A Cultural Immersion Field Experience: Examining Preservice Music Teachers’ Beliefs About Cultural Differences in the Music Classroom

Abstract

While the United States is becoming increasingly diverse with regard to race, ethnicity, primary language, religion, and culture, many educators feel unprepared to teach students from socioculturally diverse backgrounds. In this case study, I explored the impact of a cultural immersion field experience on preservice music educators’ beliefs and assumptions about teaching students whose backgrounds differ from their own. Nine undergraduate music education majors were placed with one of two elementary music teachers in a community that has a large proportion of Arab and Muslim Americans and immigrants. Participants did not immediately recognize the ways in which culture affected music teaching and learning. Through firsthand experiences in classrooms and the local community, however, they developed greater empathy for and understanding of Arab and Muslim students, began to recognize their own implicit biases, and developed a deepened understanding of the impact of culturally responsive teaching in the music classroom.

Keywords

cultural competence diversity field experience immersion experiences music teacher preparation preservice teachers sociocultural

Introduction

Racial, ethnic, and cultural diversity continues to grow in schools throughout the United States (National Center for Education Statistics, 2016b). According to National Center for Education Statistics 2016 reports, enrollment of students of color and English language learners increased as enrollment of white students declined in elementary and secondary public schools (National Center for Education Statistics, 2016a, 2016b). Projections of future student demographics suggest that the number of white students in public schools will continue to decline to 46% of the total student population by 2025, while the population of Hispanic students is expected to increase to 29%, the population of Asian students to 6%, and the population of multirace students to 44% (National Center for Education Statistics, 2016b).

Despite the growing diversity of students in American schools, teachers have tended to remain predominantly white, female, and monolingual (English) (National Center for Education Statistics, 2013). In 2012, 76% of public school teachers were female, 82% of teachers were non-Hispanic white, 7% were black, and 8% were Hispanic (National Center for Education Statistics, 2013). These figures suggest that teachers’ racial, ethnic, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds are likely to differ from those of the students they teach. Many of these teachers have limited experience with individuals outside of their own racial and cultural groups (Sleeter, 2001), which can be problematic if teachers are not aware of the ways in which culture affects teaching and learning. For teachers to teach their students most successfully, they must understand the ways in which culture influences individuals’ beliefs, attitudes, and perceptions about the world, and in turn, culture’s influence on interactions in the classroom. By preparing preservice teachers to teach students whose cultural backgrounds differ from their own, teacher educators can help them engage more successfully with their future students (Ladson-Billings, 2006).

Cultural Competence

Culture is central to one’s identity. It affects a person’s beliefs, customs, values, assumptions, and expectations, influences societal norms, and informs interpersonal interactions (Lind & McKoy, 2016). In schools, culture affects teaching and learning in a variety of ways. School curricula often reinforce Eurocentric cultural values and perspectives, teachers often deliver instruction in English, and in the music classroom, instructors historically have focused on musical traditions of the Western European canon. Without an understanding of culture’s role in the classroom, teachers may unknowingly perpetuate their own beliefs and assumptions rather than honoring those of their students and the community, thereby perpetuating cultural incongruities and misperceptions that inhibit teaching and learning (Irvine, 2003).

Some music educators respond to growing cultural diversity in their classrooms by using multicultural repertoire. Robinson (2017) noted that while music teacher educators may encourage preservice music teachers to teach a more diverse array of repertoire, the latter may remain without the knowledge and dispositions necessary to effectively teach students whose cultural backgrounds differ from their own because of limited cross-cultural understanding. This lack of cross-cultural knowledge can follow inservice music teachers into the music classroom. Abril (2009) explored the tensions one white music teacher experienced as she sought to be a more culturally responsive teacher. By engaging in international cross-cultural experiences, she became more culturally competent, resulting in greater success connecting with her students. Abril suggested that intercultural experiences may help preservice music teachers become more culturally aware and better understand the importance of incorporating students’ cultures in the music classroom.

