Uprooting music education pedagogies and curricula: Becoming-musician and the Deleuzian refrain

Abstract

Based on the British choralism movement of the nineteenth century, the historical legacy of music education in Canada and the US is one of social control. By the twentieth century, North American music educators used choral singing and music listening to teach music literacy skills to groups assumed to be in need of ‘improvement’: the working class, immigrants, and school-age children. Deploying so-called good music to improve moral character and instill national pride, their goal was to create docile citizens content with their place in society and committed to hard work. Exclusions, stereotyping, and arbitrary standards in music education still construct acceptable musics and musical behaviours along lines of race, gender, class, and sexuality that support the status quo and maintain social order. Uprooting music education practices from these manifestations of the Deleuzian refrain that constrains the profession opens spaces for transformative musical and educational potentialities.