The Accessibility of a Classical Music Education to Youth in the United States

The Accessibility of a Classical Music Education to Youth in the United States
Author: Josie Davis
Publisher:
Total Pages: 56
Release: 2014
Genre: Music
ISBN:

The purpose of this investigation was to examine how classical music education is supported and made available to children in the United States, an underexplored area in the field of music and the arts. The paper examines the relationship between social class and the accessibility of classical music education to youth. The theoretical paradigms of Howard Becker, Annette Lareau, and Pierre Bourdieu argue that lower class families with reduced cultural capital have limited access to the arts and classical music in the U.S. The study incorporates a close examination of current literature, survey data collected from 50 parents who have children enrolled in private music lessons, four interviews of educators and music professionals, and draws on my own experiences teaching music in other parts of the world. The paper emphasizes potential barriers to receiving a music education, but also examines the merits of learning how to play an instrument and the kind of values music can teach. The research concludes that classical music is exclusive to children from lower social classes and that exposure to music can enrich the lives of youth in many meaningful ways.

Methods of Accessibility in Classical Music

Methods of Accessibility in Classical Music
Author: Nicha Poolpol
Publisher:
Total Pages: 130
Release: 2021
Genre: Arts
ISBN:

The United States’ classical music field’s present-day operations are deeply influenced by its history with institutional racism. The past decade has brought the field a rude awakening for the neglect of the growing diversity in its communities and its institutions’ need for a change amongst its people, music, and programming. Accepting these statements then points to questions of how do organizations and individuals alike work to amend these issues? And how can diversity be integrated into a system that is rooted in racism and exclusion of people of color, non-Western cultures, and lower income groups and individuals? This study will focus on accessibility as one of the main barriers to participation within the United States’ classical music field. More specifically, it looks at the effects of systemic racism in creating financial, cultural, and psychological accessibility barriers to Western, European classical music. Looking at early exposure to the art form, music education, and classical music institutions, this thesis will unpack how these three aspects influence the future of diversity within the classical music field. Through program profiles and interviews with music administrators, this thesis will look at who is creating access and who access is being made for as to explore how the field is addressing the issues that have resulted from the racist underpinning of the classical music field in the United States. In this study, current music administrators are interviewed and existing programs that aim to address the absence of music education and diversity in Western, European classical music spaces are examined.

A History of Music Education in the United States

A History of Music Education in the United States
Author: James A. Keene
Publisher: Glenbridge Publishing Ltd.
Total Pages: 450
Release: 2009
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0944435661

Keene provides a detailed account of music instruction in colonial and nationalized America from the 1600s to the end of the 1960s. (Music)

Sociology and Music Education

Sociology and Music Education
Author: Ruth Wright
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
Total Pages: 334
Release: 2010
Genre: Music
ISBN: 9780754668015

Sociology and Music Education addresses a pressing need to provide a sociological foundation for understanding music education. The music education community, academic and professional, has become increasingly aware of the need to locate the issues facing music educators within a broader sociological context. This is required both as a means to deeper understanding of the issues themselves and as a means to raising professional consciousness of the macro issues of power and politics by which education is often constrained. The book outlines some introductory concepts in sociology and music education and then draws together seminal theoretical insights with examples from practice with innovative applications of sociological theory to the field of music education. The book concludes with an Afterword by Christopher Small.

Gender, Subjectivity, and Cultural Work

Gender, Subjectivity, and Cultural Work
Author: Christina Scharff
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 185
Release: 2017-09-27
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1317375092

What is it like to work as a classical musician today? How can we explain ongoing gender, racial, and class inequalities in the classical music profession? What happens when musicians become entrepreneurial and think of themselves as a product that needs to be sold and marketed? Gender, Subjectivity, and Cultural Work explores these and other questions by drawing on innovative, empirical research on the working lives of classical musicians in Germany and the UK. Indeed, Scharff examines a range of timely issues such as the gender, racial, and class inequalities that characterise the cultural and creative industries; the ways in which entrepreneurialism – as an ethos to work on and improve the self – is lived out; and the subjective experiences of precarious work in so-called ‘creative cities’. Thus, this book not only adds to our understanding of the working lives of artists and creatives, but also makes broader contributions by exploring how precarity, neoliberalism, and inequalities shape subjective experiences. Contributing to a range of contemporary debates around cultural work, Gender, Subjectivity, and Cultural Work will be of interest to scholars and students in the fields of Sociology, Gender and Cultural Studies.

Music and the Child

Music and the Child
Author: Natalie Sarrazin
Publisher:
Total Pages: 312
Release: 2016-06-14
Genre:
ISBN: 9781942341703

Children are inherently musical. They respond to music and learn through music. Music expresses children's identity and heritage, teaches them to belong to a culture, and develops their cognitive well-being and inner self worth. As professional instructors, childcare workers, or students looking forward to a career working with children, we should continuously search for ways to tap into children's natural reservoir of enthusiasm for singing, moving and experimenting with instruments. But how, you might ask? What music is appropriate for the children I'm working with? How can music help inspire a well-rounded child? How do I reach and teach children musically? Most importantly perhaps, how can I incorporate music into a curriculum that marginalizes the arts?This book explores a holistic, artistic, and integrated approach to understanding the developmental connections between music and children. This book guides professionals to work through music, harnessing the processes that underlie music learning, and outlining developmentally appropriate methods to understand the role of music in children's lives through play, games, creativity, and movement. Additionally, the book explores ways of applying music-making to benefit the whole child, i.e., socially, emotionally, physically, cognitively, and linguistically.