High school music teachers’ attitudes and practices regarding culturally responsive teaching in musical theatre production

Abstract

Cultural awareness is crucial in fostering inclusive and authentically representative musical theatre productions in today’s diverse educational landscape. I designed this study to examine U.S. music teachers’ attitudes, perspectives, and the integration of strategies related to culturally responsive teaching (CRT) into their high school musical theatre productions, including the challenges they encounter and their suggestions. Analysis of responses to the electronic survey (N = 119) indicated a strong emphasis on integrating cultural awareness across various stages of musical production, aligning with Gay’s five essential elements for CRT implementation. Teachers prioritized selecting culturally valid musicals that were responsive to students’ skills and diverse backgrounds while fostering cultural appreciation. Despite challenges such as finding culture bearers and accessing some culturally diverse materials, they did curate culturally accurate and relevant materials to deepen students’ cultural understanding, guiding them in interpreting and performing musical songs using appropriate diverse vocal styles in a healthy manner. Establishing a safe space where students felt acknowledged and could freely discuss, share, lead, and collaborate was integral to these efforts. Ultimately, these practices aimed to cultivate students’ respect for their own and other cultures, promote diversity, inclusivity, and enhance the overall quality of the musical presentation.

Keywords

Cultural awareness culturally responsive teaching music teachers musical theatre production secondary school music students with diverse backgrounds

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Abril

C. R.

(2006). Music that represents culture: Selecting music with integrity. Music Educators Journal, 93(1), 38–45. https://doi.org/10.1177/002743210609300122

Bennett

(2022). Teaching culturally diverse choral music with intention and care: A review of literature. Update: Applications of Research in Music Education, 40(3), 60–70. https://doi.org/10.1177/87551233211051946

Bobetsky

V. V.

(2009). The magic of middle school musicals: Inspire your students to learn, grow, and succeed. Rowman & Littlefield Education.

Bond

V. L.

(2014). Culturally responsive teaching in the choral classroom. The Choral Journal, 55(2), 8–15.

Carroll

T. L.

(2016). Towards a culturally responsive directing practice [Master’s thesis, The University of Texas at Austin].Texas ScholarWorks. http://hdl.handle.net/2152/39221

Cerniglia

K. J.

(2022). “We’re all in this together”: Student and amateur musical theatre performances. In L. MacDonald, R. Donovan, & W.A. Everett (Eds.), The Routledge companion to musical theatre (pp. 450–464). Routledge.

Chaiwanichsiri

(2024). Culturally responsive musical theatre production for high school students with diverse identities [Doctoral dissertation, University of Missouri, Columbia]. MOspace. https://mospace.umsystem.edu/xmlui/handle/10355/104673

Cho

(2015). Cultural appropriation and choral music: A conversation that can make both our music and community better. The Choral Journal, 55(10), 59–63.

Church

(2015). Music direction for the stage: A view from the podium. Oxford University Press.

10.

Cohen

Rosenhaus

(2016). Writing musical theater. Palgrave Macmillan US.

11.

Creswell

J. W.

(2012). Educational research: Planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research (4th ed.). Pearson.

12.

Dal Vera

Deer

. (2015). Acting in musical theatre: A comprehensive course (2nd ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315850191

13.

Davis

L. S.

(2021, May 18). High schoolers may be more gender-diverse than previously thought, new study says. https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/18/health/gender-diverse-high-school-study-wellness/index.html

14.

Dissinger

M. E.

(2019). On the journey to becoming culturally responsive in a high school choir classroom: A White woman’s autoethnography (Publication No. 13883718) [Doctoral dissertation, Columbia University]. ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global.

15.

Emeka

(2019). Playing with “race” in the new millennium. In Syler

Banks

(Eds.), Casting a movement: The welcome table initiative (pp. 36–48). Routledge.

16.

Gay

(1999). Drama modes, meanings, methods and multicultural education. Stage of the Art, 10(3), 19–28.

17.

Gay

(2000). Culturally responsive teaching: Theory, research, and practice. Teachers College Press.

18.

Gay

(2002). Preparing for culturally responsive teaching. Journal of Teacher Education, 53(2), 106–116. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022487102053002003

19.

Gay

(2015). The what, why, and how of culturally responsive teaching: International mandates, challenges, and opportunities. Multicultural Education Review, 7(3), 123–139. https://doi.org/10.1080/2005615X.2015.1072079

20.

Gay

(2018). Culturally responsive teaching: Theory, research, and practice (3rd ed.). Teachers College Press.

21.

