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The Underlife of Kids' School Lunchtime: Negotiating Ethnic Boundaries and Identity in Food Exchange

2009-04-15T11:09:00.000-07:00

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While the literature on ethnic identity takes traditional "adult-centered" socialization theory for granted, this study breaks away from such a perspective, and instead uses ethnographic data on children's food exchange during lunchtime in two predominantly Korean (-American) elementary schools to explore how children use food as a symbolic resource to negotiate group boundaries in peer interaction. Following a discussion of lunchtime seating patterns, this article presents children practicing exchange of "dry food (mass-consumed)" and "wet food (homemade)" that takes three different forms-gift-giving, sharing, and trading-each of which have different relevance for marking, maintaining, and muting ethnic boundaries and other social differences. Taking a child-centered perspective, the study finds that children's ethnic identity development is by no means a universal linear process. Instead, preadolescent children, although constrained by external forces, learn to do layered and situated ethnic identity through using cultural resources in peer interaction. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

To tutor, or not to?

2009-04-15T11:08:00.000-07:00

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Be mindful of your child's age and grade. If he's in kindergarten, grade one or two, there's still plenty of time for him to pick up basics like reading, writing and math. Cherie Carter, a special education teacher in Toronto, says parents should let younger kids learn at their own pace, and wait until grade three before hiring extra help. Michael Gabert, a long-time teacher and tutor from Kitchener, Ont., agrees. "We need to let kids be kids."

It's not always obvious, but issues with friends, conflict with a teacher or sadness related to a divorce or death in the family can impact on kids' school performance. Carter says that children suffering from low selfesteem or anxiety - often as a result of social problems - might not answer questions on tests because they're so afraid of being wrong. To suss out whether social or emotional problems may be interfering with school, take note of everything in your child's world, from the recent loss of a pet to a sudden lack of phone calls from friends. And speak to his teacher - there may be some dynamic in the classroom that's causing him anxiety. These problems are not easy to solve, and definitely not the domain of an academic tutor. Talking to your child and his teacher or getting the school counsellor involved is a more logical way to start.

Identifying and dealing with such problems may help your child get back into the groove at school. But if he's fallen behind, particularly in a cumulative subject like math, it may still be prudent to call a tutor, at least tem-porarily. "You've still got to get them caught up with what they've missed," says [Lorelei Burgess].

Britain: Please, sir, what's history?; Primary schooling

2009-04-15T11:07:00.001-07:00

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A missed chance to make hard choices about what children should learn

IF YOU are in your 40s and British, it is quite possible that your spelling is an embarrassment. You may never have been taught the distinction between "there", "their" and "they're", or perhaps even your times tables. If you moved house during your primary years you may have entirely missed some vital topic--joined-up writing, say. And you may have struggled to learn to read using the "initial teaching alphabet", a concoction of 40 letters that was supposed to provide a stepping stone to literacy but tripped up many children when they had to switch to the standard 26.

Those days of swivel-eyed theorising and untrammelled experimentation--or, as the schools inspectorate put it at the time, "markedly individual decisions about what is to be taught"--ended in 1988 with the introduction of a national curriculum. But though that brought rigour and uniformity, it also created an unwieldy--and unworldly--blueprint for the Renaissance Child. Schools have struggled to fit it all in ever since. Now, 20 years later, the primary curriculum is to be cut down.

In January the government commissioned Sir Jim Rose, a former chief inspector of primary schools, to trim ten existing required subjects to give extra space to computing skills and to accommodate two new compulsory subjects: a foreign language and the now-optional "personal, social, health and economic education" (eating fruit and veg, refraining from hitting one's classmates and much more). On December 8th he published his interim report--and many fear that, as well as losing fat, education will see a lot of meat go too.

Sir Jim proposes merging the subjects into six "learning areas". History and geography will become "human, social and environmental understanding"; reading, writing and foreign languages, "understanding English, communication and languages". Physical education, some bits of science and various odds and ends will merge into "understanding physical health and well-being", and so on. His plan would "reduce prescription", he says, and, far from downgrading important ideas, "embed and intensify [them] to better effect in cross-curricular studies".

