Humphreys, Jere T.

Europeans took their musical traditions with them when they moved to North America. Eventually, however, the United States became so large and diverse, with such deep democratic roots, that different ethnic musical strands emerged and then combined to form important new forms of popular music. By then electronic playback technology had arisen and the United States had become the most influential country in the world, both of which helped propel one of these new popular musics, rock and roll, throughout much of the world, much like Europe and its music dominated and proliferated during what musicians call the common practice period. Today, music teachers in the United States continue to be trained in the European-based art music tradition, but most of their work consists of teaching an array of musical styles to students of every imaginable ethnicity and background. These music educators tend to have dual professional identities: as classical musicians and as teachers of multiple styles of music.

||При преместването си в Северна Америка европейците взели със себе си и музикалните си традиции. В крайна сметка, обаче, Съединените щати дотолкова се разраснали и били различни – с дълбоки демократични корени, - че се появили различни музикални течения, а впоследствие се съчетали така, че да образуват нови форми на популярна музика. Към него момент технологията за електронен плейбек вече била развита и САЩ стават най-влиятелната страна в света, като тези два фактора помогнали за напредъка на един от тези нови популярни музикални жанрове – рокендролът – из по-големия дял на музикалния свят, до голяма степен по начина, по който Европа и нейната музика доминира и процъфтява по време на т.нар. от музикантите период на общата практика (common practice period). Днес учителите по музика в САЩ продължават да бъдат обучавани според базираната в Европа традиция на художествената музика, но в по-голямата си част работата им се състои от преподаване на студентите на спектър от музикални стилове от всяка етничност и произход, които можем да си представим. Тези музикални педагози обикновено имат двойствена професионална идентичност: те са класически музиканти и учители по множество музикални стилове.

The purpose of this study was to examine relationships between school music participation and a composite measure of academic achievement in American schools. The authors examined the first (baseline) year of a longitudinal study commissioned by the National Center for Education Statistics, conducted in 1988 (NELS:88/94 Data Analysis system, with Additional Systems for High School and Beyond and the National Longitudinal Study of 1972, NCES, 1996). The data set contains information on more than 23,000 American middle school students, and is thought to be representative of the national as a whole.

Several previous researchers employing causal modeling techniques have found relationships between extracurricular activities and education attainment as measured by standardized academic achievement tests. In music, students with school band and orchestra experience make significantly higher grades in high school mathematics, English, and social science than do non-performing students, and instrumental music instruction seems to improve scores on tests of spatial-temporal ability, which is thought to correlate with ability in mathematics.

The present study confirmed previous findings on relationships among music participation and academic achievement. Significantly more students in school music choral or instrumental groups ranked above the 50th percentile in academic grades than did other students (p < .05). For instrumental students, these results held true for all four socioeconomic quartiles, for both boys and girls, and for all races/ethnicities. For choral students, only students in the third and fourth quartiles and Caucasian students ranked significantly higher than other students.