A Cultural Immersion Field Experience: Examining Preservice Music Teachers’ Beliefs About Cultural Differences in the Music Classroom

Abstract

While the United States is becoming increasingly diverse with regard to race, ethnicity, primary language, religion, and culture, many educators feel unprepared to teach students from socioculturally diverse backgrounds. In this case study, I explored the impact of a cultural immersion field experience on preservice music educators’ beliefs and assumptions about teaching students whose backgrounds differ from their own. Nine undergraduate music education majors were placed with one of two elementary music teachers in a community that has a large proportion of Arab and Muslim Americans and immigrants. Participants did not immediately recognize the ways in which culture affected music teaching and learning. Through firsthand experiences in classrooms and the local community, however, they developed greater empathy for and understanding of Arab and Muslim students, began to recognize their own implicit biases, and developed a deepened understanding of the impact of culturally responsive teaching in the music classroom.