Select Anti-Racist Music Pedagogy Sources

This page lists readings with the goal of providing those who teach Western music in higher education a starting point for using equity-based and antiracist approaches and perspectives in the classroom and studio. Many of these readings fall into one (or more) of the following categories: 1) antiracist critiques of music in higher education, detailing recent and ongoing discussions with music academia on antiracist reforms, specifically regarding curricula, 2) examples of and tools for developing antiracist syllabi and lesson plans, or 3) content-specific background to aid in designing lesson plans. 

Note: This is a living, work-in-progress document. It is not complete by any stretch of the imagination. If you have a reading/resource that you would like to add, please send it to one (or more) of the DEI officers. 

• Attas, Robin. 2018. “Uncovering and Teaching the Process of Analysis to Undergraduate Music Theory Students.” College Music Symposium, 58, no 2: 1-23.
• Attas, Robin. 2019. “Strategies for Settler Decolonization: Decolonial Pedagogies in a Popular Music Analysis Course.” Canadian Journal of Higher Education 49, no. 1: 125–39.
• Benedict, Cathy, Schmidt, Patrick K., Spruce, Gary, and Woodford, Paul. The Oxford Handbook of Social Justice in Music Education. 2015.
• Bradley, Deborah, Golner, Ronald, and Hanson, Sarah. "Unlearning Whiteness, Rethinking Race Issues in Graduate Music Education." Music Education Research 9, no. 2 (2007): 293-304.
• Brown, Danielle. "An Open Letter on Racism in Music Studies." Decolonizing the Music Room, June 25, 2020.
• Buchler, Michael. "Setting sets aside: Prioritizing motive, text, and diversity in post-tonal analysis courses." The Routledge Companion to Music Theory Pedagogy, New York: Routledge, 2020.
• Chávez, Luis; Russell P. Skelchy. "Decolonization for Ethnomusicology and Music Studies in Higher Education." Action, Criticism, and Theory for Music Education, 18:3 (2019): 115-143. DOI: 10.22176/act18.3.115
• Deguchi, Tomoko. "Promoting diversity in the undergraduate classroom: Incorporating Asian contemporary composers’ music in a form and analysis course." Music Theory Pedagogy Online, 32 (2018).
• Epstein, Louis Kaiser, Taylor Okonek, and Anna Perkins. 2019. “Mind the Gap: Inclusive Pedagogies for  Diverse Classrooms.” Journal of Music History Pedagogy 9, no. 2: 119-17.
• Ermolaeva, Katya. “Dinah, Put Down Your Horn: Blackface Minstrel Songs Don’t Belong in Music Class.” gen.medium.com. October 2019. 
• Ewell, Phil. "Confronting Racism and Sexism in American Music Theory." Music Theory's White Racial Frame.
• Hoag, Melissa. "Integration, Diversity, and Creativity In Current Music Theory Pedagogy Research." College Music Symposium 56 (2016).
• Hoag, Melissa, ed. Expanding the Canon: Black Composers in the Music Theory Classroom. Routledge, 2023.
• Ingle, Gary. "Decolonizing Our Music." NewMusicBox USA, November 16, 2016.
• Journal of Music History Pedagogy special issue on Decolonization (10/1, 2020).  Features articles by Walker (“Toward a Decolonized Music History Curriculum”) unpacking European exceptionalism, Stimeling and Tokar (“Narratives of Musical Resilience and the Perpetuation of Whiteness in the Music History Classroom”)—which includes a unit plan linking the music of enslaved Africans, European settlers, and Indigenous people for an eighteenth-century music history course—and Figueroa (“Decolonizing ‘Intro to World Music’?”).
• Koza, Julia Eklund. "Listening for Whiteness: Hearing Racial Politics in Undergraduate School Music." Philosophy of Music Education Review 16, no. 2 (2008): 145-55.
• Ladson-Billings, G. "Culturally Relevant Pedagogy 2.0: a.k.a. the Remix." Harvard Educational Review (2014). DOI: https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.84.1.p2rj131485484751
• Leilehua Lanzilotti, Anne. "Building Curriculum Diversity: Stereotype Threat." NewMusicBox USA, July 6, 2017.
• Lewis, George E. "Lifting the Cone of Silence from Black Composers." New York Times, July 3, 2020.
• Lewis, George. 2021. “New Music Decolonization in Eight Difficult Steps.” VAN Outernational, February 2021. 
• Maxile, Jr., Horace J. 2015. “Extensions to the Pedagogical Canon: Expanding Perspectives on William Grant Still and the Teaching Applications as Realized in the Seven Traceries.” College Music Symposium 55. 
• McCauley, Michelle. "Giving Cultural Context to Teaching Native American Music." Decolonizing the Music Room. October 30, 2019.
• Mena, Christopher. "Accessing the Inside of the Tent: The Optics of Inclusivity in Music Education." May 23, 2020.
• Molk, David and Michelle Ohnona. “Promoting Equity: Developing an Antiracist Music Theory Classroom.” New Music Box, January 29 2020.
• Molk, David. "Embracing a Transformative Pedagogy: Music Departments and White Supremacy." I Care if You Listen. August 6, 2020.
• Powell, Sean Robert and Celeste. "Outside in the Music Teaching Machine: Remembrances of Marginalization." Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education, no. 223 (2020): 26-41.
• Rastas, Anna, and Elina Seye. "Music and Anti-Racism: Musicians’ Involvement in Anti-Racist Spaces," Popular Music and Society, 42:5 (2019): 592-610, DOI: 10.1080/03007766.2018.1526527.
• Robin, Will. "How Can Artists Respond to Injustice? Thoughts from Seven Musicians." NewMusicBox USA, June 5, 2020.
• Siadat, Fahad. "Reflections on Segregation and Representation in Choral Music." NewMusicBox USA, June 18, 2020.
• Stimeling, Travis D., and Kayla Tokar. "Narratives of Musical Resilience and the Perpetuation of Whiteness in the Music History Classroom." Journal of Music History Pedagogy, 10:1 (2020): 20-38. 
• Thurman, Kira and Kristen Turner. “Six Easy Ways to Immediately Address Racial and Gender Diversity in Your Music History Classroom.” Musicology Now, July 17, 2017.
• Walker, Margaret E. "Towards a Decolonized Music History Curriculum." Journal of Music History Pedagogy, 10:1 (2020): 1-19.
• Woolfe, Zachary, and Joshua Barone (interviewers). "Black Artists on How to Change Classical Music." New York Times, July 16, 2020.