Music Teacher Perceptions of Issues and Problems in Urban Elementary Schools

Abstract

Abstract The purpose of this study was to examine the perceptions of music teachers in urban elementary schools. Title I public elementary schools (N = 221) in two counties in the Southeastern United States were surveyed for demographic information, and 71 of the music teachers from those schools participated in the survey designed for this study. The Doyle (2009) survey reported an overall Cronbach’s alpha of 0.91. The survey was intended to accumulate data representing urban music education in respect to the independent variables of student demographics, teacher demographics, student/teacher demographic differences, teacher preparation, and teacher support; the dependent variables examined were teacher attitudes about urban elementary music teaching and teacher expectations of their urban elementary music students. Results indicated that most of the teachers mismatched demographically with their students. Teacher/student socioeconomic matches were correlated with Attitudes; teacher/student ethnicity and socioeconomic status matches were correlated with Expectations. Professional support was positively correlated with preparation. Support was negatively correlated with the socioeconomic variables, and positively correlated with both attitudes and expectations.