Written and enacted policies in undergraduate music education admissions

Abstract

Undergraduate music education programs are the most common pathway for someone seeking to become a music teacher. Admission into preservice programs may be a barrier for minority students. We conducted a collective case study and qualitative content analysis to examine the written and enacted policies of music education admissions at institutions within the BIG 10 academic conference. Utilizing Richerme’s feminine and poststructural extension of cosmopolitan ethics as a frame to consider our analysis, we considered how written policies present institutional priorities and compared them to enacted policies of local stakeholders. The results of this investigation highlight the varied interpretations of institutional and professional priorities, as well as the difficulty of determining responsibility and enacting change on the local level. Implications from this study include recommendations for changes to practice and policy, considerations for curricular shifts, and a discussion of ways to disrupt the seemingly iron-clad reproduction of a homogenous music education field that continues to exclude bodies and musicks that do not conform.