Author ORCID Identifier

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2604-682X

Date Available

7-9-2024

Year of Publication

2024

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Document Type

Doctoral Dissertation

College

Fine Arts

Department/School/Program

Music

First Advisor

Dr. Martina Vasil

Abstract

Teacher agency has been a burgeoning topic of research in education and music education. In education research, professional agency has been associated with the influence of policy, teacher demographics, teacher beliefs, professional developments, and teaching environments. In music education, music teacher professional agency is a music teacher’s perception of their capacity to exert power, act, or cause change in their curriculum. Although many researchers and scholars assume that music teachers have agency in their classroom regarding their curriculum, the landscape is shifting due to recent policy changes in the United States, specifically concerning Divisive Concept Laws. Since recent Divisive Concept Laws have passed, there has yet to be research published investigating music teacher professional agency.

Therefore, the purpose of this explanatory mixed methods study was to investigate what factors acted as barriers and pathways to music teacher professional agency using Priestley et al.’s (2016) ecological approach to teacher agency as a theoretical framework. The explanatory mixed methods design with a participant selection model began with a quantitative phase and was followed by a qualitative phase to better understand the quantitative results. The first phase of this study, a survey study, revealed that teachers in states with divisive concept laws had significantly lower senses of agency. This result led to further investigation into teacher agency in states with divisive concept laws or executive orders (DCL/EOs).

The second phase of the explanatory mixed methods study was a collective case study, with the bounded system being teachers who taught in states with divisive concept laws. Participants included three teachers with varying backgrounds and identities. Although music teachers in states with DCL/EOs had significantly lower agency, the qualitative participants’ responses focused on ways they were able to exert power, act, or cause change despite working in states with DCL/EOs. Through a cross-case analysis, two themes emerged from the data: curiosity and community.

Teachers’ curiosity helped them have a higher sense of agency in the classroom. Their curiosity led them to shift their music teacher identity from teachers focused on performance to teachers valuing a holistic music education. The teachers also experimented with new approaches; teaching was like a puzzle to solve—finding the best way to teach concepts to different groups of students.

The teachers’ perspectives on community varied, but knowing their community was at the core. When the teachers knew their community and acknowledged that their educational experiences were different than their students, they were able to identify teaching methods and pedagogies that might work. Knowing the community also helped them know how their community felt about the divisive concept laws and that informed their decisions of how they could best provide curricular options to represent their students in the classroom.

There were several implications from the results of this study. First, music teachers should take the time to understand the community and social landscape of their schools. When teachers know the social landscape, they can craft their curricula to support their students in a way that aligns with the teachers’ beliefs and values. Second, music teachers should have a sense of curiosity and continue their development as teachers after graduation through professional development conferences and continued teacher education. For music teacher educators, consider ways to have students interact with school communities, and foster a sense of curiosity in your students by having them find areas that intrigue them, and provide preservice teachers the opportunity to try and reflect on how they work with students. Finally, school administrators should help new teachers understand their school communities and support new teachers’ endeavors to participate in professional development.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.13023/etd.2024.340

Download

Share

COinS