Sea change for multicultural music education: A meta-review of dissertation research, 1970-2013

Abstract

Events in history tend to follow 20-30 year cycles. In 1998, such cycles were proposed to describe multicultural music education practices across the 20 th century (Volk, 1993) leading to the Tanglewood Declaration in 1967. When Tanglewood opened the music classroom to all musics, it inaugurated a period full of activity in research, curricular development, publications, and conference presentations. From 1970 on, dissertation research began to seriously look at multicultural music education, often producing cutting edge studies designed to help students and teachers understand and implement these new musics. Two reviews examined dissertation scholarship up to 1996 (Quesada and Volk, 1997; Volk, 1998). There has been no compendium since then. By examining the gamut of dissertations from 1970 to the present, and seeking trends and developing ideas, this research found that the 30-year cycle holds true. It appears we may have completed one research cycle for multicultural music education, and begun another with a focus on diversity, equity and social justice. Perhaps this is the ultimate culmination of multicultural music education.