Learned societies are livid. "An erosion of specialist knowledge," harrumphs the Royal Historical Society; its geographical counterpart is worried about "losing rigour and the teaching of basics". Even those with no brief for a particular subject are concerned. Pouring 12 subjects into six "learning areas" is not the same as slimming down; if the curriculum is to become more digestible something must be lost, and just what is being glossed over. "Wouldn't it be better to address the question of subjects directly--which ones, for how long and what to specify?" asks Alan Smithers, of Buckingham University.

One answer is that making hard choices openly would provoke complaints that the curriculum was being dumbed down. Attempts to cut it outright would run counter to powerful forces, as politicians look to schools to solve myriad social ills--from obesity to teenage pregnancy to low turnout in elections--and to pick up the slack left by poor parenting. But Sir Jim's prescription indicates more than the difficulty of his job. He has been asked to solve tricky educational conundrums before and, every time, he has managed to catch the prevailing political wind.

In 2006 he reviewed reading tuition, and plumped for the back-to-basics "synthetic phonics"--to the delight of a government already mustard-keen on the method. In 1999 he answered "no" to the charge that rising exam results were a sign of less exacting exams rather than of better teaching. In 1991 the Tory government of the day was equally thrilled to be told that primary education had become too progressive.

This time, too, Sir Jim has captured the Zeitgeist. Synthesis and cross-cutting are once more fashionable in educational circles: since July 2007 England's schools have been overseen not by an education ministry but by the Department for Children, Schools and Families, which is responsible for pretty much everything to do with young people, from health to criminal justice to learning. (The three other bits of the United Kingdom--Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland--go their own way on education.) Primary schools were turning away from discrete subjects even before he pronounced: a 2007 survey found a third taught mostly "themed" lessons; another 40% were planning to do so soon. Another recent review, this time of what 11-14-year-olds should learn, also plumped for more cross-curricular learning.

Many countries' curriculums consist of high-flown descriptions of the paragonic citizens that education is meant to help produce, couched in impenetrable educationalese. But alongside are usually some hard facts: which textbooks to use and how many hours to devote to each topic, for example. England's lacks such a crib sheet. Schools can choose their own texts, even write their own, and apportion the school day as they please. Exams come in competing varieties from independent exam boards that must, like teachers, read between the lines to figure out what is meant to have been taught. That leaves England particularly exposed to the consequences of curricular woolliness.

Despite seeming vague, though, national curriculums do often encapsulate some aspect of national ideals. France's is explicit about the primacy of la belle langue; Sweden's elevates equality above all other virtues; Japan's, love of country. That these match stereotypes so well suggests that they capture a national spirit, or create it, or a bit of both--and raises a worrying question for anyone looking at England's proposed mishmash of a new curriculum.

HOWARD COUNTY POLICE INVESTIGATING MINOR SCHOOL BUS COLLISION

2009-04-15T11:07:00.000-07:00

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Howard County issued the following press release:

Howard County Police are investigating a minor school bus collision that sent 10 children to area hospitals today as a precautionary measure. According to emergency medical personnel on the scene, no one suffered evident injuries. The children were transported for medical observation.

The driver of the bus, which was taking students to Veterans Elementary School in Ellicott City, reported that the bus slid on ice in Patapsco State Park around 11 a.m. The bus struck the side of a small bridge.

Police and ambulances were called to the scene and 10 of the 23 children, ranging in age from 5 to 8, were taken to Howard County General and Northwest Hospitals. The other 13 children were taken to school by another bus.

Parents of the students were notified of the incident by the school system. No charges have been filed.

