Abstract
While choices of musical repertory are key to challenging the historical ethnocentrism of school music curricula, ethnocentrism manifests as powerfully in the way a curriculum defines and structures musical knowledge. This article examines the knowledge divisions used to structure one of the most popular and reputable high school music curricula worldwide: the International Baccalaureate (IB). My analysis indicates that, while IB music gestures rhetorically to cultural and epistemic pluralism, its primary knowledge divisions—Musical Perception, Creating, and Performing—are fundamentally rooted in modern Euro-American conceptions of musical knowledge and ways of knowing. This study demonstrates the importance of explicitly acknowledging the epistemic foundations of music curricula’s foundations so that teachers and their students can better decide how they want to engage with the knowledge presented.
Keywords
Notions of cultural and epistemic pluralism are central to the rising appeal of music curricula that market themselves as international (González Ben, 2022; Robinson, 2010). While these curricula are well known for embracing musical examples of various traditions, how international music curricula deploy various systems of musical thought is less known. Here, I examine the epistemic premises or systems of reasoning (Foucault, 1980, 1989) that inform common knowledge divisions and sanctioned ways of knowing music in international school music curricula. I draw empirical examples from the International Baccalaureate (IB) because of its long-standing popularity and reputation (Tarc, 2009). Insights from musicology, curriculum theory, and music education inform my analysis. I argue that, while the IB music’s selection of musical repertory reaches beyond the conventional Western art music canon, this curriculum’s primary knowledge divisions—Musical Perception, Creating, and Performing—remain fundamentally rooted in modern Euro-Americentric 1 conceptions of musical knowledge and ways of knowing. This reliance on an Euro-Americentric knowledge structure calls into question the IB’s claims to incorporate “the best elements of several national systems, without being based on any one” and “value the world as the broadest context for learning” (http://www.ibo.org/ cited in Cambridge, 2002; International Baccalaureate (IB), 2015b, p. 6). At the epistemic level, IB music resembles many U.S. high school and postsecondary music curricula that do not express a commitment to epistemic pluralism. Hence, this study may offer points of reflection and analysis for K-12 and collegiate music curriculum developers, scholars, and educators in and outside the international education sector.
While I analyze a so-called international curriculum, I draw on the U.S. music curriculum landscape as my frame of reference because the United States has the most IB schools, making it a relevant reference point (Bunnell, 2010). Moreover, by making my framework of reference explicit, I hope to underscore that epistemic situatedness is an inherent quality of discourse, not a limitation (Foucault, 1989). However, foregrounding that intrinsic condition of discourse is crucial in knowledge production and dissemination efforts with well-documented universalist tendencies—like Euro-Americentric scholarship and school curricula (Tate, 2013; van Oord, 2007). Delineating the socio-historical situatedness of universalist statements allows individuals to take an informed stance in relation to that knowledge (London, 2001; Wynter, 2003). Since most European and Euro-influenced countries organize musical knowledge similarly to the IB, the analysis proposed here may prove useful for readers familiar with contexts other than the U.S. (Spruce, 2017).
Changing approaches to cultural pluralism in U.S. school music: A brief overview
School music in the U.S. has shifted approaches and attitudes toward cultural pluralism over time (Volk, 1998). In the 19th century, when vocal instruction was the primary form of music education in public schools, U.S. songbooks featured English and Prussian children’s songs (Gustafson, 2009). Socio-politically, these songs were pluralist, but from an epistemic standpoint, they aligned closely with the U.S. white settler society’s musical tastes and practices.
In the first half of the 20th century, songbooks, music appreciation teaching guides, and school record collections expanded their musical repertories (Volk, 1994). Along with an influx of Northern and Central European folk songs came a small number of Indigenous songs, African American spirituals, and even some minstrel show tunes (Gustafson, 2009). While seemingly inclusive, the main role of these pieces was not to comprehend and appreciate each musical example. Rather, the teaching materials often framed them as a reference for students to better appreciate the Euro-American art canon’s “complexity” and “sophistication” (meaning its presumed musicological and esthetic superiority). This period’s curricular materials routinely described non-Western art musical examples using Euro-American art music standards, which led to their depiction as deficient relative to the Euro-American art music canon (Tuck & Gaztambide-Fernández, 2013; Vaugeois, 2013).