In a review of research, Sleeter (2001) found that white preservice teachers had few experiences with cross-cultural teaching environments and often held stereotypical beliefs about students whose racial, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds differed from their own. One way to counteract these preconceptions is by providing individuals with opportunities to analyze and reflect on their own cultural perspectives and worldviews, while gaining insights and competence related to other cultures (Diller & Moule, 2005).

Cultural Immersion Field Experiences in Preservice Teacher Preparation

Cultural immersion field experiences provide opportunities to further develop one’s understanding of culture’s influence on teaching and learning (Delano-Oriaran, 2012). Many teacher educators have explored the impact of these experiences on preservice teachers’ development (Bleicher, 2011; Dunn, Dotson, Cross, Kesner, & Lundahl, 2014; Marxen & Rudney, 2009; Roose, 2001; Stachowski & Mahan, 1998). Though cultural immersion field experiences varied in location and length, each focused on developing preservice teachers’ cultural competence and ability to teach students whose cultural backgrounds differed from their own. The immersion experiences in which participants felt discomfort and took the perspective of a cultural outsider proved most effective in developing cultural awareness (Sleeter, 2001). After participating in these experiences, preservice teachers expressed a deepened understanding of self and others and displayed an increased confidence in working with socioculturally diverse students. Researchers caution, however, that immersion experiences must be carefully planned to avoid reinforcing negative stereotypes of cultural groups, or changes in preservice teachers’ perspectives may be short-lived (Swartz, 2003).

Successful cultural immersion field experiences typically include a preimmersion orientation with readings and discussions focused on culture and diversity, information specific to the community in which field experiences take place, and assignments designed to help participants identify and examine their own identities and implicit biases. They also require participants to maintain a personal journal before, during, and after the experience to allow for critical reflection. Most also incorporate community engagement or service learning during the cultural immersion field experience (Burton, Westvall, & Karlsson, 2012; Dunn et al., 2014; Emmanuel, 2005; Stachowski & Mahan, 1998).

Though the benefits of cultural immersion field experiences are well documented, only two researchers have studied the effect of such experiences within music teacher education (Burton et al., 2012; Emmanuel, 2005). Burton et al. (2012) examined the perspectives of 12 preservice music teachers from the United States and Sweden who participated in a 10-day collaborative exchange course designed to provide intercultural immersion. University classes and other campus-level experiences provided participants with new insights on the role of culture in music education. Emmanuel (2005) focused on a short-term cultural immersion field experience involving a Latinx community located outside of Detroit, Michigan. Five preservice music teachers became more aware of their own cultural identities and displayed altered views of cultural diversity. Emmanuel concluded that field experiences emphasizing cultural immersion, when combined with academic course work and reflection, may transform preservice music educators’ beliefs about teaching students whose cultural backgrounds differ from their own.

Despite the promising findings produced by Burton et al. (2012) and Emmanuel (2005), no additional studies of cultural immersion field experiences involving preservice music teachers have been conducted. Moreover, no researchers have specifically focused on field experiences in Arab and Muslim American and immigrant communities. With an increasing number of music educators teaching students whose cultural backgrounds differ from their own, and given the current political climate associated with immigration to the United States, there is a pressing need to better understand how preservice music teachers may develop greater cultural sensitivity and competence.

The purpose of this study was to explore the impact of a short-term cultural immersion field experience on the development of preservice music teachers’ cultural competence when working with elementary students from a predominantly Arab and Muslim community. Research questions guiding this study were as follows: (1) Prior to cultural immersion field experience participation, what beliefs, perceptions, and assumptions about teaching students whose cultural backgrounds differ from their own do preservice music teachers express? (2) To what extent do these beliefs, perceptions, and assumptions change over the course of the field experience? (3) How does the cultural immersion field experience alter preservice music educator thinking about teaching and learning in school and community contexts that differ from their own cultural backgrounds?

