Facilitating and Adapting to Social Justice, Anti-racism and Multiculturalism in

the Music Classroom

Jamiah Harrison

MUED 380 Fall 18'

Problems: The problem with the ideas of social justice, anti-racism and multiculturalism Question: What can music educators do to foster social justice/anti-racism
is that they aren't exposed enough in the music classroom. Therefore as educators, we and multiculturalism in a context in which the community might not value
have to find a way to foster these concepts while being responsive to students' these issues?
developmental needs.

Social Justice Anti-rasicm Multiculturalism

Social justice is about diverse points of view, so what
better way to hear those points of view than to
encourage students to put them into song? (Berman
2015). Many people believe that social justice can be seen
as too complex to understand. However, as educators, we
should be able to obtain creative ways to teach it
through music. The idea is to have a curriculum that
comes from the world. This concept of this curriculum
transfers what happens in the classroom within the
context of what is going on beyond the schoolyard. This
approach is fundamental on how to teach social justice.
Very simply put, social justice is the view that all people
deserve the same rights, opportunities, and advantages
(Berman, 2015).
Anti-racism is an action-oriented, educational and political strategy for
institutional and systemic change that addresses the issues of racism and the
interlocking systems of social oppression (sexism, classism, heterosexism, ableism)
(Bradley, 2005). Racism in general, is a topic that is seldom discussed in music
education. If we as educators are interested in critical education, we need to start
“decolonizing” our speech, our thoughts, our methods of teaching and our
pedagogy. Decolonization is a process that engages with imperialism and
colonialism at multiple levels. When people discuss the topic of racism, they tend
to adhere to a coded language because of common culture and colonization. In
addition to this coded language, people are often silenced at the idea of racism and
race. We as educators can use the Critical Race Theory (CRT) as a foundation in the
conversation of racism. The CRT is a theory that enables educators to put race and
racism at the center of critique analysis. A lot of critical race theorists define
racism as a firmly entrenched structure that systematically benefits Whites at the
expense of people of color (Brown, 2017).  Ultimately, the goal for CRT is to work
toward freeing people of color whose voice and experiences of oppression are
frequently ignored in U.S. society. Some people, don’t believe that racism is a real
concept that occurs in the world. Some refer to racism as an idea rather than a
concrete occurrence. We need to explain to people that it is very real.
In American education, Multiculturalism is the most
talked about topic. Multiculturalism in education has
always been based on two premises. 1. the
acknowledgment of the diverse population in the United
States and 2. the intent to help students understand the
world and the American society in which they live in
(Volk, 1998). In the 1920’s Multiculturalism was noted as
“intercultural education” and in the 1960’s it was noted
as “ethnic studies.” In the 1960s was when music
educators realized that we needed to introduce different
music to students. Later the term Multiethnic came
about, and today is only used when discussing multiple
ethnic backgrounds. Ultimately, even though all these
terms mean the same thing, they didn’t account for the
overarching goal of “multiculturalism education.”The
goal was in order to learn and physically grasp the
concept of all countries and cultures around the world,
we need to expose the cultures beliefs, values, and
environment of that culture.

Other Ideas

Discussing current events and the complications with the country is an important thing that educators can do for their students. In this essay, I have exposed ideas from educators on the topics of social
justice issues, anti-racism, and multiculturalism and how these topics should be considered major topics in the music education curriculum. These ideas are important to me because I believe I’m scared
that I might get ridiculed as a teacher because of the color of my skin and my beliefs. I have an abundance of cool ideas that I want to incorporate into my teaching, however, I want to make sure that they
are doable and ethical. I want to form a positive relationship with my students. It is crucial that they are educated on these topics so that they aren’t left in the dark or left having someone else make their
decisions for them due to ignorance. We as educators are also sometimes afraid of parents. However, I am hopeful that by the time I am a music educator parents will respect us music educators no
matter what. I would never do anything that would jeopardize or compromise a student learning. All things considered, diversity is a very important and personal topic to me and I think it should be
expressed more through the way every music educator teaches.