In the latter part of the 20th century, scholarly reflection on the modes, purposes, and potential effects of incorporating cultural diversity into school music reached a critical mass. Spearheaded by the Civil Rights movement, the 1970s multicultural music education movement and the early-21st century world music movement conceptualized popular and non-Euro-American sound-making practices as worthy of study in their own right (e.g. Gustafson, 2020; Schippers & Campbell, 2012). In addition to discussions about musical repertory, music education scholars have also interrogated music curricula’s epistemic premises (e.g. Bradley, 2012; Good-Perkins, 2021; Hess, 2021; Janes, 2021; Koza, 1996; Westerlund, 1999). Despite this ample body of literature, music teaching and learning practices do not always align with that perspective shift. This article presents one specific example of this disconnect between music education scholarship on cultural and epistemic pluralism and a well-known school music curriculum that defines itself as culturally and epistemically plural.
Format theory: A conceptual tool to examine knowledge divisions
Historically, music education discussions about pluralism prioritize content issues over form(at) issues. For example, conversations about musical repertory selection tend to take precedence over considerations of the types of musical knowledges being taught and learned through those musical examples. In contrast, this article relies on the premise that a music curriculum’s structure fundamentally shapes the disciplinary knowledge being taught and learned. I draw on format theory to conceptualize this point. As Sterne (2012) writes: The format is what specifies the protocols by which a medium will operate . . . Because these [protocols] are not publicly discussed or even apparent to end-users, they often take on a sheen of ontology when they are more precisely the product of contingency (p. 8).
According to Sterne, people seldom notice or interrogate the vessel through which knowledge or information travels, often seeing it as neutral and lacking meaning. However, formats fundamentally shape which contents are included and how, as well as which contents are excluded because they do not fit the mold. Drawing on Sterne’s work, I argue that a music curriculum’s format (the types of knowledge and knowledge divisions that underpin it) is as consequential for advancing music education’s pluralist aims as its contents (the selection of musical works included in that curriculum). Music curricula’s structure determines what notions of music and musicianship become institutionalized and legitimized. Simultaneously, music curricula’s epistemic foundations may render certain musical expressions and forms of music knowledge unintelligible within the epistemic structures of school and academic music.
Sterne introduces format theory as a concept for drawing attention to the physical characteristics of audiovisual media like MP3 files. Unlike Sterne, I analyze the epistemic foundations of musical knowledge in music curricula. In other words, I examine the “grid of intelligibility of the social order” (Foucault, 1978b, p. 93) that shapes the IB high school music curriculum. By closely reading official IB documents, I explore how IB music’s knowledge divisions create normative conceptions of what constitutes musical knowledge while simultaneously precluding other ways of thinking and being musically.
Critical analysis of discourses: A Foucauldian approach to textual analysis
While Sterne’s notion of format theory informs the central issue that constitutes the focus of this investigation, Michel Foucault’s writings offer signposts for my close reading and analysis of official IB documents, to which I refer thereafter as a critical analysis of discourses (Baker & Heyning, 2004). 2 The term critical is meant to stress this strategy’s power-centric approach. For Foucault, power is not given, exchanged, or recovered but rather exercised (Foucault, 1980). The analytical focus, then, is not on who says what, but on how things are said and, particularly, the effects they produce—hence the expression “power-as-effects” (Foucault, 1980). Furthermore, Foucault argued that discourses exercise power in society by institutionalizing and regulating ways of thinking, acting, and being (Foucault, 1996). To analyze a discourse from this standpoint is, therefore, to examine the laws that regulate how discourse operates and what effects it produces and precludes (Foucault, 1972).
Procedurally, I closely read my sources, looking for statements that shed light on how the IB codifies sanctioned ways of knowing music. I focused on instances in which distinctions and divisions are established. I coded those statements, organized them by research question, and I looked for thematic strands. Finally, using the conceptual tools previously described, I interrogated the systems of reasoning that underpin this curriculum.
