Chasing legitimacy: the US National Music Standards viewed through a critical theorist framework

Abstract

This study examines the US National Music Standards from two perspectives. The study situates the status of music education as a marginalized society and postulates that the standards are a byproduct of larger forces and powerful assumptions. In order to better understand how these forces might have influenced the development and adoption of the Music Standards document, the first perspective is an examination of the Music Standards through a theoretical framework provided by the critical theorists Paulo Freire, Henry Giroux, and Michael Apple. The second perspective compares the National Music Standards to the National Mathematics, Language Arts, Science, and History Standards in order to examine the ways in which those National Standards reflect a paradigm shift in the educational climate. While this study focused solely on the US National Music Standards document, the underlying critical theory framework provides a lens for examining the status of music education throughout the world. Freire wrote that slogans and propaganda cannot take the place of critical intervention. Consequently, while documents may seem to alter the status quo and provide basic legitimacy, in the long run, sloganeering has little do with critical intervention and transformation, and much to do with reification.