Content area
Abstract
Purpose. The purpose of the study was to obtain objective information on a black music course of study and its effect on black and white students possessing different levels of musical aptitude. The study tried to ascertain whether a black music course of study, developed in terms of the musical heritage and cultural backgrounds of black students, would contribute to greater achievement on the part of black students.
Problem. The problems of the study were to answer the following questions. (1) Will black students benefit more from a general black music course of study than white students? (2) Will musically select students benefit more from a general black music course of study than musically unselect students? (3) Will students with high musical aptitude benefit more from a black music course of study than students with low musical aptitude, regardless of cultural background?
Procedure. The study was conducted in the Coatesville, Pennsylvania Area School District at Gordon, North and South Brandywine Junior High Schools during the 1979-1980 school year. Of the eighty students who participated in the study, twenty-nine were black and fifty-one were white. The musically select population included (1) students enrolled in general music classes who were taking private or group lessons on a musical instrument or (2) students who were members of the band and/or chorus. The musically unselect students were enrolled in general music classes but they did not participate in band, chorus or engage in the study of an instrument privately. One eighth-grade class from each of the three junior high schools were taught the same black music course of study twice a week, for nine weeks, for approximately fifty-five minutes per class period. The course of study was taught by the writer and it included information on west African music, Yoruba drumming, black composers, conductors and performers, folk and minstrel songs, blues, spirituals, gospel, lined-hymn tradition, boogie-woogie, ragtime, New Orleans street bands, dixieland and contemporary black musical idioms. The Musical Aptitude Profile was administered the first week and the Black Music Test, an author-devised test of ninety-multiple choice items which served as the evaluative instrument, was administered the final week of instruction.
Design and Analysis. The data were interpreted by two analyses of variance designs, each having two dimensions. In the first analysis, black and white students represented the A treatment dimension and high and low musical aptitude represented the B level dimension. In the second analysis, musically select students represented the A treatment dimension and as before, high and low musical aptitude represented the B level dimension.
Results. The results indicated that black students profit significantly more than white students from a general black music course of study. Further, the results indicated that musically select students benefit more from a general black music course of study than musically unselect students regardless of cultural background or level of musical aptitude. Finally, the data indicated that students with high musical aptitude benefit more from a black music course of study than students with low musical aptitude, regardless of race or cultural background.
Conclusions. It may be concluded that blacks are not inherently inferior to whites. When blacks are taught material consistent with their musical heritage and background, they perform better than whites. Therefore, teachers of general music should include both black and white materials in the curriculum so that blacks may receive equal opportunity to learn and to perform at levels comparable to that of whites.
