Understanding School Climate for Trans and Gender-Expansive Persons

2021 ◽  
pp. 50-74
Author(s):  
Matthew L. Garrett ◽  
Joshua Palkki

This chapter investigates why school music teachers should consider gender diversity—to honor all students, including trans and gender-expansive (TGE) youth. The question “How does the gender binary manifest in school music programs?” is addressed in an effort to raise teacher awareness and examine bias. Three theories are described as grounding principles for the book: (a) gender complexity, (b) gender affirmative model, and (c) transgender theory. The authors identity specific challenges faced by TGE youth in school learning environments. Readers gain a more complete image of TGE persons as individuals by acknowledging the resiliency of these young persons and understanding the challenges they face, rather than viewing them as only victims. This insight allows teachers to better understand how participation in school music programs can play a positive role in the development of these young persons.

Author(s):  
Matthew L. Garrett ◽  
Joshua Palkki

Trans and gender-expansive (TGE) youth deserve safe and empowering spaces to engage in high-quality school music experiences. Supportive music teachers ensure that all students have access to ethically and pedagogically sound music education. In this practical resource, authors Matthew Garrett and Joshua Palkki encourage music educators to honor gender diversity through ethically and pedagogically sound practices. Honoring Trans and Gender-Expansive Students in Music Education is intended for music teachers and music teacher educators across choral, instrumental, and general music classroom environments. Grounded in theory and nascent research, the authors provide historical and social context, and practical direction for working with students who inhabit a variety of spaces among a gender-identity and expression continuum. Trans and gender-expansive students often place their trust in music teachers, with whom they have developed a deep bond over time. It is essential, then, for music teachers to understand how issues of gender play out in formal and informal school music environments. Stories of TGE youth and their music teachers anchor practical suggestions for honoring students in school music classrooms and in more general school contexts. Part I of the book establishes the context needed to understand and work with TGE persons in school music settings by presenting essential vocabulary and foundational concepts related to trans and gender identity and expression. Part II focuses on praxis by connecting research and teaching pedagogy to practical applications of inclusive teaching practices to honor TGE students in school music classrooms.


2021 ◽  
pp. 19-49
Author(s):  
Matthew L. Garrett ◽  
Joshua Palkki

This chapter explores the need for music teachers to honor trans and gender-expansive (TGE) students participating in school music programs. Diversity enriches arts engagement, in part, by uniting individuality through communal and collaborative music experiences. School music diversity includes the LGBTQA population and, more specifically, TGE young persons. Music educators benefit from knowing and understanding the lived experiences of TGE young persons as a way to honor and celebrate their individuality. Concepts of gender identity, gender expression, sexuality, and attraction are discussed in an effort to frame a glossary of terms used throughout the book. The authors acknowledge historical contexts in which this text was written. A brief primer of intersectionality is provided to contextualize the complex identities of TGE persons.


Genealogy ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 67
Author(s):  
Sandy O’Sullivan

The gender binary, like many colonial acts, remains trapped within socio-religious ideals of colonisation that then frame ongoing relationships and restrict the existence of Indigenous peoples. In this article, the colonial project of denying difference in gender and gender diversity within Indigenous peoples is explored as a complex erasure casting aside every aspect of identity and replacing it with a simulacrum of the coloniser. In examining these erasures, this article explores how diverse Indigenous gender presentations remain incomprehensible to the colonial mind, and how reinstatements of kinship and truth in representation fundamentally supports First Nations’ agency by challenging colonial reductions. This article focuses on why these colonial practices were deemed necessary at the time of invasion, and how they continue to be forcefully applied in managing Indigenous peoples into a colonial structure of family, gender, and everything else.


2014 ◽  
Vol 62 (4) ◽  
pp. 344-361 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos R. Abril ◽  
Julie K. Bannerman

The purpose of this study was to examine elementary music teachers’ perceptions of factors impacting their music programs and teaching positions as well as the actions these teachers take in response to those factors. The following research questions guided the study: (1) What factors are perceived to impact music programs and teaching positions? (2) What is the nature of these factors? (3) How and within what socioecological levels do teachers act on behalf of their programs or positions? (4) To what degree are specific actions, people, and/or groups thought effective in impacting music programs? U.S. music teachers ( N = 432) responded to a survey designed to answer these questions. A socioecological framework was used in the design of the survey and analysis of the data. Results suggest that teachers perceive micro-level factors (school) to have a substantial impact on their programs. Teachers’ actions were mostly focused on the micro level although many teachers considered meso-level (school district) engagement to be vital for maintaining or improving music programs in a given school district. Besides music-specific policies, macro-level issues (state and national) were not viewed as impacting programs in substantive ways. The further removed a factor from the micro level, the less impact was felt and the fewer actions were taken.


