The use of African-American music as the core of general music instruction for fifth-grade African-American students living in the inner-city of Grand Rapids, Michigan.

The primary purpose of this study was to determine whether the use of African-American music as the body of music literature in the singing and listening activities of a general music learning experience would contribute to significant growth in musical achievement among African-American students when compared to the musical achievement levels of African-American students receiving music instruction without this emphasis. The secondary purpose of this study was to determine whether the systematic and singular use of African-American music in a general music course would positively affect the musical achievement of students in the categories of low and high musical aptitude. The students in this study comprised two intact classes of fifth-grade African-Americans living in the inner-city of Grand Rapids, Michigan, and attending a neighborhood elementary school. The experimental group received music instruction based upon singing and listening activities using African-American music. The control group received music instruction based primarily upon materials available in the Centennial Edition of the fifth-grade music textbook published by Silver Burdett 1985. Instructional materials used in the control group were without the African-American emphasis. All students were pre-tested for musical aptitude by using Test T and Test R of the Musical Aptitude Profile by Edwin Gordon. The students were pre-tested and post-tested for musical achievement using selected components of the Music Achievement Tests 2 and 3 by Richard Colwell. Five teacher-made tests were given to both groups at various intervals throughout the semester of music instruction. Analyses of data resulting from this study indicate that the students in the experimental group did not realize significant gains in musical achievement greater than those students in the control group. In addition, students in low and high level musical aptitude groups did not demonstrate a pattern of test results that indicate the treatment of African-American music would favorably affect musical achievement in either of those specific categories.PhDMusic: Music EducationUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/105919/1/9023673.pdfDescription of 9023673.pdf : Restricted to UM users only