Gilliam

T. M.

(2021). We’re all singing the same melody in our own way: A narrative exploration of a culturally responsive choral music educator’s experiences in a multicultural international school context (Publication No. 28540480) [Master’s thesis, University of Kansas]. ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global.

22.

Hsiao

Y. J.

(2015). The culturally responsive teacher preparedness scale: An exploratory study. Contemporary Issues in Education Research, 8(4), 241–250.

23.

Karapetian

(2017). The Boston Children’s Chorus: A case study in culturally responsive teaching [Doctoral dissertation, Boston University]. OpenBU. https://open.bu.edu/handle/2144/23356

24.

Lee

(1983). Selecting, staging, and singing a show. Music Educators Journal, 70(1), 41–48. OpenBU. https://doi.org/10.2307/3401183

25.

Marshall

(2019). Preparing music educators for coaching and conducting musical theatre. In Conway

C. M.

Pellegrino

Stanley

A. M.

West

(Eds.), The Oxford handbook of preservice music teacher education in the United States (pp. 747–764). Oxford University Press.

26.

Mbugua

S. M.

(2022). Choral music teacher educators’ practices: Preparing undergraduates to teach world choral music [Doctoral dissertation, The University of Mississippi]. eGROVE. https://egrove.olemiss.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?params=/context/etd/article/3392/&path_info=Mbugua_umiss_0131A_12814.pdf

27.

Moore

Bergman

(2016). Acting the song: Performance skills for the musical theatre. Allworth.

28.

Music Theatre International. (n.d.). Browse show. Retrieved March 20, 2023, from https://www.mtishows.com/shows

29.

National Center of Education Statistics. (2023). COE: Racial/Ethnic enrollment in public schools.

30.

Palkki

(2015). “If It fits into their culture, then they will have a connection”: Experiences of two Latina students in a select high school choir. Research and Issues in Music Education, 12(1), Article 5.

31.

Rodríguez

(2013). Developing a multicultural theatre undergraduate program for the commonwealth of Puerto Rico: A professional problem dissertation [Doctoral dissertation, Texas Tech University]. TTU Dspace Repository. https://ttu-ir.tdl.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/30da13ef-df73-4b46-af3a-a6e84cb1966b/content

32.

Schroeder-Arce

(2014). Toward culturally responsive artistry: Implications for institutions, artists, educators and audiences. International Journal of Education & the Arts, 15(20), 1–24. http://www.ijea.org/v15n20/v15n20.pdf

33.

Schroeder-Arce

(2015). Seeking culturally responsive pedagogical practice: Teaching as ally across identity markers in the university setting. Theatre Topics, 25(3), 209–221. https://doi.org/doi:10.1353/tt.2015.0041

34.

Shaw

J. T.

(2012). The skin that we sing: Culturally responsive choral music education. Music Educators Journal, 98(4), 75–81. https://doi.org/10.1177/0027432112443561

35.

Shaw

J. T.

(2015). “Knowing their world” urban choral music educators’ knowledge of context. Journal of Research in Music Education, 63(2), 198–223. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022429415584377

36.

Siwatu

K. O.

(2007). Preservice teachers’ culturally responsive teaching self-efficacy and outcome expectancy belief. Teaching and Teacher Education, 23(7), 1086–1101. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2006.07.011

37.

Spradley

M. V.

(2013). The beliefs and expectations of effective secondary choral teachers in culturally diverse schools [Doctoral dissertation, University of North Texas]. UNT Digital Library. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc271902/m2/1/high_res_d/dissertation.pdf

38.

Stanislavsky

(1936). An actor prepares ( E. R. Hapgood Trans.). Geoffrey Bles.

39.

Streiner

(2003) Starting at the beginning: An introduction to coefficient alpha and internal consistency. Journal of Personality Assessment, 80(1), 99–103.

40.

United States Census Bureau. (2021). Measuring racial and ethnic diversity for the 2020 census. https://www.census.gov/newsroom/blogs/random-samplings/2021/08/measuring-racial-ethnic-diversity-2020-census.html

41.

Walker

E. P.

(1994). The dilemma of multiculturalism in the theatre. TDR, 38(3), 7–10. https://doi.org/10.2307/1146369

42.

Wolf

(2020). Beyond Broadway: The pleasure and promise of musical theatre across America. Oxford University Press.

43.

Yoo

(2017). Multicultural choral music pedagogy based on the facets model. Music Educators Journal, 104(1), 34–39. https://doi.org/10.1177/0027432117708602

44.

Zippia. (2024). Music teacher demographics and statistics [2024]: Number of music teachers in the US. Retrieved November 10, 2024, from https://www.zippia.com/music-teacher-jobs/demographics/

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

0.00 MB

0.43 MB