Children’s Music Education and Cultural Policy – Mary Catherine Stoumbos

Rationale for Course

The proposed course will present students with the chance to examine how music learning occurs. The course starts with foundational ethnomusicological texts on childhood and music learning and gradually branches out to music education, policy, and sociological texts as students learn to apply ethnomusicological theories and methodologies in interdisciplinary, applied settings. This course will expand the range of Music Department listings by creating an opportunity for students to engage with fields adjacent to ethnomusicology. Additionally, it creates a setting for students to engage critically with music learning, a process which has openly and covertly shaped their own learning experiences, ultimately leading them to a course in a college music department. While the foundational texts cover a slightly wider geographic range, the emphasis of the course is on childhood and music learning in the United States. Ultimately, students will develop their own final papers in which they will be able to explore any geographic region they choose. With the interdisciplinary approach, students will have the chance to explore creative ways to approach research questions that music studies raise. Additionally, with the incorporation of applied research, students will have further chances to reflect on their own music learning experiences as well as those of others, as they again explore creative yet theoretically grounded approaches to lived scenarios.

As students engage with this topic, I incorporate regular reflection assignments to ensure that students are reading and intellectually engaging with the material regularly and effectively. The reflections are a place for students to process the texts as well as connect course material with their lived experiences, opening ideas for applied projects. These reflections help me understand how each student has processed the material, allowing me to guide subsequent lessons more effectively as I ensure that each student is properly engaging with course ideas. I also incorporate a mid-semester participation check-in, where students can reflect on their engagement with the class. This models one of the course concepts that talent is culturally defined and propagated, and that even a requirement as seemingly airy as participation can be concretized, with confusion around expectations obviated.

In addition to the reflective assignments, students will complete three written assignments throughout the semester. The first two, a paper on theory and a policy analysis, are weighted less than the final paper. They are summative assignments in the sense that they will receive a grade, and they are formative in the sense that students will receive actionable feedback on them so that they can be used as building blocks for the final paper. The policy analysis also serves as a practical experience in working collaboratively in a professional setting. The final paper is an opportunity for students to amalgamate the feedback received from the first two papers and create a more extensive analysis of a music learning-related policy. This analysis, like the course, will be based in ethnomusicological traditions while engaging other relevant disciplines as appropriate. Students will be encouraged to think about how their research might be practically applied to their research subject.

For all of their written assignments, students will be able to share their writing and ideas with me until one week before the paper is due for feedback. Students will be able to meet with me during office hours to receive formative feedback on their work and, with the aid of rubrics, identify precisely which areas need improvement and how. The rubrics I have designed for the course aim to supply students with concrete, actionable feedback, while remaining flexible enough to support the individual, creative writings that students develop. Similarity across the rubrics is purposefully designed for students to be able to readily apply feedback from early assignments across subsequent assignments.

Ultimately, my goal for my students is for them to diversify their academic toolkit, providing them with an in-depth knowledge of ethnomusicological approaches to childhood and music learning as well as offering them examples of ways that ethnomusicology can be woven together with other fields, namely music education, public policy, and cultural policy, to create more nuanced depictions of learning environments. Through my course, I also hope for my students to become more aware of the ways that scholarship can be applied to real-world scenarios in meaningful ways.

Relationship to My Research

My dissertation primarily investigates the following questions: How do we fund school music programs in the United States? Which children are funded to receive a music education and of what form and quality? What do educators, students, and parents expect of music education programs? And, what should educators, students, and parents be able to reasonably expect of music education programs? In this course, I will break these questions down with students and explore their broad roots. By interrogating conceptualizations of childhood and music learning that dominant ethnomusicology, students will gain a deeper understanding of how to approach research questions on the current state of music education. As my research is interdisciplinary, students will explore some aspects of the disciplines that inform my research: music education, public policy, cultural policy, anthropology, and sociology. The applied component of my research, in which I hope to form evidence-based recommendations for schools and governing bodies, is built into the syllabus as well, when students consider ways that other scholars have conducted applied work. Finally, the course connects most explicitly with my research during the final unit, which is situated directly in my ethnographic subject: music education in urban centers of New Jersey. The ethnographic component of my research takes place in New Jersey, where I speak with local educators, administrators, and parents to learn about and assess the forms of music education available.

On a higher level, this course connects to my research as my research grapples with understanding how music education programs serve their students. By writing accessible, evidence-based recommendations in my research on offering music education in low-income settings, I aim to influence the diversity of students who are able to access high quality music education early in their lives. I trace the histories and current development of music education in low-income, urban public schools in the United States. I highlight the specific ways in which public education institutions have frequently been unable to offer low-income, racially and ethnically diverse students a robust education that fosters higher-order and creative thinking. Within these environments, I examine how local educators and communities have managed to serve their students regardless of state and national policies that constrain finances and curricular offerings. I draw on my historical analyses and input from community members to construct recommendations on how public schools and private non-profits or community groups can successfully partner to write community-specific syllabi and serve the unique needs of their students. Thus, drawing on my research, through this course, musicology and related fields will metatheoretically engage with the process of more diverse voices gaining entry into the academic study of music.