Invited to the feast?: Problems of hospitality, coloniality and identity in the music classroom

This study sought to understand the complicated interactions of student, teacher, curriculum and curricular objects in one junior music classroom in Ontario. This work was taken up under Derridas call for cities of refuge in On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness while mindful of the ways in which colonial structures can appear cosmopolitan, as in the trope of music as universal language. It explored how changing the music that was studied might affect their perception of their own and others belonging in the music room. This in turn, asks us to consider how curricular choices affect behavior, engagement and success in our students. Through ethnographically informed methods including interviews and observations, surveys and a curricular intervention using global pop music, student and teacher attitudes and engagement with diverse musics and cultures were examined. Three major themes emerged in the analysis; complex and conflicted identities in students who believed much of their tastes and selves did not belong at school, a rapid fluidity in musical taste, and the omnipresent shadow of a Western cultural framework of music curriculum, academic success, and schooling behavior and expectations. Several pedagogical and curricular implications were explored, including engaging students through academic approaches to music, student belonging and hospitality practices, and the difficulties of reception of multicultural approaches within the school