Race and curriculum
Subtitle: music in childhood education
By: Ruth Iana Gustafson.
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Published: 2009
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 264
Subjects: Music -- Instruction and study -- United States -- History; Ethnocentrism -- United States -- History
Description: This book focuses on the near total attrition of African American students from school music programs and the travesty of democratic education that it symbolizes. It outlines an 'anatomy' of dropping out and a tour through the music curriculum's lesser-known dimensions. Describing how the field became entangled with aesthetics associated with whiteness, Gustafson examines the teaching of singing, listening, and bodily motion in general music classes on all levels. What makes this historical investigation unique is its focus on the body and its linking instructional principles to racialist projects such as minstrelsy, early psychoacoustic experiments, and body culture movements. This book considers how understanding this history makes a space for change without resorting to the simplistic, distorted conclusion that the schools and music teachers are racist.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Fabricating the future citizen : the ballads of a nation; title: The child as charmed victim : early vocal instruction and the social distinctions conferred by disease; title: Making daily life sublime : verse and rhythm : never to abase or degrade?; title: Bacchanalian chaos, public music instruction, and the foundation of the good listener; title: Ranking the listener, disciplining the audience; title: Goodbye Darwin : music appreciation and musical publics; title: Reason, ventriloquism, and national music memory contests; title: The listening body and the power of the good ear; title: Aural icons and social outcasts; title: Participatory limits from music standards to hip hop.