scholarly journals What if Freire Had Facebook? A Critical Interrogation of Social Media Woke Culture Among Privileged Voices in Music Education Discourse

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 16-52
Author(s):  
William J. Coppola
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Paulo Freire ◽  
Music Educators ◽  
Ivory Tower ◽  
Education Professionals ◽  
Alive Today ◽  
Shared Humanity ◽  
Education Discourse

In this paper, I critique the ways in which music education professionals—especially the privileged voices within our field—engage in dialogue through social media outlets such as Facebook. While social media has become a valuable and ubiquitous discursive tool within our field, especially in that it theoretically removes the “ivory tower” of dialogue in academia, here I critique its darker side. Were he alive today, I question how philosopher Paulo Freire would respond to the dialogical opportunities afforded by social media and the emergence of “woke culture.” Particularly when engaging in the work of antiracism, I highlight how privileged music educators can silence any dialogue through their hostility or fragility alike through various forms of call-out culture, cancel culture, virtue signaling, and tone policing. I draw upon the full corpus of Freire’s works to examine the overall veracity of these approaches to antiracist efforts and offer that Freire’s pedagogy was interminably rooted in humility, love, and the pursuit of shared humanity.

scholarly journals “It Depends:” From Narration Sickness to Wide Awake Action in Music Education

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-83
Author(s):  
Cara Faith Bernard ◽  
Matthew Rotjan
Keyword(s):  
Professional Development ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Paulo Freire ◽  
Music Educators ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Taking Action ◽  
Maxine Greene ◽  
Wide Awake

In this article, we query how action is contextualized and used in music education, centering the discussion around problems of calling for change without taking action, what Paulo Freire terms “narration sickness.” Narration sickness manifests in social media, conferences, and professional development sessions—where words convey ideas as grand narratives, devoid of context, causing a division between those who present ideas from those who enact them in practice. We describe how music educators may become unintentional slacktivists, “woke” to the need for action, attempting to improve the field with limited (if any) action at all. We invite music educators to counter “wokeness” with what Maxine Greene calls being “wide awake,” offering examples of educators who demonstrate change. We seek to expand the definition of action, drawing upon what Freire and Marx term as praxis, seeking actionable approaches in teaching, researching, and learning across age levels, settings, and contexts.

scholarly journals Critically Assessing Forms of Resistance in Music Education

2019 ◽  
pp. 81-100
Author(s):  
Brent C. Talbot ◽  
Hakim Mohandas Amani Williams
Keyword(s):  
Critical Pedagogy ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Paulo Freire ◽  
Music Educators ◽  
Multiple Forms ◽  
Consciousness Raising ◽  
The World ◽  
Music Classrooms

In their classrooms, music educators draw upon critical pedagogy (as described by Freire, Giroux, and hooks) for the express purpose of cultivating a climate for conscientização. Conscientização, according to Paulo Freire (2006), “refers to learning to perceive social, political, and economic contradictions and to take action against the oppressive elements of reality” (p. 35). This consciousness raising is a journey teachers pursue with students, together interrogating injustices in communities and the world in order to transform the conditions that inform them. Learning to perceive social, political, and economic contradictions often leads to multiple forms of resistance in and out of music classrooms. This chapter explores the following question: What do critical forms of assessment look like in music classrooms that use critical pedagogy and embrace resistance to foster conscientization?

The Oxford Handbook of Social Media and Music Learning

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
New Media ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Network Connectivity ◽  
Music Educators ◽  
International Perspective ◽  
Music Learning ◽  
Rapid Pace ◽  
Media Communications ◽  
Networked Society

The rapid pace of technological change over the last decade, particularly in relation to social media and network connectivity, has deeply affected the ways in which individuals, groups, and institutions interact socially: This includes how music is made, learned, and taught globally in all manner of diverse contexts. The multiple ways in which social media and social networking intersect with the everyday life of the musical learner are at the heart of this book. The Oxford Handbook of Social Media and Music Learning opens up an international discussion of what it means to be a music learner, teacher, producer, consumer, individual, and community member in an age of technologically-mediated relationships that continue to break down the limits of geographical, cultural, political, and economic place. This book is aimed at those who teach and train music educators as well as current and future music educators. Its primary goal is to draw attention to the ways in which social media, musical participation, and musical learning are increasingly entwined by examining questions, issues, concerns, and potentials this raises for formal, informal, and non-formal musical learning and engagement in a networked society. It provides an international perspective on a variety of related issues from scholars who are leaders in the field of music education, new media, communications, and sociology in the emerging field of social media.

