Music education programs in the United States “serve a White-normative, Eurocentric model,” and the admissions process for those programs “remains inherently racist,” according to a recent academic paper.
The paper, titled “Disrupting Racism in Music Education: Conceptualizing Admissions Processes Through the State and the War Machine,” was authored by Erika Knapp and Whitney Mayo, who identify as “White scholars doing anti-racist work.” They wrote their paper using an “anti-racist lens drawn from Critical Race Theory.”
Knapp (pictured, left) is a music education professor at the University of North Texas and Mayo (pictured, right) teaches music at the University of North Dakota.
The College Fix contacted Knapp and Mayo to inquire about the intersection between critical race theory and music education, solutions to fix the admissions process, and if there were any plans to get their ideas implemented.