Disparities in Academic Achievement and Health: The Intersection of Child Education and Health Policy

2009-04-15T11:05:00.000-07:00

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Recent data suggest that that the United States is failing to make significant progress toward the Healthy People 2010 goal of eliminating health disparities. One missing element from the US strategy for achieving this goal is a focus on gaps in child development and achievement. Academic achievement and education seem to be critical determinants of health across the life span and disparities in one contribute to disparities in the other. Despite these linkages, national policy treats child education and health as separate. Landmark education legislation, the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, is due for Congressional reauthorization. It seeks to eliminate gaps in academic child achievement by 2014. It does so by introducing accountability for states, school districts, and schools. In this special article, we review health disparities and contributors to child achievement gaps. We review changes in achievement gaps over time and potential contributors to the limited success of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, including its unfunded mandates and unfounded assumptions. We conclude with key reforms, which include addressing gaps in child school readiness through adequate investment in child health and early education and reductions in child poverty; closing the gap in child achievement by ensuring equity in school accountability standards; and, importantly, ensuring equity in school funding so that resources are allocated on the basis of the needs of the students. This will ensure that schools, particularly those serving large numbers of poor and minority children, have the resources necessary to promote optimal learning. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

Tesco website to sell kids' school clothes

2009-04-14T11:12:00.000-07:00

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Tesco has upgraded its website Tesco.com to enable shoppers to buy children's back-to-school clothes online as part of a fresh push into the clothing sector.

The retailer has been showcasing its clothing range on the site since April last year, but consumers could not buy it online.

Tesco is now using the upgraded site, which was developed in conjunction with WARL Evolution, to trial sales of its children's clothes from mid-July until the start of the autumn school term. If successful, the system will be rolled out to cover the rest of its clothing range.

Tesco is also looking at ways of expanding its clothing email database via affiliate programmes. It is currently in discussions with website pigsback.com about becomingan affiliate partner. It already has details of about 150,000 consumers.

The existing website features the entire Tesco clothing offering, including its Florence + Fred and Chcrokee ranges, with a store finder indicating where each range is available. The site uses a simple data-capture mechanism that emails customers a newsletter about the clothing range.

The move is part of Tesco's aim to build market share for Tesco.com and boost its position in the clothing market. In May, the retailer overtook Asda to become the UK's second-biggest clothing retailer in terms of volume, according to TNS. Marks & Spencer isnumber one.

Last year Tesco chief executive Sir Terry Leahy hired former Allders chief executive Terry Green to head the retailer's clothing division. Last month Tesco announced a steady start to the year with 4.5% rise in like-for-like sales for the 13 weeks to 27 May.

It's Not How Much; It's How Characteristics of Practice Behavior and Retention of Performance Skills

2009-04-04T11:04:00.001-07:00

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Tens of thousands of hours in musicians' professional lives are devoted to individual practice, the mechanism through which music skills are learned, refined, and maintained (Davidson, Howe, & Sloboda, 1997; Ericsson, 1997; Ericsson, Krampe, & Tesch-Römer, 1993; Howe, Davidson, & Sloboda, 1998; Madsen, 2004). Although this private aspect of musicianship is invisible to most nonmusicians, who typically hear only public performances, musicians are well aware of the centrality of practice in their life's work.

Much of the extant research about music practice comprises comparisons among practice interventions or imposed strategies, testing the relative efficacy of modeling (Henley, 200 1 ; Hewitt, 200 1 ; Rosenthal, 1 984; Rosenthal, Wilson, Evans, & Greenwalt, 1988), mental practice (Coffman, 1990; Lim & Lippman, 1991; Ross, 1985; RubinRabson, 1941a, 1941b, 1941c; Theiler & Lippman, 1995), practice reports (Wagner, 1975), and distraction indexes (Madsen & Geringer, 1981).

Only more recently have scholars begun to study in context and over time the content of expert musicians' practice (Chaffin & Imreh, 1997, 2001, 2002; Chaffin, Imreh, Lemieux, & Chen, 2003; Gruson, 1988; Maynard, 2006; Williamon, Valentine, & Valentine, 2002) and the practice of novices (McPherson, 2005; Rohwer & Polk, 2006). Williamon and Valentine (2000), for example, observed practice among pianists at four different skill levels and found that quality, not quantity, of practice predicted performance quality at all levels of skill. In her study of pianists' practice, Gruson (1988) reported that the single best predictor of skill level was the extent to which players repeated larger sections of music, rather than individual notes. McPherson (2005), whose 3-year investigation of 157 beginning instrumentalists is one of the most substantive to date, also noted that the strategies employed in young musicians' practice, not the amount of time devoted to practice, were the best predictors of achievement.