Because of pragmatic constraints, this study focuses on written text exclusively. Official IB documents offer relevant insights into how diploma music operates discursively. However, how students and teachers negotiate this curriculum in the classroom remains unknown. This limitation notwithstanding, I surmise that the texts analyzed are likely to provide an accurate picture of what most diploma music teachers and students study in the classroom. IB music is closely linked to the diploma college entrance examinations. As a result, teachers are likely to use the Guide’s assessment guidelines as a roadmap for their instruction, aiming to ensure that their students do well on the examinations. In sum, the Guide is likely to discipline teachers’ and students’ thinking, dispositions, and conduct in far-reaching ways (Foucault, 1978a).
High school music in the International Baccalaureate
The IB high school program of study, known as the Diploma Programme (DP), 3 is a 2-year pre-college curriculum 4 that presents itself as “unique[ly]” international (International Baccalaureate (IB), 2015a, p. 6). To be awarded a diploma, students must study six subjects, complete three cross-curricular requirements, and pass a set of examinations. All students must meet the same assessment standards, making the IB diploma a very popular college access credential (International Baccalaureate (IB), 2015b).
Since 1979, the IB offers music as a full-fledged elective subject within Group 6, The Arts (Mathews & Hill, 2005). The IB published an official curricular framework titled DP Music Guide (hereinafter, the Guide) to direct the implementation and assessment of diploma music worldwide (International Baccalaureate (IB), 2014). 5 This Guide structures the teaching and learning of music around three so-called syllabus components: Musical Perception, Creating, and Performing (International Baccalaureate (IB), 2014). These components constitute the primary way this curriculum framework organizes musical knowledge. The Guide introduces the three components in a table; it neither explains why it structures the course around three components and not another number nor does it justify why it favors those components over other possibilities like dance (Mapana et al., 2016) or music production (Bell, 2016). Instead, the table simply suggests the hours students should devote to each component depending on whether they are taking the course at Standard Level, SL, or Higher Level, HL (International Baccalaureate (IB), 2014, p. 3) (The IB requires that students take at least three subjects at HL, and it recommends 150 teaching hours for SL students and 240 hours for HL students.). After the table, the Guide describes each component’s specific contents and assessment requirements. In sum, diploma music presents its three main syllabus elements as self-evident, natural knowledge divisions. The following sections illustrate that IB music’s syllabus components are not universal. Instead, they strongly resemble modern Euro-American conceptions of musical knowledge.
Musical Perception
Musical Perception, the Guide’s first syllabus component, aims to “develop [students’] aural perception and understanding of music” (International Baccalaureate (IB), 2014, p. 13). This element accounts for 50% of the final course grade. The Guide neither explicitly states its reasons for including Musical Perception as a syllabus component nor clarifies why this component is weighted more heavily in grading than the other two. Thus, the Musical Perception component emerges as a natural, necessary part of this curriculum framework’s conception of musical knowledge.
After 2 years of Musical Perception study, diploma candidates must pass a listening exam and submit a 2,000-word essay called the musical links investigation (MLI). The listening paper, a 2- to 2.5-hour externally assessed written exam, is divided into two sections. In Section A, students analyze an aspect of one or two prescribed works that they studied in class. In Section B, they analyze three unidentified listening examples. The MLI asks students to choose two (or more) pieces of music from two “identifiable and distinct musical cultures,” describe two or more musical connections between the pieces, and present their ideas in a written media script (International Baccalaureate (IB), 2014, p. 30). From a repertory standpoint, Musical Perception is open to cultural pluralism. For instance, section B of the listening paper “is based on extracts that are taken from a wide range of music from different times, places and musical cultures” (International Baccalaureate (IB), 2014, p. 29). Additionally, in the MLI essay, students must examine “two distinct musical cultures” with which they may not be familiar (International Baccalaureate (IB), 2014, p. 29).
While Musical Perception is open to cultural pluralism at the level of musical repertory, this component relies on notions of musical knowledge and knowing that are significantly narrower. Diploma music’s Musical Perception strongly resembles the discourse of music appreciation, a popular curricular movement in Europe and Anglo-America in the early 20th century. The music appreciation movement intended “not to teach pupils either to play or sing, but to train them to appreciate the best classical music. The purpose, in short, is to study music from the standpoint of the listener . . . training [students] to appreciate rather than to produce” (Balliet, 1897, as cited in Dunham, 1961, p. 18). The music appreciation movement entered the U.S. public school system at the turn of the 20th century and quickly expanded nationwide, propelled by the popularization of music-recording technologies, including the player piano and phonograph (Chybowski, 2008). Since then, music appreciation has been a staple of U.S. school music curricula in general music classrooms, some ensemble classrooms, 6 and university-level music appreciation courses (Rinsema, 2018).
