ABSTRACT: In this article, I examine the pervasive sexism and systemic barriers that female band directors face throughout their careers. Despite initiatives encouraging women to enter the field, issues such as a lack of female mentors, hostile work environments, and societal stereotypes continue to undermine their careers. Data indicates that women are continuously underrepresented as band directors, and many leave due to negative treatment and sexism. Furthermore, female directors often confront implicit biases that challenge their authority and capabilities. This paper advocates for collective efforts to promote gender equality. I emphasize that until systemic changes are implemented, the cycle of gender disparity in band directing will persist.

Author: Amy J. Bovin

Published 9/21/2025

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https://doi.org/10.22176/topics2025.04.96

ABSTRACT: This article reports on the first phase of a multiyear summer program using music technology and computer coding as interventions to promote creative and algorithmic thinking for Underrepresented Minority Students (URM) in grades 3–8 at an urban nonprofit charter school in the Midwest United States. Drawing on Culturally Responsive Pedagogy, the research team comprised of faculty and peer mentors from music technology and secondary education examined how an informal learning environment engaged children to explore interdisciplinary connections between music and computing through beat-making, remixing, and programming in Soundtrap, a web-based Digital Audio Workstation (DAW), and Scratch, an open-source coding program. We discuss approaches designed to promote interdisciplinary STEAM connections and implications for future practice.

Authors: Daniel Walzer, Jerelle Austin, Christopher Dobbs, Timothy Hsu, and Monica A. Medina

Published 9/21/2025

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https://doi.org/10.22176/topics2025.03.67

ABSTRACT: In this paper, I discuss ways of teaching and connecting with riṂajeḷ (Marshallese people) students and communities as a ripelle (non-riṂajeḷ) music educator. Drawing from networking and face-to-face encounters (Tuhiwai Smith 2008) with culture bearers, musicians, and community leaders to inform my research, I explore songs and dances that riṂajeḷ students in my town have taught me over a decade of relationship building and subsequent ethnographic research in Majuro, Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI). I conclude with practical applications for the music classroom that center deep contextual understanding of riṂajeḷ culture and reciprocity.

Author: Shawn Patrick Tolley

Published 6/21/2025

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https://doi.org/10.22176/topics2025.02.24

ABSTRACT: Music curricula and pedagogies found in elementary general music classrooms in public schools in the United States can be sites of oppression for many students and teachers. Within this system of oppression, teachers and students often lack the agency needed to create and engage with empowering and innovative music curricula and pedagogies, thus sustaining the status quo. In this paper, I employ feminist pedagogical perspectives to discuss how teachers and students might subvert oppressive music teaching and learning practices through a reimagining of elementary general music curricula and pedagogies with accessibility and equity at the fore.

Author: Lucas Schoppe

Published 4/15/2025

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https://doi.org/10.22176/topics2025.01.1

ABSTRACT: This paper explores the ways in which neoliberal discourses of cost-saving/profit-making, productivity/efficiency, and individualism informed the practice of Lachlan, the head of music in an Australian secondary school. In contrast to existing literature dominantly exploring how music programs are disadvantaged within educational systems informed by neoliberalism, this paper highlights how Lachlan directly appealed to neoliberal discourses in an attempt to advantage his music program. This paper asks if his reinforcement of neoliberal discourse serves as an example of teacher agency, and/or reflects neoliberal subjectivity.

Author: Rhiannon Simpson

Published 12/1/2024

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https://doi.org/10.22176/topics2024.02.31

ABSTRACT: In this article, we address the challenges that may arise when students who have experienced Universal Design for Learning (UDL) must navigate ableist music contexts. We position the band/orchestra/choir paradigm as a facet of an ableist world and argue that teachers using UDL in the classroom will also need to prepare students to navigate ableist spaces, while simultaneously working toward creating an inclusive music educational landscape. Ultimately, we explore what it means to implement UDL within the larger context of an ableist music education, general education, and global world.

Authors: Juliet Hess & Emily Moler Huddleston

Published 9/1/2024

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https://doi.org/10.22176/topics2024.1.1

ABSTRACT: For over 60 years, my research and in-school observations concerning action learning and music as social praxis have warranted the following terms, ideas, suggestions, and cautions. This lexicon briefly outlines the leading themes of my published articles and books. It represents a significant turning away from traditions and taken-for-granted assumptions; and toward the important implications for teachers in a praxical turn for music education. It is my hope that students and teachers will jointly examine these precepts (and their brief qualifications), and engage with pro and con essays, discussions, and experiments with the praxical suggestions described. Thoughtful consideration, I hope, will lead music educators from defending school music through advocacy to, instead, producing the substantially notable results characteristic of praxis that will mitigate the profession’s legitimation crisis. I believe that by stressing the main points of my praxical approach, these conclusions will promote change in teaching praxis.

Author: Thomas A. Regelski

Published 12/8/2023

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https://doi.org/10.22176/topics2023.04.89

ABSTRACT: Using the concept of serious leisure as a lens, this study investigated musical engagement in a competitive Grade One Canadian Scottish Pipe Band, the 78th Fraser Highlanders, based in Burlington, Ontario. The 78th Fraser Highlanders are respected in the global piping community for their innovative arrangements and unique repertoire selection. Data was collected over a three-year period in this hybrid ethnographic case study situated in both online and offline contexts. Findings indicate correspondences with other research in the field of serious leisure studies. Themes that emerged from interviews and observation were: 1) centrality of music making, 2) social connectedness, 3) competition/fun, 4) identity and heritage, 5) group dynamics and unique band identity, 6) teaching and learning, and 7) uses of online platforms and social media.

Authors: Kari K. Veblen & Janice L. Waldron

Published 12/8/2023

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https://doi.org/10.22176/topics2023.03.59

ABSTRACT: In this article, I describe my affinity for improvisation in music and life, and for free improvisation in particular as a music making practice. In this self-reflective position paper, I use these practices to help locate and define an authentic sense of self as a music education professor. This paper gives an account of my introduction of free improvisation sessions into a weekly, in-person graduate class in psychology and sociology related to music education. Drawing on relevant literature and a university-wide learning initiative, I present my reflections and those of my students on the experience of doing free improvisation over the duration of one semester, that led to enjoyment, growth, and flourishing. In closing, I consider the potential for doing more free improvisation in music and music education classes.

Author: Gareth Dylan Smith

Published 9/12/2023

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https://doi.org/10.22176/topics2023.02.31

ABSTRACT: Vernacular music-making continues to be a prominent topic in music education discourse. However, the degree to which school music teachers choose to implement vernacular music practices is unclear, as are the factors that inspire change in teaching practice. This four-part article highlights the complexities surrounding curricular innovation and implementation, as well as the interplay between theory and praxis in music teaching and learning. Specifically, this inquiry features the precepts of three change theories and how their tenets can be applied to vernacular teaching practices in school music settings. A college-level vernacular music class is presented as one model for preparing preservice music teachers to meet the needs of 21st-century students. Considering the ways in which music teachers apply vernacular practices to school settings could help to illuminate the intersecting paths of theory and practice in an evolving music education discourse.

Author: Nathan B. Kruse

Published 9/12/2023

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https://doi.org/10.22176/topics2023.01.1