On Musicology’s Responsibility to Music Education

The Case of Praxis II

Abstract

​​Recent years have seen significant changes in the pedagogy of music history including a general broadening of what music is taught in core music history courses and a shift towards skills-based approaches to the field. In these discussions, however, there has been little dialogue with the field of music education even though at many universities, a significant proportion of the students taking music history coursework are studying to become K-12 music teachers. This article considers one place where music history pedagogy has material consequences for music education students: the Praxis II Music Content Knowledge exam, a two-hour, multiple-choice exam that pre-service teachers in many states must pass before they are certified to teach music in public schools. The exam is, by design, a barrier and like many standardized exams has unintended consequences for equity. Successful Praxis outcomes are significantly correlated with race and gender, with white students scoring higher than Black students, and men higher than women.

 In this article we introduce the structure and content of the Praxis exam to begin a conversation about musicologists’ responsibilities for preparing students for the certification exam. We argue that music history curricular revision must attend to repercussions for adjacent disciplines, especially in the case of barrier exams. To revise without this attention is to risk undermining efforts to increase diversity among music educators. Further, we see the divide between the Praxis content and our field’s current state as evidence of a disciplinary history in which elite musicology retreated from the practical concerns of music education. We suggest possible paths forward that begin to bridge our disciplines in order to serve the needs of our shared students and support the broader goals that underpin our curricular revisions.