Traditional music appreciation courses and diploma music’s Musical Perception demand similar knowledge and skills, including ear training, music history, and formal analysis. The music appreciation movement initially sought to educate the public in “musical phraseology, the art of hearing and following coherent musical discourse” (Mathews, 1888, p. 5). Soon, it incorporated a corresponding emphasis on the “study of musical forms, musical history, biography, and other musical topics” (McConathy, 1908, p. 14). Musical Perception mobilizes similar aural, analytical, and historical aptitudes: Students should actively listen to a wide range of music . . . Through this study, students develop their aural perception and understanding of music by learning about: musical elements, including form and structure, notations, musical terminology, context (International Baccalaureate (IB), 2014, p. 13).
Much like the music appreciation movement, the IB’s Musical Perception appears committed to turning diploma students into skilled listeners, proficient in the fundamentals of “white music theory” and structural analysis (Ewell, 2020), and “canonical” music history (Walker, 2020). Because Musical Perception is a compulsory component of diploma music and weighted relatively heavily in grading, the above-mentioned set of knowledges emerges in IB music as essential musical knowledge. Simultaneously, other forms of musical knowledge, including music’s role in enacting power dynamics, are overlooked (Scherzinger, 2001; Wong, 2014).
Creating
Creating, the second diploma music syllabus component, is compulsory for HL students but optional for SL students, who can choose between Creating and Performing—and, within Performing, they must choose between Solo or Group Performing (International Baccalaureate (IB), 2014, pp. 25–26). As with Musical Perception, the Guide does not provide the IB’s reasons for including the Creating component. Consequently, the IB conceptualizes this as a natural, if not necessarily central, part of musical knowledge and knowing. The Creating component offers students five “creative” options: (1) composing, (2) music technology composing, (3) arranging, (4) improvising, and (5) stylistic techniques.
Although creativity is often associated with open exploration and unbound freedom (González Ben, 2015; Cohen-Cole, 2009; Gielen, 2015), diploma music’s Creating component promotes a type of creativity that combines experimentation with technical control. For example, the Creating component’s general description indicates that “students should aim to develop creative skills through exploration, control and development of musical elements. Creativity demands self-discipline and focus on the part of students” (International Baccalaureate (IB), 2014, p. 15). The assessment also requires that diploma candidates’ creative artifacts display control and development of musical elements, musical coherence, idiomatic understanding of instruments, and reflection (International Baccalaureate (IB), 2014, p. 45). Thus, the Creating element’s general description and assessment criteria discursively construct creativity as a balance between free experimentation and technical control.
IB music’s discursive production of creativity as controlled exploration echoes mid-20th-century Euro-American notions of creativity. During the Cold War, as Cohen-Cole (2009) explains, Western Bloc countries seeking strategies to get ahead in the space race found a conceptual solution in the psychological construct of creativity. They discursively mobilized creativity as a key cognitive tool to help individuals envisage new solutions for existing problems. However, during this period of strong political, cultural, and social containment, creativity was also conceptualized as a potential threat. If used to transgress extant political, social, and economic structures, creativity could lead to far-right fascism or far-left communism. Controlled creativity thus became the norm, and instances of creativity that subverted the limits of normalcy were deemed eccentric or dangerous. This constrained concept of creativity became critical to governing modern Euro-American populations from the mid-20th century onward. The Creating component’s emphasis on technical control during open musical explorations, along with its five pre-set frameworks for musical creation, suggests a discursive attachment to the contemporary Euro-American notion of creativity. By encouraging the manipulation of existent musical idioms and experimentation within pre-established limits, the Guide precludes non-normative musical exploration.
The Guide’s favoring of Western modern notation for music creation also conditions students’ avenues for creative expression. Creating submissions for composing, arranging, and stylistic techniques must include “scores”—notated music using the modern Euro-American staff system (International Baccalaureate (IB), 2014, pp. 16–18). Stipulating that students’ musical creations must employ modern Euro-American notation normalizes the modern staff system as essential musical knowledge. In so doing, it constructs musical inscriptions that challenge this system (e.g. non-Euro-American notations, contemporary Euro-American graphic notations, and student-developed experimental notation systems) as secondary forms of musical knowledge. However, most musical traditions around the globe are strictly aural and not notated (Nettl, 2010). Therefore, diploma music’s Creating component adheres to what Benedict (2012) describes as music education’s commonplace practice of conceptualizing literacy as bound by notation and universal.
