Using Popular Music Pedagogies to Foster 21st-Century Skills and Knowledge

Abstract

Recent changes in educational policy have placed 21st-century skills at the forefront of arts education, presenting arts educators with an opportunity to reassess instructional practices. Popular music pedagogies are approaches to learning and practicing popular music that may be useful for addressing 21st-century skills and knowledge in arts classrooms. In this article, the author describes how art and music teachers infused music, art, and technology in two related arts projects for Grades 3 to 5 that explored the artwork of Jean-Michel Basquiat, jazz music, the work of DJ Kool Herc, and a deejay application on electronic tablets. Through the use of popular music pedagogies, teachers addressed many aspects of 21st-century skills and knowledge. Furthermore, the artwork of Jean-Michel Basquiat and the music of DJ Kool Herc resonated with students due to their historical significance and the everlasting artistic themes found within their work—individuality, innovation, communication, expression, and authenticity.

Keywords

21st-century skills arts integration Basquiat DJ Kool Herc hip-hop popular music pedagogies

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Boone

Peterson

(2006). Hip-hop. In Palmer

C. A.

(Ed.), Encyclopedia of African-American culture and history (2nd ed., Vol. 3, pp. 1048–1051). Gale.

Bowman

(2004). “Pop” goes…? Taking popular music seriously. In Rodriguez

C. X.

(Ed.), Bridging the gap: Popular music and music education (pp. 29–49). Music Educators National Conference.

Boyle

(2019, June 21). The art of hip-hop: A short discussion of hip-hop, art, and their entanglement. Smithsonian American Art Museum. https://americanart.si.edu/blog/short-discussion-hip-hop-art-and-their-entanglement

Common Core State Standards Initiative. (2019). Development process. www.corestandards.org/about-the-standards/development-process/

Common Core State Standards Initiative. (2020). http://www.corestandards.org/

Eshun

(2017, September 22). Bowie, Bach and Bebop: How music powered Basquiat. The New York Times. www.nytimes.com/2017/09/22/arts/design/basquiat-barbican-london.html

Green

(2008). Music, informal learning and the school: A new classroom pedagogy. Ashgate.

Guggenheim Bilbao Museoa. (2015). Heroes and saints. http://basquiat.guggenheim-bilbao.eus/en/heroes-and-saints/

Kernan

(2006). Jean-Michel Basquiat. In Palmer

C. A.

(Ed.), Encyclopedia of African-American culture and history (2nd ed., Vol. 1, pp. 223–224). Gale.

10.

Larkin

(Ed.). (2009). Kool Herc. In Larkin

(Ed.), Encyclopedia of popular music (4th ed.). Oxford University Press.

11.

Manatakis

(2017, November 21). Jean-Michel Basquiat in his own words. Dazed. www.dazeddigital.com/art-photography/article/38129/1/-jean-michel-basquiat-in-his-own-words

12.

Musical Futures. (2019). Who we are and what we do. www.musicalfutures.org/who-we-are

13.

National Core Arts Standards. (2014). What are the national core arts standards? www.nationalartsstandards.org/content/national-core-arts-standards

14.

Partnership for 21st Century Learning. (2007). Framework for 21st century learning. http://static.battelleforkids.org/documents/p21/P21_framework_0816_2pgs.pdf

15.

Rodriguez

C. X.

(2004). Popular music in music education: Toward a new conception of musicality. In Rodriguez

C. X.

(Ed.), Bridging the gap: Popular music and music education (pp. 13–28). Music Educators National Conference.

16.

Urban

(2018, April 23). Jazz, bebop and Basquiat. SchirnMag. www.schirn.de/en/magazine/context/jazz_bebop_basquiat/

17.

Vasil

Weiss

Powell

(2019). Popular Music Pedagogies: An approach to teaching 21st-centruy skills. Journal of Music Teacher Education, 28(3), 85–95. https://doi.org/10.1177/1057083718814454

18.

Weston

(2017). The place of practice in tertiary popular music studies: An epistemology. Journal of Popular Music Education, 1(1), 101–116.

19.

Williams

D. A.

(2011). The elephant in the room. Music Educators Journal, 98(1), 51–57. https://doi.org/10.1177/0027432111415538

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

0.00 MB

0.12 MB