Method and Design

Nine undergraduate music education majors from a state university volunteered to participate in the cultural immersion field experience. Participants ranged in age from 18 to 24 years, with a mean age of 20 years. Some participants had previously taken or were enrolled in music teaching methods courses at the time of the study, while others had not yet taken any methods courses. There were five females (Alexis, Anne, April, Jane, Lisa) and four males (George, Luke, Sierra, Simon), and all were white and from the Midwest.¹

Field Experience Setting

I sought a setting in a community whose sociocultural norms would differ from the home communities of participants. The setting was purposefully selected so that participants would be prompted to reflect critically on their beliefs and assumptions about cultural groups and begin to develop cultural understanding.

The field experience took place in Dearborn, Michigan, a community just west of Detroit, that is home to the largest proportion of Arabs and Muslims in the United States (Baker et al., 2014). At the time of this study, the Detroit metropolitan area also hosted a growing population of Syrian refugees (Spangler, 2017). Many stereotypes and prejudices toward Arab and Muslim Americans exist in the United States, with increasing hate crimes and hate speech directed toward the Arab American and Muslim communities in recent years (Arab American Institute Foundation, 2016). Anti-Muslim hate crimes rose further during the 2016 United States presidential campaign and subsequent election of Donald Trump (Potok, 2017).

The timing of the cultural immersion field experience was important to this study, as much of the planning and preparation, including participant recruitment, took place in November and December 2016, shortly after the United States presidential election. Some participants expressed interest in the experience specifically because of their desire to work with immigrant and refugee students in Dearborn’s predominantly Arab and Muslim community. Data collection began in January 2017, during which time newly inaugurated President Donald Trump signed an executive order on immigration to the United States that banned and suspended refugee admissions from many countries with familial ties to members of the Dearborn community (Stack, 2017). The immersion itself took place during participants’ spring break in early March 2017. These events added an additional layer of culturally based politics to participants’ experiences in this study.

Researcher Role and Lens

My role as researcher was one of participant-observer; I lived the cultural immersion field experience with the participants to gain insider views (Creswell, 2013). By sharing the experience, I built trusting relationships with the participants and developed a meaningful understanding of our experiences. My interest in preparing preservice music teachers to teach students whose cultural backgrounds differ from their own is directly informed by my personal experiences teaching in a variety of settings. I began my career teaching in a community that shared my racial, ethnic, and cultural traits. Later, I taught music in settings that differed culturally from my own background and experiences—primarily at an international school whose student body comprised students representing many races, ethnicities, nationalities, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds. Initially, I approached my classroom teaching using the same methods with which I had succeeded previously and based my expectations on my own cultural background. This resulted in misinterpretations, and my effectiveness as an educator was compromised. Over time, I developed cultural competency and realized the need for better preparation in music teacher education programs for teaching culturally diverse students. These experiences make me an informed researcher/participant-observer for this study.

Data Collection and Analysis

This case study adds to the body of knowledge about how preservice teachers develop cultural competency to successfully teach students whose cultural backgrounds differ from their own. I based my design on prior research findings that highlighted the importance of orienting participants to the field experience context prior to immersion, being in the community surrounding the school as much as in the school environment itself, and using guided reflection during and after experiences to make meaning (Bleicher, 2011; Burton et al., 2012; Dunn et al., 2014; Emmanuel, 2005; Stachowski & Mahan, 1998). The experience was composed of three different components: preimmersion orientation, immersion, and postimmersion. Data collected during each component included semistructured group discussions reflecting on each day, one semistructured individual interview in each component to further probe each participants’ perceptions, self-directed journal reflections, and my observations of participants in the music classrooms. These varied forms of data were recorded and later transcribed for analysis.

Preimmersion

I met weekly with participants for a total of eight meetings on campus before the immersion experience, to discuss readings and assignments on cultural diversity in education, privilege, understanding their own implicit biases, as well as information specific to the cultures of the Dearborn community.

