“The Music I Was Meant to Sing”

Abstract

This article is based on a multiple embedded case study, the purpose of which was to explore adolescent choral students’ perceptions of culturally responsive pedagogy (CRP) in three demographically contrasting choirs of an urban nonprofit children’s choir organization. The case presented here focused on an after-school choir situated in a Puerto Rican enclave, where a multiethnic teacher designed instruction that was responsive to a community with a significant migrant and immigrant Hispanic population. Adolescents perceived their teacher’s culturally responsive practice as honoring their own cultural backgrounds while also expanding their cultural and intellectual horizons. Although the students generally perceived their choral experiences to be culturally responsive, they also identified potential barriers to practicing CRP. Perceived barriers related to the complexity of students’ cultural identities and challenges inherent in practicing CRP equitably given constraints on instructional time. By encouraging style shifting between performance practices associated with diverse musical genres and meaningfully bridging students’ musical experiences at home and school, the culturally responsive learning environment explored in this study fostered connections between students’ musical and cultural identities.