This article presents a meta-analysis of one area of sociological literature in music education: Where are the women and "others"? Where do we raise concerns about social values? Institutional Ethnography provides the basis for the meta-analysis, presented in two historical periods, pre-1960 and 2007-2012. A short story of an actual…

Descriptions of the urban contemporary format remain strongly grounded on the assumption that it is based on musical styles associated with African Americans, such as R&B, soul, hip hop, rap, and reggae. Even for the most progressive educators, to speak of urban music is to refer to a narrow set of musical genres associated with the umbrella term…

According to Hedges (2010), the real enemies of the liberal class are radical thinkers such as Noam Chomsky and Ralph Nader, iconoclastic intellectuals who possess the moral autonomy to defy the power elite. While this author agrees with Hedges, he would take this argument even further. In this article, the author argues that the real enemy of…

In this article, the author aims to make evident how instructional practices could be modified or expanded in order that music education might have a "more clearly tangible and beneficial effect on the present and future lives of music learners, communities, and society at large." First, the author explains briefly how pragmatist philosophy and…

In this essay, the author builds on Val Plumwood's (1993, p. 192) notion of "devouring the other" to address fundamental problems of social justice and difference in liberal democracies and music education. The problem with liberal democracies is that they assimilate (devour) difference; consensual treatment of its citizens is predicated on the…

The authors have chosen to move together in examining the issue of social justice because they both struggle with the pedagogical implications of what it means to be in this world. As the authors seek to embody the dialectic process of creating new understandings in their lives, and thus in their classrooms, they seek also to create this through…

The topics of "social justice" and "equity" have certainly captured the attention of a broad constituency of seemingly well-intentioned individuals, not only in disciplines related to the social sciences, the historical provenance of such constructs, but also in humanities fields and in the discipline of education. Upon examining the varied uses…

While educators in other fields have made significant strides in incorporating issues of social justice in their foundations and curricula, and while a few music education theorists have labored to move everyone in this direction, music education lags behind. Hence the author's plan for this paper. First, the author reflects on the concept of…

This essay explores the limits and bounds of music education's professional "We". It argues essentially that music education cannot become more socially just until it becomes more inclusive of diversity--and this means diversity of musics, peoples, voices, values, and more. The author argues that until the current homogeneity of music education…

Writing from the perspective of anti-racist theory, the author is hopeful that the newfound interest in social justice may make lasting differences in the ways music education is conceived and practiced; and yet she is understandably wary, pointing to the numerous and serious misunderstandings often associated with altruistic but naive approaches…

In recent years, music educators have become interested in linking music education practices, programs and projects to issues of social justice. However, theoretical approaches to conceptualizing the problem or to developing strategic interventions have yet to occur within the field. In this paper, the author argues that to address social justice…

This article offers a highly-nuanced account of social justice that attempts to get beyond the facile and familiar rhetoric of "fairness" to more grounded, material, and embodied understandings of injustice. In an analysis that revolves around the concepts of performativity, legibility, and "the abject"--the "radically excluded"--the author argues…

"Music and the Racial Imagination" triggered the reminiscences from the author's teens described in the "diary presented in this article." These memories undoubtedly played a role in her decision to enter an undergraduate music education program at the age of 40. These and other memories have been called up in a variety of contexts more recently…