Nurturing Vulnerability to Develop Pedagogical Change Through MOOC Participation and Public Blogging

2020 ◽  
pp. 589-617
Author(s):  
James Humberstone ◽  
Catherine Zhao ◽  
Danny Liu
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Critical Thinking ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Art Music ◽  
Music Educators ◽  
Pedagogical Change ◽  
Western Art ◽  
Massive Open Online Course ◽  
Worldview Transformation ◽  
The University

Despite several decades of ground-breaking achievements in music education research and practice, the discipline’s status continues to stagnate, especially among our children and our governments. To address this stagnation, in 2016 the University of Sydney launched an internationally available Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) titled “The Place of Music in 21st-Century Education.” The intent of offering this course was to provoke critical thinking among music educators in order to break the cultural cycle that centers curricular music education around teachers’ (most likely Western art music) experience, and ask them to grapple with social and technological changes in education more broadly. To address concerns with authenticity in learning and the MOOC model, the MOOC integrated social media use into every main assessment. Participants—over 1,600 educators, students, artists, and the general public—were asked to publicly blog their responses to provocations on these topics and then to read each other’s posts and respond. In this study, we analyze funneled (Clow, 2013) data from the blogs and MOOC interactions. We find evidence for critical thinking and worldview transformation from a number of participants, and conclude that the experience of engaging publicly via social media engendered a vulnerability that may have made those new to the field and experienced professionals alike more open to change. The blogging-feedback loop prompted the formation of a social structure reminiscent of a community of practice or affinity space.

Creativity and Commerce in Social Media, Digital Technology, and Music Education

2020 ◽  
pp. 666-680
Author(s):  
David Lines
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Digital Technology ◽  
Music Educators ◽  
Research Literature ◽  
Media Technologies ◽  
Production And Consumption ◽  
Economic Forces ◽  
Pedagogical Innovations ◽  
Contemporary Education

Digital music and social media technologies continue to be embraced with a positive sense of optimism in music education, and a broad range of technological and pedagogical innovations and insights have been celebrated and affirmed in the research literature. Despite this, there has been relatively less scholarly discussion on the broader contextual aspects of music and social media technologies, especially within commercial contexts of contemporary education and corporate technology production and consumption. This chapter suggests that a materialist perspective of digital technology and social media is important for raising a greater awareness of the different commercial, cultural, and other dimensions that converge in music and music education. It is suggested that global technologies in education can be questioned through Appadurai’s notion of scapes, and that creative directions in digital technology can be conceptualized through Deleuze and Guattari’s image of the rhizome. These concepts are important for music educators as they become attuned to, and more discerning of, the economic forces that impact on their work with students and as they suggest creative practices that have transformative value for their students.

Educating Musical Prosumers for the Economic Conditions of the 21st Century

2020 ◽  
pp. 644-666
Author(s):  
Lauri Väkevä
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Education Research ◽  
Music Education ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Music Educators ◽  
Economic Conditions ◽  
Cultural Consumption ◽  
New Learning ◽  
Economic Landscape ◽  
Learning Ecologies

Social media has introduced complex learning ecologies that have raised interest among music education scholars in recent years. However, the economic conditions of these new learning ecologies remain largely unexplored in music education research. To understand such conditions, we need to examine how music learners seek, find, produce, share, and exchange musical meanings in digitally mediated value networks. Using Jacques Attali’s political economy of music, literature on musical prosumption, and YouTube as a concrete example, this chapter explores the implications of the commodification of music-related practices and identities in social media, highlighting the need for music educators to understand the complexity of cultural consumption and production in such environments. In this way, the author suggests, music educators can best answer the needs of learners who need to be able to navigate the 21st-century musical-economic landscape.

The Philosophy of Assessment in Music Education

2019 ◽  
pp. 32-55
Author(s):  
Roger Mantie
Keyword(s):  
Music Education ◽  
Authentic Assessment ◽  
Music Educators ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Common Theme ◽  
Education Assessment ◽  
Consequential Validity ◽  
Mandated Testing

Philosophies of assessment are rare, perhaps even more so in music education. This chapter, arranged in five “movements” intended to reflect various ways of examining assessment issues, considers prominent themes emerging from the music education assessment literature, such as accountability, authentic assessment, consequential validity, legitimacy, mandated testing, metaphor, power-knowledge, and self-determination. The author asks questions such as, To what extent should philosophical commitments be voluntary versus compelled? To what extent should music educators be able to collectively determine educative values and to what extent should others (policymakers, local communities) have a say in what should constitute valuable learning in music? A common theme throughout the chapter is the urge for caution and reflection so that well-intended assessment efforts do not undermine cherished goals for music education.