Immersion

Following the orientation meetings, participants spent 1 week in an immersion field experience with two elementary music teachers in two elementary schools that were part of the same school district. The schools’ principals identified their student populations as largely Arab and Muslim, from immigrant and refugee families, and mostly English language learners. Both music teachers were from outside the local community and both had been teaching for less than 5 years. Participants were divided into two groups, and each group spent their days throughout the week working with one of the teachers in their classrooms. Participants observed, participated alongside students in the class, developed lesson plans with the music teachers, and taught lessons throughout the week as determined appropriate by the classroom music teacher (Emmanuel, 2005).

Participants stayed in a hotel in a community adjacent to the schools during the immersion week. Because community engagement has proven to be effective in cultural immersion field experiences (Burton et al., 2012; Dunn et al., 2014; Stachowski & Mahan, 1998) and because the hotel was located outside of the community, participants remained immersed in the neighborhoods surrounding the schools as much as possible after school and prior to returning to the hotel. Some of their activities included eating in local restaurants, visiting local shops, and taking a guided tour of the Arab American National Museum.

Postimmersion

Because self-reflection and time are aspects of immersion field experiences, I conducted postimmersion meetings with the group and each individual participant 1 week after returning to campus to probe how the immersion experience affected their perceptions and reflection as they completed their semester coursework (Emmanuel, 2005).

Analysis

To derive meaning from the information collected, I analyzed data by coding and subsequently constructing categories and themes from which to draw findings (Creswell, 2013). I used in vivo coding, process coding, emotion coding, and values coding to capture the essence of participants’ experiences and perspectives (Saldaña, 2013). These coding methods allowed for deeper understanding of the data to make meaning of the findings. I employed a constant comparative method throughout data analysis, in which I coded and compared sections of data between participants chronologically in preimmersion, each day of the immersion experience, and postimmersion to examine similarities and differences in perspectives among and within each participant (Emmanuel, 2005; Saldaña, 2013). To address issues of trustworthiness, data were triangulated between sources and negative cases were examined to determine whether participants’ comments in group discussions were aligned with their journals and my observations (Creswell, 2013).

Participants received transcripts of all interviews for member checks after the immersion field experience. I also shared several selections from multiple data sources with colleagues familiar with qualitative research methods for peer review to ensure validity of coding, categories, and themes. Specific experiences emerged from the data as catalysts for participants’ shifting perspectives and are shared chronologically in the findings.

Findings

Initial Impressions

At the beginning of the immersion week, participants focused their observations on teacher pedagogies and philosophical approaches to music teaching and learning, much as they had been prepared to do in previous field observations and experiences. Participants observed and reflected on their expectations for the music teachers’ approaches in the music classrooms.

I actually found that [teacher pedagogy] was the bigger shock for me—was that over the cultural things that were happening. I mean, the cultural things that we spent so much time talking about, while they’re important and while they’re happening, what was important to me was the flow of the classroom and what the teacher was doing pedagogically. (George, Monday night group discussion)

Participants did not mention students in the classrooms or notice the ways in which culture affected the learning environment. They shared that the music classrooms were not any different from music classrooms they previously experienced.

We just always talk about how we have to teach to the culture, or cultures of the kids, and I don’t know. It was just a regular classroom for the most part, I felt. (Simon, Monday night group discussion)

Simon did not elaborate on what he meant by a “regular classroom,” but seemed to suggest that he did not perceive cultural influences in his classroom observations. Reflecting on the orientation meetings that focused on cultural impacts in education, George said,

Of course it’s important to talk about things like culture and religion and how those things play out in school settings. However, culture and religion aren’t things that dictate how individual children behave and learn. It’s a little more nuanced than that. (Journal entry)

Simon, George, and other participants did not fully connect the ways in which culture is a part of how students learn and seemed to perceive working with children as separate from understanding culture. Throughout the week, participants began to view their experience with a different lens.