Irrespective of the pedagogical implications of the more recent studies of practice behavior, making practice assignments in terms of time practiced instead of goals accomplished remains one of the most curious and stubbornly persistent traditions in music pedagogy (Kostka, 2002). Music teachers more often ask students to record practice time than they ask them to record the achievement of practice goals (Barry & Mc Arthur, 1994), which promotes the notion that all students need to practice a prescribed number of minutes each day, regardless of how long it takes individuals to accomplish what they set out to do (Duke, Flowers, & Wolfe, 1997). In fact, informal reviews of private teachers' instructions for practice reveal that teachers commonly assign only what to practice and how long to practice, with little attention given to specific proximal goals to be accomplished each day. This is in stark contrast to assignments in many academic disciplines in school, where students are given sets of problems to solve, chapters to read, or essays to write, and the time devoted to homework is determined by the time required to complete the problems, read the chapters, or compose the essays. It seems readily accepted in other disciplines by teachers and students alike that all students will not devote the same amount of time to assignments, because individual learners work at different rates and different learners will not require the same amount of time to complete each assignment. How long one works depends on how long it takes to accomplish the assigned goals.

Although similar individual variations exist in the time required to accomplish performance goals in music, setting daily goals according to time spent seems to have become an accepted convention in planning music practice, most noticeably among developing musicians. This is perhaps because of the notion that setting a routine for practice develops habits of consistent effort or because of the belief that daily repetition will inevitably lead advantageously to automaticity of motor skills. But, if the efforts made in practice are generally ineffective in improving performance, it is understandable that some learners conclude that their limited accomplishment is not worth the time invested.

There have been few studies to date in which skilled performers' practice behaviors have been observed in detail, the work of Chaffin and colleagues being the most obvious exception. The reasons for this are understandable, because the challenges of assessing practice behavior in a way that is systematic yet informative (beyond the measurement of discrete variables, such as time or duration of performance episodes) are daunting, to say the least.

The purpose of this study was to test the extent to which the quality of advanced pianists' performances of a difficult passage approximately 24 hr after it was introduced could be predicted based on what the pianists did during practice on the passage. We also set out to describe practice behaviors of the most effective learners in our sample.

Method

Participants were 17 graduate and advanced-undergraduate piano majors enrolled in piano performance and piano pedagogy degree programs in the Sarah and Ernest Butler School of Music at The University of Texas at Austin. We were able to identify 17 pianists who were willing to complete the research sessions.

Participants learned to play a three-measure passage from Dmitri Shostakovich's Concerto No. 1 for Piano, Trumpet and String Orchestra, Op. 35 on a Yamaha Disklavier acoustic piano (see Figure 1). We chose the excerpt on the basis of its difficulty and accessibility - although it presents a number of technical challenges to the pianist and is quite difficult to sightread at tempo, it can be learned within a single practice session.

Upon arrival at the test location, participants were given approximately 2 min to warm up in whatever manner they wished. At the conclusion of the warm-up period, they were given a printed copy of the test excerpt (marked with their participant number), an electronic metronome, and a pencil. The following instructions were read aloud by the proctor, who remained in the room throughout all practice and test periods:

Practice this excerpt until you feel that you have learned it well and can play it confidently at the target tempo (120 bpm) without the metronome. Take as much time as you need. A pencil and metronome have been provided if you wish to use them during practice. When you return tomorrow, you will play this excerpt again. The purpose of this project is to describe the changes that occur in your playing of the excerpt between today and tomorrow.

