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Competing Narratives: Musical Aptitude, Race, and Equity

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Abstract

Carl E. Seashore developed the first music aptitude tests at the beginning of the twentieth century. Used as entrance requirements, research tools, and methods for determining who received musical educations in schools, these tests and resulting publications functioned as discursive texts in the emerging field of study known as the psychology of music. This chapter examines competing narratives running through documents in the American eugenics societies as well as the National Association for Music Education during the first half of the twentieth century. This chapter challenges constructions of race and intelligence that continue to serve as foundational constructs in music education and highlights counternarratives in research literature that may yield more productive and equitable educational practices.

Musical talent is subject to scientific analysis and can be measured… it is probably a fixed, in-born talent which is relatively independent of general intelligence and age.

Seashore (1942, pp. 69–70)

Science, after all, is done by human beings in a social and cultural context and that context can, and often does, have an effect on the work of the researchers… it may also have an effect on the work of professional educators.

Selden (1999, p. 19)

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Curry School of Education, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA

    Adria R. Hoffman

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  1. Adria R. Hoffman
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Art, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA

    Amelia M. Kraehe

  2. Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Rubén Gaztambide-Fernández

  3. School of Visual Arts, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA

    B. Stephen Carpenter II

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Hoffman, A.R. (2018). Competing Narratives: Musical Aptitude, Race, and Equity. In: Kraehe, A., Gaztambide-Fernández, R., Carpenter II, B. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Race and the Arts in Education. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65256-6_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65256-6_6

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-65256-6

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