2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-49
Author(s):  
Dipika Jain ◽  
Kimberly M. Rhoten

This article examines how efforts at legal legibility acquisition by gender diverse litigants result in problematic (e.g., narratives counter to self-identity) and, at times, erroneous discourses on sex and gender that homogenize the litigants themselves. When gender diverse persons approach the court with a rights claim, the narrative they present must necessarily limit itself to a normative discourse that the court may understand and, therefore, engage with. Consequently, the everyday lived experiences of gender diverse persons are often deliberately erased from the narrative as litigants mould themselves into the pre-existing normative legal categories of gender and sex. As a result of such mechanisms, the article finds that gender diverse litigants face epistemic injustice in the courts as their legal legibility is constructed within a constraining gender binary paradigm of judicial discourse. The article explores the trajectory of transgender rights in India, through an analysis of case law prior to and post the landmark NALSA decision, to understand how the approach to transgender rights and identities has been shaped by and shapes, in turn, normative conceptions of gender. The article argues for the incorporation of temporal pluralism into the law that would allow courts to hear gender diverse litigant accounts premised on contemporary gender diversity beyond the binary (rather than incontestable prior understandings based in past precedent), which would better account for such social injustices.


Author(s):  
David A. Williams

Fear of change is deeply embedded in the music education profession. It is a fear of the unknown—a fear of losing control over that with which music teachers are comfortable and confident. As a whole the music education profession resists the use of new music technologies. We are a profession that resists change, and this resistance has hurt us. This resistance is fast making us irrelevant in a musical world that is ever changing. Students currently in K–12, as well as in higher education, have grown up with new music technologies and related musical styles that are quite different from what they encounter in schools. The vast majority of these students see no place for themselves in school music programs. We are missing out on exciting opportunities that would be made possible by embracing new music technologies, especially when used in conjunction with corresponding pedagogies.


2020 ◽  
pp. 088626052095768
Author(s):  
Martin Blais ◽  
Martine Hébert ◽  
Félix-Antoine Bergeron ◽  
Andréanne Lapierre

Dating violence (DV) among youth is widespread and is now established as a significant public health problem. Yet, few studies have assessed DV experiences among youth with same-gender or multi-gender dating partners, and most failed to consider bidirectional DV. We analyzed self-reported dyadic concordance types (DCTs) among 295 youths (52% girls) who dated same-gender and multi-gender partners in the last 12 months using an adapted version of the Conflict in Adolescent Dating Relationships Inventory. Youths were classified in one of three DCTs: self-only (unidirectional perpetration of DV by the participant), partner-only (unidirectional victimization perpetrated by their partner) or both (bidirectional DV, where partners are both perpetrators and victims of DV). Overall prevalence rates of DV among sexual minority youths (SMYs) range from 11.5% for threats, to 51.2% for psychological violence, with physical and sexual violence reported by about one-fourth of participants. The both DCT was the most common pattern for psychological (59.6%) and physical (50.6%) DV across gender, while most threatening behaviors were reported as perpetrated by the partner only (47.1%). Girls were more likely to report sexual DV as partner-only perpetrated (63.6%), whereas boys reported higher rates of both (44.2%) and self-only (34.9%) perpetrated sexual violence. Because healthy intimate relationships can play a supportive and positive role in transitioning toward adulthood, it is crucial that DV prevention becomes more inclusive of sexual and gender diversity.


2021 ◽  
pp. 98-126
Author(s):  
Matthew L. Garrett ◽  
Joshua Palkki

In this chapter, attention is given to specific ideas that school music teachers can use to honor TGE students. Examples for sharing and displaying TGE-inclusive names, pronouns, and titles are presented within a variety of music classroom contexts. The authors describe how school music teachers can select inclusive classroom curricular materials by reviewing them for bias against gender diversity, by incorporating inclusion in elementary classroom discourse, and by working to avoid gender stereotypes in instrumental music settings. Further discussion focuses on the need for age-appropriate interactions with children, the implications of gendered vernacular language in classrooms settings, and considerations for music teacher-educators working with pre-service teachers at the college level.


2007 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
pp. 220-236 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia Shehan Campbell ◽  
Claire Connell ◽  
Amy Beegle

This study aimed to determine the significance of music and music education to middle and high school adolescents, including those enrolled and not enrolled in school music programs. Of particular interest were their expressed meanings of music both in and out of school, with attention to adolescent views on the role of music in identity formation, the musical and nonmusical benefits for adolescents of their engagement with music, the curricular content of secondary school music programs, and the qualities of music teachers in facilitating music-learning experiences in middle and high school classes. An examination of essays, statements, and reflections in response to a national essay content was undertaken using an inductive approach to analyze content through the triangulation of interpretations by the investigators. Five principal themes were identified within the expressed meanings of music by adolescents: (a) identity formation in and through music, (b) emotional benefits, (c) music's life benefits, including character-building and life skills, (d) social benefits, and (e) positive and negative impressions of school music programs and their teachers. Overwhelming support was expressed for music as a necessary component of adolescent life, with support for and comments to probe concerning the work of music educators in secondary school programs.


2021 ◽  
pp. 187-208
Author(s):  
Matthew L. Garrett ◽  
Joshua Palkki

The final chapter of the book honors TGE persons by removing the authors’ voices and focusing on the stories and lived experiences of trans and gender-expansive (TGE) students and their music teachers. To exemplify the ideas associated with transgender theory, the voices of marginalized and underrepresented TGE persons are elevated as they share their advice with school music teachers and music teacher-educators. In this process, our TGE collaborators reclaim their personal stories and they create more a more direct pathway for communication. Readers benefit from the opportunity to “Listen, and hear their voices” in an effort to learn from TGE individuals.


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