Music teachers’ philosophical beliefs and the use of those beliefs in teaching and advocacy in the USA

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to examine music teachers’ philosophical beliefs, and their application of those beliefs to teaching and advocacy in the United States. I also explored the factors that might predict those beliefs and their application to teaching and advocacy. To measure music teachers’ philosophical beliefs, I developed the Philosophical Beliefs (Ph.B.) scale based on the foundational utilitarian, aesthetic, and praxial philosophical perspectives. Using the Ph.B. scale, I conducted a survey through the National Association for Music Education in the United States, and 527 music teachers responded to the survey. The results revealed that music teachers’ philosophical beliefs and their use of beliefs in teaching and advocacy varied among the philosophical perspectives. In particular, the aesthetic perspective was most favored as a philosophical belief by music educators but used the least in advocacy. More experienced music teachers had stronger philosophical beliefs and made more use of these beliefs in practice. I discuss how future work may extend the research in this paper to consider additional philosophical and ethical perspectives of music educators.

Keywords

Advocacy beliefs philosophy scale development teaching experience

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