A University—School Music Partnership for Music Education Majors in a Culturally Distinctive Community

Abstract

University—community collaborations are a fairly recent phenomenon, which has often been manifested through the establishment of university partnerships with schools. This research sought to document the process and outcomes of a university—school collaboration called Music Alive! in the Valley (MAV), a yearlong partnership between 33 university music education students and faculty with an elementary school within a rural location of a western state. MAV was intended to serve a Mexican American migrant community whose children frequently spoke only Spanish at home and to provide occasions for university students of music education to engage in positive social contact via music performances, participation, and training experiences. An ethnographic method was employed by which observations, interviews, and examination of material culture were assembled over the course of the school year, and an assessment was offered of the benefits and challenges in the creation of a music education partnership in distinctive (and remote) cultural communities.