We permitted participants to practice for as long as they wished. There were no explicit instructions concerning use of the metronome and pencil given to participants at the start of the session, and no apparent patterns were observed in the use of these items. Some participants used the metronome intermittently throughout practice, whereas others used it only as they neared the end of practice. The majority of participants wrote several fingerings in their scores (mostly for left-hand passages), and only 3 of the 17 pianists made additional markings in their music (e.g., circling notes, fingerings, or challenging transition points). When participants indicated that they were confident they had learned die excerpt and that they could play the excerpt at the target tempo on the following day, the proctor collected the music and instructed the participants not to practice the excerpt (even from memory) before returning 24 hr later. (The participants reported that they complied with our request not to practice the passage.)

When participants returned the following day, they were read the following instructions:

You have approximately 2 minutes to warm up as you wish. Please do not play any part of the excerpt you learned yesterday during the warm-up.

At the end of the warm-up period, participants were given the same copy of the music they had used during their practice session on the previous day. The following instructions were read:

Play straight through this excerpt at the target tempo 15 times. Please do not stop during any of your performance trials.

The proctor then played the metronome at the target tempo until the participant began his or her first trial, at which time the metronome was turned off. The 15 performance trials were played in succession, separated by brief pauses whose duration were determined by the participants. We included 15 trials in the retention session to provide us with enough material to make reliable discriminations among the performers.

We recorded all practice and test sessions on digital videotape and recorded all MIDI data from the keyboard for subsequent analysis. In addition, we converted the MIDI signal from the retention test performances to QuickTime audio files for evaluation.

We observed all video recordings of the 17 participants' practice sessions and compiled the following numerical data from each session: total practice time, number of performance trials (the number of times the pianist began playing), number of complete performance trials (the number of hands-apart or hands-together performances of the entire excerpt), number of correct performance trials (complete performances of the entire excerpt at any tempo without error or hesitation), number of nearcorrect performance trials (complete performances of the entire excerpt at any tempo with only one or two minor errors or hesitations), the sum of correct and near-correct performance trials, number of incorrect performance trials (performances of the entire excerpt that contained errors), the percentage of complete trials that were correct (the proportion of performances of the entire excerpt that were without error or hesitation), the percentage of complete trials that were correct and near-correct (the proportion of performances of the entire excerpt that were without error or hesitation plus those with only one or two minor errors or hesitations), and the percentage of all trials (including incomplete trials) that were correct. From the retention tests, we recorded the number of trials out of 15 attempts that were correct, the number of trials that were near-correct, and the sum of the correct and near-correct trials. Note that the correct and near-correct trials in these analyses were defined only in terms of pitch and rhythm accuracy. Interjudge reliability for our assessments of correct and near-correct trials was .96.

After recording the numerical data, we observed the video recordings again in an effort to characterize further the features of each participant's practice procedures. We wrote explicit descriptions of the practice behaviors that appeared rather consistently throughout each participant's practice session. When there were discrepancies among our descriptions, we arrived at consensus after viewing the tapes together to clarify one another's observations. Thus, the descriptors of practice presented in Table 1 represent only those characteristics that were agreed upon by all three authors.

We independently ranked the audio recordings of the retention test performances, taking into account the tone, character, and expressiveness of the performances. This ranking procedure permitted a more encompassing evaluation of the retention test performances, beyond the simple counting of correct and near-correct trials. The 17 QuickTime audio files were assigned random ID numbers that differed from the sequential numbering of the practice videotapes and were placed in an otherwiseempty folder on an Apple Macintosh computer screen. Clicking on a given icon initiated playback of the participant's 15 retention test performances. We listened individually to the recordings over high-quality loudspeakers. Our task was to rank the participants from best to worst in terms of overall performance quality across the 15 trials in the retention test. This procedure for evaluating multiple music performances proved quite advantageous, as it combined unlimited opportunities for rehearing, ease in hearing performances in juxtaposition, and the ability to order on the computer screen the icons representing the performers' retention tests. Agreement across our rankings was moderately high and certainly acceptable for the purposes of our investigation, Kendall's W = 0.83, p < .001.