Language in the Music Classroom: English Language Learners

Participants began to notice English language learners in the music classroom and started to see the ways in which language affected music teaching and learning. This prompted them to reconsider the role of language in teaching and learning.

I don’t think I truly understood at the end of the day yesterday how many students couldn’t speak English. And having to work with one of them today and trying to communicate . . . I was trying to ask him questions and he started talking to me in Arabic. And I was like, “I don’t speak Arabic!” So I tried non-verbal stuff, but it was weird. He was able to sing, but he couldn’t understand. (Luke, Tuesday night group discussion)

Reflecting on his observations of a student, Simon said,

There was a girl in one of the classes that obviously, now, didn’t speak English. She was visibly distant from the students and appeared to be upset. I assumed she might have some sort of special need. (Journal entry)

Both Luke and Simon associated English with the “normal” mode of communication in the classroom. By either viewing English language learners as having a deficit or not noticing them in the classroom at all, these participants’ experiences reinforced their perception that English language instruction was a “normal” classroom expectation. Neither seemed to recognize their own cultural assumptions and expectations that teachers and students spoke English in the music classroom. Yet what is the impact on English language learning students when teachers perceive them as having a deficit or do not notice them in the classroom?

Students as Cultural Experts

The music teachers facilitated activities in the music classroom in which their students were able to share their cultural expertise. Participants learned about Arab and Islamic traditions from the students and began to recognize that students bring knowledge with them to the classroom. By learning from the students, participants understood students’ cultures more fully and they were able to reevaluate their stereotyped understandings of Arabs and Muslims. April shared that she feared asking students questions about their cultural backgrounds. In talking to students about their experiences, she not only learned about who they were as people but also realized that it was an important thing to do as a teacher. She said,

They wanted to educate us about their lives and culture. Our curiosity was met with honesty and openness. Headscarves, Ramadan, and traditions are not topics to be side-stepped and avoided. They are integral to the lives of the kids and should be treated as such. (Journal entry)

Some participants also noticed how the music teachers understood and respected their students’ cultures in their classrooms. Anne recalled an interaction between the music teacher and her student:

There was a girl whose hair was sticking out of her hijab so [the teacher] went over and pulled the hood of her sweater up to cover it and said, “You’re showing. If you want to go and fix it privately, you’re more than welcome to.” I thought this was a really cool thing to do . . . If I were in a teaching situation, I wouldn’t know what to do and I think a lot of that stems from me not fully understanding the full significance of the hijab. (Journal entry)

By learning from students, participants recognized the cultural knowledge students possessed. They began to reflect on their own assumptions and reevaluate their understandings of Islamic culture. They gained new insight into the importance of acknowledging and understanding students’ cultures as part of their identity.

Experience as a Cultural Outsider

During the immersion week, participants engaged in experiences in the local community, which prompted them to reflect on their implicit biases and consider their own racial identities. Participants were intimidated and expressed their discomfort in an environment in which they were the ethnic minority.

This was one of the first times in my life where I was the racial minority. I felt as though people were looking at me, wondering why I was there. Nobody seemed angry, just curious. I couldn’t help but think about how it feels to be Arab in this country. Something as harmless as getting looked at made me feel so uncomfortable . . . I almost felt like I needed to explain to everyone why I was there and that I was not a bad person. This feeling must occur to Muslims every day in America. (Sierra, Journal entry)

Participants’ experiences in the community provided them with an opportunity to reflect on their own racial identities, and they began to consider the differences in their positionalities in community compared to being in the schools. Alexis said,

I don’t know if it’s because we’ve just been generally in the school or what, but I haven’t really felt that self-conscious, like, “I’m White. I am the minority here.” I haven’t really felt that. Maybe it’s because I’m used to not being the minority that it just doesn’t occur to me, but I feel like I just haven’t really been thinking about that in the schools at all. (Thursday night group discussion)

Participants’ experiences in the local community differed from their experiences in the music classrooms. As a result, they began to take the perspective of a person outside their cultural norm and to consider their own positionality in society and in schools.

