Multicultural Music Education: A Critical Review of Terminology
Camilo I. Leal* University of Florida, Gainesville, FL
Purpose of the Study
The purpose of this review of literature was to
examine, under a critical perspective, what have
been the uses (and the implications of those uses)
of the terms associated with multicultural music
education within music education literature.
Key Terms: Multicultural, Multiethnic, World Music,
Critical Pedagogy,
“Education is not neutral” and “it is impossible to
separate what we do in the classroom from the
economic and political conditions that shape our
work.” (Giroux, 2007)
Conservative Committed to the preservation of a dominant culture as the superior one, it
multiculturalism/ advocates for a common culture and rejects multiculturalism as divisive.
monoculturalism Embraces the belief that Western culture is “a common culture where all
social groups participate equally” and relies on politics of assimilation. This
view benefit those groups that have privileged “access to power [that]
involves their ability to define what constitutes the so-called common
culture.”
Liberal Advocates for unity in the sense of sameness and amalgamation and claims
multiculturalism that “people’s humanity will illustrate that men and women and various
races and ethnicities share more commonalities than differences.” It puts
different people to compete as equals in an unequal society, allowing to
blame on individuals for they lack of success. It applies a color blind
approach under which the effects that race, gender, and class have for
oppressed people are ignored.
Pluralist Differs from liberal multiculturalism in that it celebrates cultural differences
multiculturalism as opposed to sameness. Although less sympathetic with processes of
assimilation or amalgamation, it fails to understand how the embracing of
cultural equality disrupts the dominant Western narratives, overlooking
systemic forms of oppression. Diversity is “pursued for its own sake to the
point that difference is exoticized and fetishized.” This approach “has
become the mainstream articulation of multiculturalism.”
Left-essentialist Assumes the important role that race, class, and gender issues play for the
multiculturalism oppressed, but tends to draw on essentialist conceptions of culture. It “fails
to appreciate the historical situatedness of cultural differences,” and to
recognize the dynamic elements of identity formation. It is not aware that
social constructs such as race change in time to mean different things for
different groups. It focuses in one of oppression as elemental and precedent
to all other forms of oppression, thus alienating itself from a broad range of
individuals and groups and obscuring the possibilities for strategic
democratic alliances for social justice.
Critical “Is concerned with the contextualization that gives rise to race, class, and
multiculturalism gender inequalities …with the ways power has operated historically and
contemporaneously to legitimate social categories and divisions….[and]
shape consciousness.” Its main focuses are “issues of justice and social
change and their relation to the pedagogical.” By being aware of how
“racism, sexism, and class biases are economically, semiotically…,
politically, educationally and institutionally produced,” teachers become
researchers of their students and their place in the dynamics of power, and
are able to help them to overcome social barriers.
(Kincheloe and Steinberg, 1997; see Morton, 2001)
Traditional Views
• Terms “Multicultural Music Education (MME) and
World Music (WM)”: Music Educators Journal’s
special numbers of 1967, 1983, and 1992, and the
variety of articles appearing in the MENC’s
publication on World Music, use those terms
mainly as indicators of ethnicity and nationality.
There is emphasis in the idea of “other” cultures.
(Volk, 1993; Reimer, 2002). Articles by Kang (2016),
Wang and Humphreys (2009), and Mason (2010)
still use the term MME as associated to nationality
or ethnicity.
• Term “Multiethnic Education”: a more reasonable
term to be addressed by the field of music
education Multiculturalism is potentially explosive
and might suggest unintended socio-political
connotations (Campbell as cited by Miralis, 2006).
• Western Art Music: should still be central (as our
musical tradition) and multiculturalism secondary
to musicianship (Campbell, 1993) “Western art
music not be relegated to a corner in favor of so
much diversity.” (Volk, 2002). Focus on
authenticity of materials and teaching methods.
Critiques
“A common culture where all social groups
participate equally has never existed in the West”
(Kincheloe and Steinberg, 1997)
Issues of social class, gender, and disability are
“not generally found under the multicultural
umbrella” (Koza, 2001)
The dual relationship between us and the other
serves the purpose of Western culture construction
of the self in terms of the excluded other.
By congratulating ourselves on our tolerance of the
racial other, we establish our position of superiority.
(Hess, 2013)
Alternative Views
One of the best resources to address
multiculturalism can be found within our students
and communities (Brooks-Graham, 1983; Kelly & Van
Weelden, 2004)
“music educators (and students) could more fully
realize the potential of multicultural education in
general by attending to the ethical tensions and
socio-political contradictions manifest in cultural
perspectives and hierarchies.” (Morton, 2001)
Culture is a compound of elements and individuals
can be multicultural in the sense that their identity is
linked to a variety elements from different cultures.
(Miralis, 2006)
“if multiculturalism is to be meaningful and lasting,
then it must include a much broader agenda” than
simply singing, dancing, or making instruments from
different ethnic origin. (Stephens, 2002)
Conclusions
Terms associated with multiculturalism are often
used in a variety of ways and as interchangeable to
define different things. These uses are ambiguous
and difficult to connect when creating theoretical
constructs, and by blurring the sociopolitical
implications of the use of any specific term.
Although there are some critic and alternative views,
the main use of the term MME (and associated terms)
has been as an ethnic and racial descriptor. The
discourses that feature this way of understanding
MME tend to carry essentialist notions of culture and
philosophies of education that favor current
relationships of power.
A critical perspective on MME issues can help to
understand sociopolitical implications of specific
uses of terminology.
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*Mr. Leal is sponsored by CONICYT Chile