Results

We report the characteristics of each participant's practice session in Table 1. Participants' data are ordered based on the mean of our rankings of the retention test performances, which are positively correlated, but not perfectly correlated, with the total number of correct and near-correct repetitions in the 15 retention test trials, r = -.79, p <>

We performed bivariate correlations between each of the variables in the table and the participants' rankings. These results are reported in the bottom row of Table 1 . In addition to the understandably high correlation between the mean judge ranking and the sum of correct and near-correct trials in the retention test, there were significant correlations between the pianists' rankings and the following: the number of complete, incorrect performance trials, r = .48,p = .05; the percentage of all complete trials that were correct, r = -.1 1 , p = .00 1 ; the percentage of complete trials that were correct and near-correct, r = -.64, p = .006; and the percentage of total performance trials (including incomplete trials) during practice that were correct, r = -.51, p < .04.

It seems equally important to point out the variables that were not related significantly to participants' retention test ranks: the total time practiced, r = .18, p > .49; the total number of performance trials, r = . 1 2, p > .65 ; the total number of complete trials, r = .02, p > .93; and the total numbers of correct and near-correct trials, r = -.15, p > .56. This seems an indication that the nature of the practice defined in our observations was more determinative of retention test performance than was the amount of practice. We found that the three participants whose retention tests earned the highest ranks were clearly superior to the next-highest-ranked participants (data for those three participants appear above the line in the table). The retention test performances by these three pianists were distinguished from the performances of the other participants by a more consistently even tone, greater rhythmic precision, greater musical character (purposeful dynamic and rhythmic inflection), and a more fluid execution.

This finding led us to begin our practice session observations with the sessions of these 3 pianists in an effort to identify the elements that best characterized their work. We reached consensus on the following eight elements, all of which except Item D below appeared in the 3 top-ranked pianists' practice sessions; Item D was in evidence in 2 of the top 3 pianists' sessions. Letter designations below correspond to those in Table 1. The combination of practice strategies that characterized the practice sessions of the top-ranked pianists was clearly absent in the sessions of the other pianists, although many of the 14 lower-ranked pianists included some of the strategies used by the top 3.

A. Playing was hands-together early in practice.

B. Practice was with inflection early on; the initial conceptualization of the music was with inflection.

C. Practice was thoughtful, as evidenced by silent pauses while looking at the music, singing/humming, making notes on the page, or expressing verbal "ah-ha"s.

D. Errors were preempted by stopping in anticipation of mistakes.

E. Errors were addressed immediately when they appeared.

F. The precise location and source of each error was identified accurately, rehearsed, and corrected.

G. Tempo of individual performance trials was varied systematically; logically understandable changes in tempo occurred between trials (slowed down enough; didn't speed up too much).

H. Target passages were repeated until the error was corrected and the passage was stabilized, as evidenced by the error's absence in subsequent trials.

The following three observations also were made based on the three top-ranked pianists' practice sessions. We list them separately here because they are not practice strategies but are nevertheless descriptive of the sessions we observed.

I. When tempo was changed, the first trial at the new tempo was nearly always accurate.

J. After the initial learning phase, errors were only intermittent; there were no persistent errors.

K. At least 20% of all starts were complete, correct performances, although not necessarily at the target tempo of 120 bpm.

Discussion

Our data describe the practice behaviors of multiple, advanced-level performers learning the same excerpt. This is one of the few reported examples of research that defines the characteristics of effective practice based on the observed behaviors of multiple advanced performers with varied levels of practice skill. Our findings illuminate some of the important aspects of practice that differentiate more and less able practicers, as determined by their performances 24 hr after practice.

Our results show that, among our sample of performers, the strategies employed during practice were more determinative of their retention test performances than was how much or how long they practiced. It seems particularly notable that total time and total number of performance trials were unrelated to the quality of the retention test performances and that the best-performing pianists took no less time to learn the passage than did the other pianists. This seems to contravene the notion that the pianists who performed best on the retention test were able to learn the passage more quickly and more easily than the others. A more accurate summary of what took place is that the top-ranked pianists learned the excerpt differently from the other pianists.