Impact of the Political Climate

The political climate surrounding this study affected participants’ experiences. Participants met immigrant and refugee students who were directly affected by the recently implemented United States travel ban (Stack, 2017). They interacted with members of the Arab and Muslim communities who were discriminated against in the media and the current political climate.

I’ve made attachments to people who could eventually get forced out of this country . . . It’s one thing to be sad, a hypothetical, “Oh, these poor people that I don’t know and haven’t interacted with.” . . . but when you’ve met the people that are actually dealing with this, it’s a whole new ballgame. (Luke, individual interview)

As a result of their experience, the stories participants saw on television and the impact of politics on people’s lives became more personal and real than before. Their interactions with students affected by the political climate resonated with them long after the cultural immersion field experience ended.

Postimmersion Reflection

After the cultural immersion field experience, participants reconsidered some of their assumptions about Arabs and Muslims based on their knowledge acquired from the media and other sources.

Before this experience, if I were walking down the street and a woman in a hijab had walked past me, I would have felt mildly uncomfortable. That’s me being completely honest. And now, I don’t think that will affect me. I don’t think it will phase me. And if that’s the only thing I’ve taken away from this, which I don’t think it is, that’s a big thing. At least for me. (Luke, Friday night group discussion)

Participants also shared changing perspectives about culture in music teaching and learning. They began to reconsider their personal teaching philosophies, and some participants started to apply perspectives gained from their immersion field experience to other parts of their lives.

It’s been eye-opening to me, trying to understand other people’s point of view. I think society in general wants a black and white answer, but I think there’s so many different answers to a question. And there are so many different students with so many different life experiences. Growing up, I’ve seen one group of people and you get to know norms and that’s your world. And then, the more you veer outside of your world, the wider the bubble expands. And then you have more of a reference point, I guess. I think it’s important to experience things that you wouldn’t normally do. (Sierra, individual interview)

Participants also began to think about the importance and impact of incorporating students’ cultures into their teaching.

I saw how [the teacher] learned a lot of Arabic and incorporated that . . . She’d joke with them in Arabic and they’d laugh. Or she’d scold someone in Arabic and they’d laugh. They loved that she got involved in their culture and didn’t just expect them to conform to her standards and culture. So, I’m thinking about how to do that . . . That wasn’t really something I would have thought about before, just thinking about how important it was for these kids that [the teacher] was involved in their culture and how much effect that had. (Alexis, individual interview)

Lisa realized the complexities of teaching with a cultural eye. She shared how her perception of teaching changed after her experience.

It’s more about that emotional connection and kids feeling wanted and valued. If there’s not that connection there, they’ll be totally disengaged. At school, [the teacher] taught that song [from Lebanon]. The kids recognized it and got excited. But you still have to go out of your way to find times when you can validate kids, and care about who they are when they walk into the classroom, not who you want them to be when they leave. (Postimmersion individual interview)

Participants began to recognize the importance of validating students’ knowledge, and the importance of learning from them as much as they might learn from their teachers. They saw how students were more engaged when the teachers incorporated students’ linguistic and cultural knowledge in their lessons and interactions.

Discussion and Implications

Though the long-term impact of this cultural immersion field experience is unknown, participants did question their own assumptions and perceptions about cultural differences in music teaching and learning and began to broaden their understanding of culture’s role in education and within a larger sociopolitical context.

At the beginning of the experience, participants understood conceptually how cultural influences might function in schools but did not perceive cultural differences in the music classrooms or consider them an important aspect of music teaching and learning. They also had not considered their own cultural, ethnic, and racial identities within their conceptual understandings. This suggests that experiential learning must be incorporated for preservice teachers to internalize what they learn and connect concepts from readings to classroom teaching with students.