Crucially, alternative notation systems and exclusively aural forms of musicianship present capabilities different from the modern staff system. As Allsup (2016) notes, “there are limitations—blind spots, if you will—to our profession’s reliance on the kinds of literacies that produce states of knowledgeableness more than diverse and ongoing ways of knowing” (p. 127). While musical instances that push the boundaries of the modern staff notation system might be considered highly creative, diploma music’s Creating component stymies them within the context of composing, arranging, and stylistic techniques. By privileging the modern staff, IB music normalizes Western notation and overlooks alternative inscription systems and aural musical literacies; it also reduces the students’ avenues for musical expression.
Performing
Performing, diploma music’s last syllabus component, offers two options: (1) Solo Performing and (2) Group Performing. HL students must participate in Solo Performing, whereas SL students can choose between the two options or do Creating instead. Solo Performing determines 25% of HL students’ final grade, while the Solo/Group Performing component represents either 50% or none of SL students’ final grade. Again, the Guide does not indicate why it includes performing as a syllabus component or why it differentiates between solo and group performing.
In their solo performances, students may use (1) any instrument and/or voice or (2) the computer as a musical instrument, but they cannot combine the two (International Baccalaureate (IB), 2014, p. 20). They can also perform any musical style, provided that their pieces contrast with each other (International Baccalaureate (IB), 2014, p. 5). Additionally, Solo Performing students can present a small group recording if their contribution is substantial and clearly identifiable (International Baccalaureate (IB), 2014, p. 20).
Group Performing students “are expected to be active, participating members of a musical group that performs on a regular basis in public during the course” (International Baccalaureate (IB), 2014, p. 21). The Guide does not restrict the kinds of instrument combinations allowed, but Group Performing students may not use the computer as a musical instrument (International Baccalaureate (IB), 2014, p. 21). Students can also play with groups that are “not necessarily . . . organized by the Diploma Program music teacher, or offered in the school” (International Baccalaureate (IB), 2014, p. 21). Several students participating in a musical group can hand in the same recording, for which they will all receive the same grade. In sum, diploma music’s Performing component offers substantial flexibility for instrument and ensemble selection. This suggests that, like the Musical Perception component, Performing is relatively open to cultural pluralism at the level of musical repertory.
Although Performing is amenable to different instrument and ensemble selections, this syllabus component strongly emphasizes reproducing pre-scripted music. This difference in flexibility between content and format elucidates the Guide’s underlying epistemic premises. Performing’s general description notes that “performance demands self-discipline and focus on the part of students as they learn to recreate music” (International Baccalaureate (IB), 2014, p. 20, emphasis added). Solo Performing’s music technology option reiterates that “students choosing music technology must use pre-existing pieces and present them as recorded performances that show interpretative and stylistic qualities” (International Baccalaureate (IB), 2014, p. 20). Further underscoring Performing’s focus on reproducing pre-scripted music, the Guide includes improvisation as a curricular option under the Creating—not Performing—component (International Baccalaureate (IB), 2014, p. 18).
Although the Guide offers opportunities for pre-scripted performing and individual improvisation, this document does not contemplate group improvisation or music-making practices situated somewhere between strong control and substantial improvisation. The Performing guidelines, especially when considered alongside the Creating component, reveal a dualistic conception of music playing as either strongly formulaic or heavily improvisatory. This dichotomy aligns well with modern Euro-American perceptions of musical knowledge and musical categories (e.g. symphonic music vs. jazz). However, it excludes a wide range of music-making practices from around the world. Most aural (non-notated) sound-making cultures presume a certain degree of variation and improvisation in performance (Kirshenblatt-gimblett, 2004). For example, the Peruvian Aymara people and the Zimbabwean Shona people favor small, spontaneous improvisations in group performances (Turino, 2008). Importantly, many of these traditions see accurate musical re-productions as lacking complexity. Although such performances are common around the world, diploma music’s curricular divisions do not allow for slightly improvisatory pieces.
