Taught by the Students: Culturally Relevant Pedagogy and Deep Engagement in Music Education

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Description

Within public schools in the United States, students of color are truncating their music education experiences at higher rates than their white counterparts. Music educators have searched for explanations of this phenomenon as well as effective interventions, yet there has been little overall improvement of these statistics. Ruth Gurgel presents and analyzes the perspectives of eight students and their teacher in a pluralistic 7th grade choir classroom at Clark Middle School, located in a large Midwestern urban school district. Through the eyes of the students, music teachers gain insight into the complexity of the engagement cycle as well as interventions that increase and maintain deep engagement. Ruth Gurgel looks at the intersection of instruction, relationships, and music in the classroom, highlighting how each component affects students. Taught by the Students provides an analysis of music education through the lens of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy, connecting this body of literature to Ruth Gurgels research in the music classroom at Clark Middle School.

Reviews

Full of real classroom experiences, interviews and observations, Learning From the Students will be a valued resource for preservice teachers, teacher educators and veteran teachers who are looking to build stronger relationships with their students and establish an engaging classroom environment. A practical look into the classroom application of cultural relevant teaching principles, from the perspective of teachers and students, this book provides a glimpse of theory in action. -- Travis Hale, music educator and doctoral student at Kansas State University
Culturally relevant pedagogy is a topic overlooked in most music education programs in the United States. This book is unique because it includes current real-life perspectives of students from diverse racial/ethnic backgrounds often forgotten in schools. Perhaps at no other time in our history has the need to better prepare pre-service teachers to more effectively engage students of all cultures been so critical. -- Brigetta Miller, associate professor of music education at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin

Author Bio

Ruth Gurgel, Assistant Professor of Music Education, is the specialist in Elementary Music Education at Kansas State University. She has taught music in Colorado and Wisconsin and now continues to present her research at national and international conferences.