Taught by the Students: Culturally Relevant Pedagogy and Deep Engagement in Music Education

Within public schools in the United States, students of color are truncating their music education experiences at higher rates than their white counterparts. Music educators have searched for explanations of this phenomenon as well as effective interventions, yet there has been little overall improvement of these statistics. Ruth Gurgel presents and analyzes the perspectives of eight students and their teacher in a pluralistic 7th grade choir classroom at Clark Middle School, located in a large Midwestern urban school district. Through the eyes of the students, music teachers gain insight into the complexity of the engagement cycle as well as interventions that increase and maintain deep engagement. Ruth Gurgel looks at the intersection of instruction, relationships, and music in the classroom, highlighting how each component affects students. Taught by the Students provides an analysis of music education through the lens of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy, connecting this body of literature to Ruth Gurgel’s research in the music classroom at Clark Middle School.