Humans, Not Heroes:

Teachers Implementation of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy in Music Classrooms

Ruth Gurgel, Ph.D., Kansas State University, School of Music, Theatre, and Dance gurgel@ksu.edu
Logan Caywood, Talia Falcon, Stephanie Goering, Eli Gillespie, Shelby Goss, Alicia Jackson

Purpose: To document pedagogical practices of music educators that include Culturally Relevant Pedagogy in
their classrooms, maintaining proportionate percentages of minoritized groups in music classes.

Research Participants:

David Joyce Beth Chuck Melissa

Moellenkamp Click Hankins Cushinery Salguero

Need for the Study: Disproportionate Membership of Students of Color in Music Classrooms
Percentage of students of color enrolled in music programs is markedly lower than total percentage of
students of color in U.S. schools (Lundquist, 2002). Percentages decrease as students move up the
grades.
Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (Ladson-Billings, 1994, 1995a, 1995b) fosters higher levels of
achievement, cultural competence, and socio-political (critical consciousness) in students of color.
Few studies describe and document music teachers instructional practices as they adhere to the 6
prongs of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy.

Research Questions:
1) How are music educators incorporating Culturally Relevant Pedagogy into their daily instruction?
2) How can future music educators translate the findings from the teachers in this study into the context
of their music classrooms?
3) What are effective ways to integrate Culturally Relevant Pedagogy and work to correct
disproportionate membership of minoritized groups in U.S. music classrooms?

Methodology, Data Collection, Analysis

Guiding theoretical framework: Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (Ladson-Billings, 1994, 1995a, 1995b)
Methodology: Collective Case Study
Data Collection: Individual Interview with six participants, field observations in classrooms over 2-3 days
Analysis: Through the lens of culturally relevant pedagogy, transcripts will be coded and constantly
compared to identify salient themes and categories that emerge.

Findings: Our resulting publication will be a book with narratives describing and comparing the teacher
participants practices. Similarities so far include: strong, warm relationships between teacher and students
as well as among students; student engagement, autonomy, and ownership; high levels of musical learning
and achievement; teachers who continue to learn from and with their students; and teachers who believe that
they co-create any classroom experiences with their students.
Ladson-Billings 6 Prongs of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy

References:
Elpus, Kenneth and Carlos R. Abril. "High School Music Ensemble Students in the United States: A
Demographic Profile." Journal of Research in Music Education 59, no. 2 (2011):128-145.
Gardner, Robert D. Should I Stay or Should I Go? Factors that Influence the Retention, Turnover, and
Attrition of K-12 Music Teachers in the United States Arts Education Policy Review, 111:
112-121, 2010.
Gurgel, Ruth E. Taught by the Students: Culturally Relevant Pedagogy and Music Education. Lanham,
MD:Rowman & Littlefield, 2016.
Mitchell Hammer. The Intercultural Development Inventory: A New Frontier in Assessment and
Development of Intercultural Competence.In Vandeburg, Paige, and Lou, Eds, Student Learning
Abroad (Chapter 5, pp. 115-136.) Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing, 2012.
Ladson-Billings, Gloria. The Dreamkeepers: Successful Teachers of African American Children. San
Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1994.
Ladson-Billings, G. (1995a). But that's just good teaching! The case for culturally relevant pedagogy.
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Ladson-Billings, Gloria. "Toward a Theory of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy." American Educational
Research Journal 32 no. 3 (1995b): 465491.
Lundquist, B. R. (2002). Music, culture, curriculum, and instruction. In R. Colwell & C. Richardson
(Eds.), New handbook of research on music teaching and learning: Oxford University Press.
Barbara J. Shade, Cynthia Kelly, and Mary Oberg, Creating Culturally Responsive
Classrooms(Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 1997). This book, a valuable
resource for music teachers and music teacher educators, provides guidelines on ways for teachers
and teachers-to-be to reflect cultural preferences, values, and ways of behaving in the classroom.
Rosa Hernndez Sheets, "Urban Classroom Conflict: Student-Teacher Perception: Ethnic Integrity,
Solidarity, and Resistance, The Urban Review 28, no. 2 (1996):16583.