I’m the one who’s here: an experienced music teacher, a low-income school, and arts participation as a reform strategy

ABSTRACT

According to Duncan and Murnane (2011. “Introduction: The American Dream, Then and Now.” In Whither Opportunity?: Rising Inequality, Schools, and Children’s Life Chances, edited by Greg J. Duncan, and Richard J. Murnane, 3–25. New York: Russell Sage Foundation), questions about teachers’ commitment to schools that primarily serve low-income students should be addressed with a framework that accounts for the resources of families, neighbourhoods, and schools, how those resources interact, and the direct and indirect influences of those resources on teachers’ decisions to remain in their positions. With such an ecological framework, we studied an experienced music teacher who led the performing arts staff at an elementary school where almost 90 percent of students lived in areas of concentrated poverty and more than 60 percent of students were classified as English Language Learners. We addressed two main questions: (a) how did the teacher’s commitment to a school primarily serving low income students develop, and (b) how might her commitment be sustained? We aimed to understand one case in depth, and consequently to develop a provisional model that could be interrogated through further research.

KEYWORDS:

• Teacher commitment
• ecological approach
• income inequality
• performing arts
• Boston

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Susan Wharton Conkling, Ph.D. is Professor of Music, Music Education at Boston University where she advises doctoral research, and teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in conducting, choral methods, and research methods. As a teacher and scholar, Conkling has led efforts to develop a Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in the field of music, beginning with a fellowship at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching in 1999. She is also well known for the creation and implementation of professional development partnerships between public schools and collegiate schools of music. Her book, Envisioning Music Teacher Education was published in 2015.

Thomas L. Conkling is a research coordinator at Cultivate Learning at the University of Washington. After beginning his career teaching in a public school in Hawaii, he then transitioned to research, working to develop an evaluation and improvement system for Expanded Learning Opportunities throughout the State of Washington. He is currently working within the Partnership for Pre-K Improvement, an initiative funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to improve the quality of state-funded Pre-K across three states, and to utilise this knowledge to inform future quality improvement efforts.

ORCID

Thomas L. Conkling http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7038-0107

Notes

1 Federal studies refer to students as Latino, whereas the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education refers to the same students as Hispanic.

2 City Year is a United States programme that trains young adults who serve for 11 months providing individual student tutoring, leadership for after school programmes, and other support in high poverty schools. See https://www.cityyear.org/.