Honoring Trans and Gender-Expansive Students in Music Education

Abstract

Trans and gender-expansive (TGE) youth deserve safe and empowering spaces to engage in high-quality school music experiences. Supportive music teachers ensure that all students have access to ethically and pedagogically sound music education. In this practical resource, authors Matthew Garrett and Joshua Palkki encourage music educators to honor gender diversity through ethically and pedagogically sound practices. Honoring Trans and Gender-Expansive Students in Music Education is intended for music teachers and music teacher educators across choral, instrumental, and general music classroom environments. Grounded in theory and nascent research, the authors provide historical and social context, and practical direction for working with students who inhabit a variety of spaces among a gender-identity and expression continuum. Trans and gender-expansive students often place their trust in music teachers, with whom they have developed a deep bond over time. It is essential, then, for music teachers to understand how issues of gender play out in formal and informal school music environments. Stories of TGE youth and their music teachers anchor practical suggestions for honoring students in school music classrooms and in more general school contexts. Part I of the book establishes the context needed to understand and work with TGE persons in school music settings by presenting essential vocabulary and foundational concepts related to trans and gender identity and expression. Part II focuses on praxis by connecting research and teaching pedagogy to practical applications of inclusive teaching practices to honor TGE students in school music classrooms.

Navigating Cisgenderism: The Experiences of Three Gender-Expansive Music Educators

“…The issue of visibility is complex when considering the diversity within the TGX community and highlights the non-monolithic nature of each TGX individual's experiences (Garrett & Palkki, 2021). Priscilla chose to use her disclosure as a chance to be highly visible-perhaps providing a blueprint for other TGX teachers.…”

“…Music teacher educators can encourage all students in their classes to share their name and pronouns privately and not read students' first names on the first day of classes. Reading last names only is an option (Palkki & Sauerland, 2019;Garrett & Palkki, 2021). Music teacher educators can model inclusive behaviors for their students, be explicit about the process, and then emphasize that they can be replicated in PreK-12 contexts.…”

“…I undertook a multiple narrative case study (Stake, 2005) in exploring these data, which are largely drawn from a large qualitative data set collected for a broad project on trans topics in music education (Garrett & Palkki, 2021). Case studies are "an indepth investigation of a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context" (Schoch, 2020, p. 245).…”

“The two voices,” or more? Music and gender from myth and conquests to the neurosciences

“…Palkki's work in this field is ongoing and has led to a collective publication (Garrett & Palkki, 2021) comprehensively tackling the environment of music education for TGE (Trans and Gender-Expansive) individuals, prefaced by a thorough effort of defining terminology and scope, from "Context" to "Praxis," including examples as well as advice to navigate "the wide-ranging and ever-evolving topic of gender diversity. "…”

Professional Notes: Secondary Ensembles: What Directors Are Noticing about the Popular Music Movement

“…Students should have opportunities to perform individually in a positive environment as they would in any other class at school, and vocal music teachers in particular need to be aware of other factors such as voice change, range, and gender expectations. 13 It can be said that few things in education should be as they were a century ago, and music in the curriculum as an academic subject must not be counted among them.…”