On Demographics, Diversity, and Democracy

Abstract

In the late 1990s, one of my University of Colorado music education colleagues and I began conversing about the lack of racial/ethnic diversity within our student body and the music education profession writ large. Much of the literature of that period was focused on describing the teacher workforce, but researchers were struggling to pinpoint key factors contributing to the pronounced underrepresentation of teachers of color. A U.S. Department of Education report (Choy et al., 1993), for example, showed that 87% of female teachers and 90% of male teachers were White. In a companion report published 4 years later (Henke et al., 1997), researchers confirmed that far fewer teachers than students identified as minorities (i.e., nearly twice as many Black students as Black teachers, and over three times as many Hispanic students as Hispanic teachers). While there was some evidence of an inroad being made in the recruitment of Hispanic teachers to the profession, the vast majority (87%) of teachers still identified as White. Faced with those realities, my colleague and I applied for a university grant that would support a special outreach initiative modeled after the so-called “grow your own” programs. We partnered with high school music teachers in the Denver Public School District—one of the largest and most diverse school districts in the nation—to identify student musicians of color who exhibited an interest in and some attributes for music teaching. We provided transportation for students between Denver and Boulder and hosted them for a full-day campus visit during which they could (a) shadow a music education student through a portion of their daily schedule; (b) observe representative classes, lessons, and rehearsals; (c) meet with music education faculty and administrators over lunch to learn about the typical music school application, audition, and admissions processes; (d) visit with a financial aid representative concerning scholarships and need-based aid; and (e) tour the campus and music facilities. We also provided students with a packet of resource materials they could take home and share