Alternative seating practices: pedagogy of the back of the orchestra

ABSTRACT

This three-year study aimed to investigate students’ experiences with alternative seating practices (ASP) in a public-school string orchestra program. Whereas education scholarship has long demonstrated that democratic classroom seating arrangements play a crucial role in the learning process, typical orchestra classrooms maintain a hierarchical seating format assigned to students on a competitive basis. In this study I set out to explore the relationship between anti-hierarchical seating practices rooted in social justice and the musical capacity of a classroom ensemble. Using interdisciplinary methods – ethnography, interviews, archival data collection and analysis –, I investigated ASP’s effects on the learning, motivation, and musical caliber of twenty-five string orchestra students from 8th to 10th grade in a diverse public school in the United States. My research findings show that anti-hierarchical ASP fostered students’ collaboration and increased their motivation and engagement. Moreover, ASP also improved drastically the musical capacity of all students, especially those with no prior music training, and it led the ensemble to win first place at statewide competitions against more affluent and advanced student orchestras for three years in a row. My study therefore suggests that pedagogy rooted in social justice can be instrumental to achieving excellence in music classrooms.

KEYWORDS:

• Social justice
• music education
• string pedagogy
• orchestra seating
• inclusion

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tammy S. Yi

Dr. Tammy S. Yi is a first-generation Ed.D, conductor-educator and string pedagogy specialist, from Los Angeles, CA. She is an assistant professor of music education at Chapman University and is committed to the important contributions of historically excluded communities of color. Dr. Yi serves as the orchestra conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic YOLA Youth Orchestras and designs the music education curriculum for the organization's learning department. She is a national board member of the American String Teachers Association and presents her work at music education and orchestra conferences around the world. Dr. Yi publishes articles related to first-generation experiences, social justice, anti-racism, and ethnic studies. Dr. Yi holds degrees from Columbia University, the University of Southern California and Azusa Pacific University.