Month: March 2017

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Sociology Project Information

I hope all of you had a great spring break and are now ready to begin the final portion of the semester. Since the course projects are officially due on March 31, I’ve decided to suspend the blogging assignments for another week. So, if you have not yet collected your project data, now is the time to do so. Once you have collected your data, all you will need to do is create a survey database and a survey code file. Allow me to explain each part of this assignment:

Survey Database

  • You can submit your database as an Excel file or an SPSS file. If you are familiar with SPSS and have access to this particular software, that’s fine. If not, an Excel file is totally acceptable. A sample Excel database (i.e., spreadsheet) has been has been sent to you. This example should help you set up your own database. Once you open the database, you will notice that:
    • The information for each student is set up horizontally and the information for each survey item is set up vertically.
    • 117 students completed the survey.
    • The survey consisted of 10 items/questions.
    • You will also notice that each response has been coded numerically. For further explanation, let’s discuss the survey code file (which has also been sent to you).

Survey Code File

  • The first question asked participants to indicate their gender. The response codes for gender are (a) Female = 1 and (b) Male = 2. This is known as a categorical variable. For the gender column, each female participant was assigned the number 1, and each male participant was assigned the number 2.
  • For question number three, participants were asked, “How do you usually discover new music outsides of school?” The response codes for this question are:
    • Internet = 1
    • Music App = 2
    • Other = 3
    • Radio = 4
  • Once again, this is a categorical variable, which means each response represents a specific category, and the number assigned to each category is arbitrary.
  • Question number seven asks, “How happy are you with the music we perform in class?” The response codes for this question are:
    • Very Unhappy = 1
    • Somewhat Happy = 2
    • Neutral =3
    • Somewhat Happy = 4
    • Very Happy = 5
  • This question is different from the other two in that it represents a quantitative variable, and the response codes reflect an ordinal (some may say interval) scale. This means the numerical coding is ranked from lowest (Very Unhappy) to highest (Very Happy). It is important to note that each response indicates a specific level of agreement to the question.

Use the files provided as a guide to help you set up your database and coding file. Please let me know if you have any questions. If your survey includes open-ended responses, please let me know and I will help you further.

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Application of Sociological Constructs in Education to Music Schooling (Froehlich, Chapter 7)

The social realities we encounter as music educators are an inherent part of our professional lives. Froehlich (2007) magnifies these realities by outlining several of the topics we discussed this semester. They include the achievement gap, which can be a result of socioeconomics, race, gender, and culture. Fortunately, music can be integral to students’ lives outside of school. This brings us back to the differences between formal and informal music learning. Informal music learning allows students to voluntarily immerse themselves in the learning process. Such immersion entails much more than just the music, as students admire their favorite music and musicians by a variety of social factors. On the other hand, formal music learning can often seem old fashioned if not addressed appropriately. It is interesting to note that Froehlich believes formal and informal music learning can meet common ground with the introduction of instrumental music (the voice is an instrument, too) in the formal curriculum. Providing students the opportunity to learn a variety of instrumental music styles can help to build their self-esteem. This can go a long way to unite students from diverse backgrounds.

The diverse backgrounds of our students can also prompt a discussion of the hidden curriculum, which is defined as:

“The set of values, attitudes, or principals that are implicitly conveyed to students by teachers. It is believed to promote social control at school and in society at large by training people to conform and to obey authority, teaching them to regard social inequalities as natural, thereby ensuring cultural reproduction” (p. 119).

Music educators now realize that accepted traditions (e.g., how an audience responds between movements) should be explicitly taught. Addressing the relationships between musical conventions and valued behaviors versus musical preferences and cultural traditions will help us to even the playing field between students with extensive musical backgrounds and those with little or no musical experience. How we respond to the educational needs of our students help us to define ourselves as valuable members of the educational community.

These aforementioned issues are extremely important as they help us to realize that teaching and learning music are social acts. Furthermore, students who immerse themselves in a formal music education are able to develop their cultural capital. Cultural capital involves (a) musicianship, (b) music literacy, (c) performance skills, and (d) the ability to discern different musical styles. Hopefully, such capital will result in a lifelong appreciation and commitment to music, but is this always the case? How often does a committed high school musician stop performing once he or she graduates from high school? This leads us to an important question: What can music educators do to assure their students become lifelong music makers?

What we do is important. Whether you teach music as a compulsory subject in the elementary schools or as an elective in middle school and high school, it is important to remember that you are not only an educator. You are a musician. You are an advocate for the arts. You are a public relations manager. You are a liaison between the school and community. For your weekly assignment, please do the following:

  1. Read the seventh chapter of the Froehlich text, which is titled, Application of Sociological Constructs in Education to Music Schooling.
  2. Post a thread (500 words minimum) by 11:59 p.m. on Friday, March 10th. Do not attempt to summarize the entire chapter.  Instead, try to expand on a particular topic within the chapter that is of interest to you.
  3. By 11:59 p.m. on Sunday, March 12th, please post a response (200 word minimum) to TWO threads created by your classmates.

As you work on this chapter, please feel free to draw from following statements and questions:

  • What knowledge and skills would you consider to be important in a culturally literate person? Discuss strategies to teach toward such a goal for different school settings.
  • Examine the place of competitions in the world of music learning. Where is competitive behavior appropriate and where does it inhibit learning?

Froehlich, H. C. (2007). Sociology for music teachers: Perspectives for practice. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.