The most notable differences between the practice sessions of the top-ranked pianists and the remaining participants are related to their handling of errors. The observations labeled F, G, and H in Table 1 were present in the sessions of all three of the top-ranked pianists, but they appeared in few of the other pianists' practice sessions (none of the other pianists demonstrated all three of these characteristics). The three characteristics are as follows:

F. The precise location and source of each error was identified accurately, rehearsed, and corrected.

G. Tempo of individual performance trials was varied systematically; logically understandable changes in tempo occurred between trials (slowed down enough; didn't speed up too much).

H. Target passages were repeated until the error was corrected and the passage was stabilized, as evidenced by the error's absence in subsequent trials.

Thus, it seems that the actions taken subsequent to the discovery of errors were major determinants of the effectiveness of practice. It was not the case that the topranked pianists made fewer errors at the beginning of their practice sessions than did the other pianists. But, when errors occurred, the top-ranked pianists seemed much better able to correct them in ways that precluded their recurrence. This is an extremely important point - that the effective handling of error correction led to a higher proportion of correct, complete performance trials during practice.

The most effective way that the participants corrected errors was by making judicious changes in performance speed that facilitated the maintenance of accuracy following the correction of a given error. Of course, there were other methods of decontextualization, in addition to tempo change, that appeared among the strategies employed by these performers (e.g., playing shorter passages, playing hands separately), but the method of varying tempos was a distinctive feature of the top-ranked pianists' approaches. In fact, two of the top-ranked pianists made alterations in their performance tempos that preempted errors before they occurred (labeled Item D in Table 1). In other words, after a given error was discovered, these two pianists tended to hesitate in subsequent trials as they approached the location of the error, often slowing the tempo (without stopping) to a point at which the playing could continue accurately past the location where the error had occurred in a preceding trial.

These results point to the importance of developing in young musicians effective approaches to correcting errors - procedures that preclude errors' persistence. Yet, it is rare in published methods to see examples of systematic instruction in problem solving and error correction, even though devising solutions to problems is one of the central features of learning. It is generally not the case that experts (in any discipline) simply avoid making mistakes when they are learning something new, but experts correct their mistakes efficiently and effectively. Thus, it seems that error correction should be a prominent part of novices' instruction and that the most appropriate goal for young learners is not that they play their instruments for 30 minutes a day but that they skillfully identify and systematically address the mistakes that are an inevitable part of learning.

It is understandable that many students of music are of the mind that their primary goal is to avoid making mistakes, and most young players are not privy to what goes on in experts' individual practice sessions, including their own teachers' practice sessions. These same students may come to believe that a major difference between them and their teachers is that their teachers seldom make mistakes at all, when in fact all learners, including experts, make mistakes as they take on new challenges, learn new repertoire, encounter new problems, and teach new students. Experienced musicians' expertise is characterized by their ability to deal with mistakes and solve knotty problems in ways that maximize efficiency and lead to lasting solutions.

There is no doubt that most students have heard their teachers demonstrate good playing, but it is probably also true that few have observed their teachers encountering performance problems and advantageously addressing them. If there is broad agreement that providing good models is an effective strategy for learning, then why are there so few available models of effective practice? It is clear that this question deserves considerable attention in the future.

Internal Consistency of Performance Evaluations as a Function of Music Expertise and Excerpt Familiarity

2009-04-04T11:04:00.000-07:00

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Teaching students to evaluate music performance is a fundamental goal of music education. Indeed, "evaluating music and music performances" is one of the nine U.S. national standards for music education (MENC-The National Association for Music Education, 1994, p. 62). Inherent in this skill is the ability to make consistent, reliable judgments as to the quality of a music performance. It would follow, then, that for one to demonstrate competence in the area of evaluation, reliability of evaluation must exist. If an individual is not able to be consistent (i.e., reliable) in evaluative tasks, it is difficult to place any validity in that individual's assertions about the quality of a music performance.