In addition, participants expressed their discomfort in the community as cultural, ethnic, and linguistic minorities. Participants’ experiences as community outsiders caused them to reconsider the perspectives of those who are “othered” within the dominant cultural paradigm. Clearly, engagement in the communities that surround schools is an important component of field experiences, as community engagement provides preservice music teachers with a deeper understanding of students’ backgrounds than can be obtained through school observations alone (Dunn et al., 2014). Community engagement may also help preservice teachers better understand students’ experiences as well as their own cultural, racial, and ethnic identities and subsequent positionalities. After all, what does it mean that participants did not think about their racial identities in music classrooms composed primarily of students of color, whereas these thoughts consumed their minds when they were outside of the school and in the community?

Given current misperceptions of and discrimination toward Arab and Muslim Americans, this immersion field experience proved especially timely, and the political climate surrounding the study affected participants’ experience in many ways. For many participants, this was their first interaction with Arab and Muslim students. As a result, Islamophobia, immigration policies, and media portrayals of political issues became more humanized. Though the field experience itself was too short for participants to engage in long-term music teaching and learning, their experience highlighted the ways in which politics impact teaching and learning when it directly impacts students’ lives, as it does with increasing frequency in a number of communities throughout the country.

Throughout the study, participants displayed underlying assumptions of white normalcy and privilege in their perceptions of the cultural immersion field experience. Initially, participants displayed some culture blindness when they did not perceive culture as an important aspect of students’ identities (Bonilla-Silva, 2013; del Prado Hill, Friedland, & Phelps, 2012). Participants also were confronted by their own whiteness when they shopped in the local community, and in learning about how politics that had previously been rather abstract to them directly affected students with whom they interacted (Matias, 2016). The underlying whiteness and privilege that emerged as a finding in this study also suggests that field experiences, immersive or otherwise, must include opportunities for preservice music teachers to reflect on their own racial, ethnic, and cultural identities to better understand the beliefs, assumptions, and perceptions they bring with them to the music classroom (Dunn et al., 2014; Emmanuel, 2005).

These findings mirror those of previous studies in that cultural immersion field experiences have the potential to change preservice teachers’ previously held stereotypes and assumptions, alter their perspectives of teaching and learning, provide them with a better understanding of themselves as educators, and help them develop a deeper understanding of culture in teaching and learning (Bleicher, 2011; Delano-Oriaran, 2012; Dunn et al., 2014; Marxen & Rudney, 1999; Stachowski & Mahan, 1998).

Preservice music teachers often participate in field experiences in schools located near their universities to help support their learning of music teaching pedagogy. However, field experiences with immersion components and/or situated in culturally different settings are less common in preservice music teacher preparation, as they can be more difficult to provide and facilitate. Furthermore, because school music programs often are culturally monolithic, placing preservice music teachers in culturally different settings can be difficult for music teacher educators. Yet if preservice music teachers had experiences with students from diverse racial, ethnic, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds before entering the field, they might be more prepared to work with socioculturally diverse students in their music classrooms. Ladson-Billings (2006) said,

We fill our teacher education students with theories and ideas about what students will be like and then we send them to the field where they make their charges fit those notions. If we are serious about students learning about culture, we need to help them first become careful observers of culture, both in the communities in which they will teach and in themselves. (p. 109)

To prepare preservice music teachers to effectively teach students whose cultural backgrounds differ from their own, music teacher educators must provide coursework in cultural diversity, experiential learning in a variety of sociocultural contexts, and opportunities for critical self-reflection throughout the music teacher preparation program (Emmanuel, 2005; Robinson, 2017). Music teacher educators also must orient preservice music teachers toward knowing students’ cultural identities and acknowledging them in their instruction (Abril, 2009; Lind & McKoy, 2016). By incorporating field experiences in a variety of cultural settings and facilitating self-reflection, music teacher educators can help preservice teachers develop a deeper understanding of their own cultural, racial, and ethnic identities and a deeper understanding of how to effectively teach students whose cultural backgrounds differ from their own.

Footnotes

Author’s Note

Data for this study were collected during doctoral study at Michigan State University in spring 2017.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

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