Making connections: A case study of pre-service music education students' attitudinal change to indigenous music

Abstract

Approaches to the teaching of culturally diverse music programs have become an increasing concern of international music educators in recent years. These concerns are reflected in the Australian state of New South Wales where teachers of all curriculum areas are responsible for educating all students about Aboriginal heritage and cultures. As a consequence of limited guidelines regarding the use of Aboriginal music in schools and perceived shortcomings of preservice training in providing models for the teaching of Aboriginal music programs, many teachers lack the confidence to engage in such programs. This article discusses the effect of a 1997 project conducted with pre-service education students at a university in Sydney. The project, involving fieldwork study of an Aboriginal performer in residence program at a Sydney school, is seen to have positively affected student attitudes to the teaching of Aboriginal music in educational settings. It is

Facing the Indigenous ‘Other’: Culturally Responsive Research and Pedagogy in Music Education

“…An overarching theme in the research is that many teachers feel ill-equipped in relation to both content and pedagogy in relation to indigenous performing arts (Dunbar-Hall, 1997; Marsh, 2000; Murphy-Haste, 2009; Whitinui, 2010a). In an Australian study, Marsh (2000) found that many teachers cited shortcomings in their pre-service training in providing models for teaching Aboriginal music programmes as explaining their lack of confidence (Marsh, 2000). A survey in 1997 of 161 music teachers in a range of New South Wales’ schools found that only 14 per cent of teachers received pre-service training in the teaching of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander music (Dunbar-Hall, 1997).…”

“…In relation to indigenous musics, a way to provide this contextual understanding is to work with community members and musicians (Kennedy, 2009; Marsh, 2000; Murphy-Haste, 2009; Parsons, 1999; Power & Bradley, 2011). Such an approach calls for ‘an understanding of the context from which music arises, essential in any music teaching and learning’ (Power & Bradley, 2011, p. 36).…”

“…Such exposure can also result in changes in attitudes towards unfamiliar cultural traditions (Power & Bradley, 2011). For example, a project conducted with preservice education students at a university in Sydney found that contact with an Aboriginal performer in residence enabled students to participate in a significant and authentic learning process, since it allowed students to learn through indigenous rather than western perspectives (Marsh, 2000). Moreover, personal contact with a culture bearer positively affected student attitudes to the teaching of Aboriginal music in educational settings and created new levels of crosscultural understanding.…”

“…We were asking: What does it mean to do music education or to do music education research in settings where there are strong, indigenous performing arts practices and traditions operating? The review was timely, not just because of our specific purposes, but because acknowledging indigenous performing arts in schools is receiving growing international attention (Marsh, 2000; Rose, 1995; Wemyss, 1999).…”

Aprendizaje-servicio en educación musical: revisión de la literatura y recomendaciones para la práctica

“…Los entornos o colectivos receptores del servicio en proyectos de ApS coinciden en gran medida con otras propuestas socioeducativas que hacen uso de proyectos musicales comunitarios: personas mayores (ver, por ejemplo, Creech, Hallam, Varvarigou, McQueen y Gaunt, 2013;Formosa, 2013), espacios rurales (Nicholls y Sullivan, 2016), prisiones y centros de detención (Cohen, 2009) o con comunidades indígenas (Marsh, 2000). Otros colectivos receptores de experiencias musicales comunitarias con fines sociales han incluido, entre otros, comunidades de personas migrantes y refugiadas (Broeske-Danielsen, 2013;Marsh, 2012), víctimas de conflictos armados o violencia directa y/o estructural (Rodríguez-Sánchez, Odena y Cabedo-Mas, 2018).…”