XVI Colloquium: July 12 - 19, 2005:
The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC
"Discourses and Practices of Hegemony, Power, and Exclusion in Music Education"

"Mirror, Mirror on the Wall…" OR The Challenge of Jumping Over Our Own Shadow
Hildegard Froehlich
Keynote Address

This paper looked at exclusionary practices and power relationships in music education from an interactionist's point of view. It established that not only my biography at the micro-level of sociological analysis determines who I am and how others see me; but also, the macro-level analysis of the national and international conditions of which I am a part is equally as important in understanding (a) how I am viewed by those around me, and (b) how others think I should act to fulfill those expectations. These latter, in turn, determine (in the view of interactionists) how power relationships may be interpreted, exclusionary and inclusionary practices assessed, and hegemonial structures analyzed.

While critical theorists, Marxists, and-to some extent-constructivists appear to have a collective agreement that inclusionary measures are desirable whereas exclusionary ones are not, interactionists are not so certain about such seemingly clear-cut premises. Who holds power over whom, who controls whom, or who excludes whom from what are questions of perception that result from each person's biography. Both, the who and the what have their own pre-established social conditions that determine the choices each of us make when we inter-react to what happens around us. The choices therefore may result in contradictions and ironies, referred to in my paper as paradoxes. They become apparent when different individuals attach divergent meanings to seemingly same events or actions. It is these paradoxes that explain why it is difficult to pinpoint culprits: that is, specific persons or circumstances that one can blame for practices that have led to hegemony and the abuse of power. Seeing those paradoxes is often also the reason for inertia when it comes to curriculum reform. Since all actions are reactions to whom and with what we inter-react under specific economic, cultural and societal circumstances, music teachers face the dilemma that their own biographies and what they consider important in music making are contributors to exclusionary teaching practices.

This paper gives examples of contradictions and paradoxes in behaviors among music educators, foremost among them music instructional practices and faculty behaviors that can be viewed as exclusionary in nature. However, as such interpretations derive primarily from each "inter-reacting" agent's biography, the paper proposes that building trust between individuals with divergent biographies might be the first step toward impacting change. As each of us examines our own place and role in the script called music schooling, we may become aware of and begin to understand our own exclusionary and inclusionary experiences as well as practices. Awareness and understanding may then lead toward changes in the way we inter-react with those entrusted to us. Some specific suggestions in that regard are (1) giving our students credit for life and work experiences when they enter the academy, and (2) becoming serious about arguing for and developing more diverse auditioning and acceptance criteria in the music academy than are currently in place.