While IB music discursively constructs musical knowledge production and reproduction as two fundamentally distinct intellectual processes and professional outlets, this approach is not universal (Goehr, 1992). For example, Javanese children learn to co-create and perform gamelan music while sitting on their fathers’ laps as the latter perform (Small, 1996). Thus, diploma music’s conceptual division between teaching Creating and teaching Performing blurs, revealing a dimension of music teaching and music making that the IB neither readily recognizes nor sanctions. Diploma music’s conceptions of performing/interpreting and creating/improvising as fundamentally different processes further demonstrate diploma music’s epistemic attachments to modern Euro-American conceptions of musical knowledge and knowing.
Finally, the IB stipulates that performing students must give periodic public performances. In Solo Performing, “the course of study must build toward a presentation of one or more public performances” (International Baccalaureate (IB), 2014, p. 44). Similarly, Group Performing students “are expected to be active, participating members of a musical group that performs on a regular basis in public during the course” (International Baccalaureate (IB), 2014, p. 21).
Here, the IB assumes that performers and listeners are stable opposing categories. However, this conceptualization is not universal. Diploma music’s dichotomy between performers and audiences discursively precludes spontaneous audience participation. Although contemporary Euro-American societies privilege presentational music making, many music traditions equally value participatory music making (Turino, 2008). A prominent example of participatory music practice is the hip hop cipher, a gathering of emcees (rappers), beatboxers (vocal percussionists), and sometimes b-boys/girls (dancers) who arrange themselves in a tight circle and take turns freestyling off each other’s contributions (Watkins & Caines, 2015). Again, conceptions of music making as a presentational activity suggest that diploma music aligns epistemically with certain strands of modern Euro-American thinking.
Closing thoughts
My analysis suggests that although IB music is open to cultural pluralism at the level of musical repertory, the curricular structure remains fundamentally rooted in modern Euro-American conceptions of musical knowledge and knowing. The IB’s status as the most influential provider of international education (Tarc, 2009) raises the question of whether the IB, along with other so-called international music curricula who similarly describe themselves as culturally and epistemically plural, might operate in the global education scene as a mechanism of Euro-American cultural and epistemic imperialism (Willinsky, 1998).
By illustrating the Guide’s Euro-Americentric foundations, I do not mean to suggest that diploma music should sever all ties with modern Euro-American thinking and art traditions. After all, no curriculum can exist outside a given discursive field. Instead, making its epistemic foundations explicit would give teachers and students a better chance to decide how they want to engage with the knowledge presented. Furthermore, situating a curriculum epistemically requires challenging modern Euro-American universalist patterns that, by definition, exclude all other systems of knowledge (Wynter, 2003). Doing so creates avenues for considering a plurality of musical reasoning systems and ways of organizing musical knowledge in relation to each other (Bradley, 2012; Robinson, 2019).
More generally, drawing on Sterne’s work, this study illustrates the significance of considering format issues like the overall structure of a curriculum alongside content issues like its musical examples in discussing and implementing strategies to address school music’s historical ethnocentrism. The stakes are high. For the past half century, the music education community has become increasingly aware of school music’s ethnocentrism and its associated dynamics of racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic exclusion. To date, most curricular efforts to address that ethnocentrism have focused on selection of musical repertory (Schippers & Campbell, 2012). While repertory choices are pivotal to this goal, the slow shift in the demographic composition of music education’s students over the past half century suggests that changes in repertory alone are insufficient (Gustafson, 2020).
If the music education community is to dispel the simplistic belief that music educators are intentionally elitist and racist, we must acknowledge that issues of inclusion and exclusion are structural. Attending to music curricula’s structure (and content) represents a potential way forward. Critically examining how music curricula like IB music perpetuate Euro-Americentric musical epistemologies opens space for epistemic pluralism in school music. Stated differently, analyses that seek to denaturalize the realm of the thinkable in school music offer a first step toward enabling alternative ways of knowing music and structuring musical knowledge in schools.
Footnotes
Author note
This article draws on portions of my doctoral dissertation (González Ben, 2020). I am not, and have never been, contractually affiliated with the International Baccalaureate. The IB has not endorsed the ideas presented here; they are my own.
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