Could There Be Deleuzian Assessment in Music Education?

2019 ◽  
pp. 121-136
Author(s):  
Lauren Kapalka Richerme
Keyword(s):  
Music Education ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Music Educators ◽  
Assessment Practices ◽  
Continuous Assessment ◽  
Education Policies ◽  
Philosophical Inquiry ◽  
Music Making ◽  
Musical Practices ◽  
Contemporary Education

Authors of contemporary education and arts education policies tend to emphasize the adoption of formal, summative assessment practices. Poststructuralist philosopher Gilles Deleuze’s emphasis on ongoing differing and imaginative possibilities may at first glance appear incompatible with these overarching, codified assessments. While Deleuze criticizes the increasing use of ongoing assessments as a form of control, he posits a more nuanced explanation of measurement. This philosophical inquiry examines four measurement-related themes from Deleuze’s writings and explores how they might inform concepts and practices of assessment in various music teaching and learning contexts. The first theme suggests that each group of connective relations, what Deleuze terms a “plane of immanence,” demands its own forms of measurement. Second, Deleuze emphasizes varieties of measurement. Third, those with power, what Deleuze terms the “majority,” always set the standard for measurement. Fourth, Deleuze derides continuous assessment. His writings suggest that music educators might consider that assessments created for one musical practice or style should not transcend their own “plane of immanence,” that a variety of nonstandardized assessments is desirable, that the effect of measurement on “minoritarian” musical practices must be examined carefully, and that it is essential to ponder the potentials of unmeasured music making.

Creating Multiple Sites of Engagement for Music Learning

2020 ◽  
pp. 87-104
Author(s):  
Jonathan Savage
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Careful Consideration ◽  
Music Learning ◽  
The Core ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Teachers And Students ◽  
Meaningful Relationships ◽  
Mindful Teaching ◽  
Specific Technology

Music education exists in multiple spaces. Within formal approaches to music education in academic institutions, there has been an acknowledgment that more informal pedagogical approaches can be useful (as evidenced in the work of movements such as Musical Futures). However, constructive links between formal and informal contexts for music education remain difficult to navigate for many teachers. Within the United Kingdom, the newly defined roles for music education hubs have made some headway in recasting these relationships in a more productive direction. Similarly, social media has an important role to play in developing new relationships between key agencies within music education. Like any specific technology, there are positive affordances and more negative limitations to such approaches. People have a complex relationship with technology, but they are not gadgets! Lanier’s (2010) thesis argues strongly that recent cultural developments can deaden personal interaction, stifle genuine inventiveness, and change people. Within an educational setting, careful consideration needs to be given to the affordances and limitations of social media. For teachers and designers of learning spaces and opportunities, pedagogy should be underpinned by careful, mindful choices—including wise choices about the tools that teachers and students are using. It is about a focus on the core, asking: What is the key learning that this music lesson is facilitating? Is this tool the best one for the job? Does this tool or approach allow one to teach music musically? Done skillfully and conscientiously, social media can help develop collaborative approaches to music education that provide teachers with pedagogical strength and security. They result in mindful teaching and mindful learning that will last a lifetime. They can also help teachers develop meaningful relationships with students that help them make sense of their musical experiences in whatever context they have emerged through: a truly, “joined-up” approach to music education with the student at the core.

Envisioning Pedagogical Possibilities of Social Media and Sonic Participatory Cultures

2020 ◽  
pp. 39-63
Author(s):  
Evan S. Tobias
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Music Educators ◽  
Participatory Culture ◽  
Music Pedagogy ◽  
Music Learning ◽  
Media Arts ◽  
Learning And Teaching ◽  
Musical Engagement ◽  
Musical Practices ◽  
Pedagogy And Curriculum

Contemporary society is rich with diverse musics and musical practices, many of which are supported or shared via digital and social media. Music educators might address such forms of musical engagement to diversify what occurs in music programs. Realizing the possibilities of social media and addressing issues that might be problematic for music learning and teaching calls for conceptualizing social media in a more expansive manner than focusing on the technology itself. Situating people’s social media use and musical engagement in a larger context of participatory culture that involves music and media may be fruitful in this regard. We might then consider the potential of social media and musical engagement in participatory cultures for music learning and teaching. This chapter offers an overview of how people are applying aspects of participatory culture and social media in educational contexts. Building on work in media studies, media arts, education, and curricular theory, the chapter develops a framework for translating and recontextualizing participatory culture, musical engagement, and social media in ways that might inform music pedagogy and curriculum. In this way, it may help music educators move from an awareness of how people engage with and through music and social media in participatory culture to an orientation of developing related praxis.

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