"Music Teacher Educator Perspectives on Social Justice" by Karen Salvador and Jacqueline Kelly-McHale

The first thing that struck me when reading this text was the idea that social justice is connected to diversity. Of course! This makes sense but I realized as I was reading that I wouldn't have connected social justice with diversity right off the bat. But...in order for there to be justice in society and in order for there to be a dialogue surrounding social justice an acceptance and willingness to discuss diverse peoples is necessary. We can't have social justice if it is only focused on one section of society. For educators, this means recognizing that our students are diverse-they don't fit into any molds or cookie cutter shapes that one might imagine when thinking of the stereotypical "student." Realizing and embracing this diversity then leads to improved education methods, curriculum, and relationship with students.

The next idea in the text that struck me was the fact that many schools that have a more diverse population do not offer a music program at all to their students. The reasons for this are numerous but the fact that these students are unable to access content that a more homogeneous school population are able to access is disturbing. Music is one of the few "languages" that everyone can speak, that everyone can create with, and that everyone can interpret and enjoy. It allows students to show worth and skill without having to be able to read in English, or Spanish, or any other language but instead focuses on the diligence and creativity of the individual and the perseverance of the group. Any student can access musical content in some way or another and the fact that some students aren't able to access it because they are in a diverse school is disturbing. This, it seems to me, is an example of social injustice.

One fact that this study found was that the music educator population in the United States isn't very diverse and thus, often doesn't consider ideas of diversity and social justice in the music classroom. However, in order for this to change, a more diverse population needs to be taught music skills (in secondary and primary school) so that some can then move on to be music teachers.