Music Education Doctoral Student, Ashante Griffin, Researches Equity Resources in Music Education Publications

“The age-old slogan ‘Music for every child, every child for music’ should be apparent in the journal content published by NAfME. Equity in music programs is a popular conversation, but everyone tends to have a different definition of what equity is or how to implement it. I have found that the different definitions of equity in the articles create ambiguity regarding their relation to the term. The term “equity” has been identified in published articles using many terms and one purpose of this study was to categorize those terms. This study centers on a content analysis of how authors of articles published in NAFME’s research journals have identified and acknowledged equity over the past 20 years. Research questions for this study included  (a) What terms were previously used for equity? (b)  Are these journals a resource for educators interested in equitable music education programs and actions they as individuals can take in their own classrooms? (c) What is the frequency and patterns of equity related articles in these journals? The analysis included articles from the Journal of Research in Music Education, The Journal of Music Teacher Education, and Update: Applications of Research in Music Education. The study methodology was based on a previous content analysis of JMTE (Killian, et al, 2013). Descriptive statistics were gathered to enumerate the frequency of equity-related content in each journal, by year of publication, and by theme/category. One element of the preliminary analysis indicated that equity issues were rarely presented in the early 2000s. After further research, equity issues were not prevalent in either of the 3 NAfME research journals over the past 20 years. The study concludes with implications for research, for future authors, and for music teachers in urban schools.