondary schools, which limits the students that can participate in music at that age. Students who may have faced obstacles preventing them from learning an instrument in their early educational years are essentially cut off from participating in music ensembles by the time they reach middle school or high school.
- Students from low-income homes and communities are by and large underrepresented in school music programs across the United States (Hoffman, 2013), likely because these programs are not accessible to them and may be inadvertently reinforcing socioeconomic disparities. The methods for teaching music enforced by many teacher preparation programs typically do not meet the needs of the greater American population as they are often structured to serve upper-middle class students.
- Affluent music students typically perform at higher musical levels because they have access to resources and opportunities (i.e. private lessons, outside of school ensembles) that less affluent students do not.
General Strategies for Promoting Equity in the Classroom
Below are some general strategies that can help promote equity in education from National University. You will explore and create strategies more specific to teaching music in the next unit.
Closing Activity
Record your responses to this worksheet from the National Equity Project: Identifying an Equity Challenge.
References
Bates, V. C. (2018). Equity in music education: Back to class: Music education and poverty. Music Educators Journal, 105(2), 72–74. DOI: 10.1177/0027432118803046
EducationWeek. (2022, November 28). Where we are now: Educational equity in the pandemic era. https://www.edweek.org/leadership/where-we-are-now-educational-equity-in-the-pandemic-era
Hoffman, A. R. (2013). Compelling questions about music, education, and socioeconomic status. Music Educators Journal, 100(1), 63–68.
National Equity Project. (2024). Identifying an equity challenge. https://www.nationalequityproject.org/tools/identifying-equity-challenge
National University. (2023, September 20). Equity in education: Understanding equity in the classroom. https://www.nu.edu/blog/equity-in-education/
Unit 2 Homepage: Unit 2: Issues of Equity in Music Education
Course Homepage: Supporting Cultural Responsiveness & Equity in the Music Classroom