Because the evaluation of music performance is so intertwined with the processes of learning and teaching music, it is no wonder that this topic is of primary importance to music educators and researchers. As a consequence, the issue of reliability in the evaluation of music performance has received much attention in me research literature. Although there is much overlap, extant research relating to performance evaluation can be classified into three broad categories: (a) the development and validation of performance adjudication/rating scales (e.g., Abeles, 1973; Bergee, 1987, 1988, 1993, 1997, 2003; Fiske, 1975, 1977a; Jones, 1986; Nichols, 1991; Saunders & Holahan, 1997; Zdzinski & Barnes, 2002); (b) individual intrarater reliability (i.e., internal consistency) and interrater reliability in relation to performance evaluation, either between adjudicators of similar expertise or between lesser experienced raters/musicians and experts (e.g., Fiske, 1977b; Hewitt, 2002, 2005; Wapnick, Flowers, Alegant, & Jasinskas, 1993); and (c) factors contributing to improving reliability of performance evaluation (e.g., Davis, 1981; Fiske, 1977a, 1978; Hewitt, 2005; Morrison, Montemayer, & Wiltshire, 2004; Sparks, 1990; Towers, 1980).

With regard to the latter two areas of research on reliability, the results of several studies that have investigated the effects of training in evaluative tasks and experience in music performance on the reliability and accuracy of performance evaluation were mixed. Although some research has demonstrated that greater reliability cannot be attributed to training in adjudicative tasks (Fiske, 1978), expertise in the area of performance (Fiske, 1975; Heath, 1976; Roberts, 1975; Wapnick et al., 1993), performance proficiency (Fiske, 1977b), or theoreticaiVhistorical knowledge of music (Fiske, 1977a), others have found higher reliability coefficients for evaluators with greater music experience (Davis, 1981; Fiske, 1977a; Hewitt, 2005; Morrison et al., 2004; Sparks, 1990; Towers, 1980) and for members of older age groups (Towers, 1980).

Although disparate findings in this area of research may speak to the elusive nature of measuring evaluation accuracy, the conflicting results in these previous studies may be explained somewhat when considering the methods that researchers have employed to measure this construct. In some cases, reliability was calculated through correlation coefficients comparing a participant's evaluations of music material with herself or with others in a linear predictive manner (e.g., Bergee, 1993, 1997; Fiske, 1977a; Hewitt, 2002, 2005), whereas other studies compared mean differences between participants' evaluations with those of experts or each other (e.g., Hewitt, 2002, 2005; Wapnick et al., 1993). These two measurement techniques can produce seemingly contradictory results. For example, Hewitt (2005) found high school musicians to be more accurate in their self-evaluations than middle school musicians (i.e., smaller mean differences occurring between their ratings and those of experts); however, middle school musicians evidenced significant moderate correlations with expert evaluations, whereas a lower, nonsignificant correlation between high school musicians and experts was found. Although this significant correlation may have been attributable to greater variance being associated with the responses of both the middle school musicians and experts as compared with the high school musicians' evaluations, the lack of a significant correlation between high school musicians and experts is surprising.

Similar discrepant findings appear to permeate much of the extant literature. Although results of some studies suggest that educational level plays a role in the consistency of performance evaluation (Bergee, 1993, 1997; Byo & Brooks, 1994; Wapnick et al., 2005), authors of other studies have concluded otherwise (Hewitt, 2002; Kostka, 1997; Morrison et al., 2004). Bergee (1993, 1997), for example, found moderately high correlations between faculty and collegiate musicians' evaluations of performances, whereas Kostka (1997) found less agreement when investigating a similar population. Byo and Brooks (1994) and Hewitt (2002) found little to moderate agreement between younger musicians and experts, whereas Morrison et al. (2004) found that middle/junior high and high school students evaluated performances similarly to experts.

Although comparisons among groups of differing levels of expertise provide important information, many studies of this nature often assume that assessments of music performances would be internally consistent and/or stable over time for each individual group. Fiske (1977a), however, found that this was not necessarily the case. In fact, music education graduates' internal consistency in trumpet performance adjudication was found to be highly variable. He also found that internal consistency was greater for brass players than nonbrass players, suggesting an effect of expertise on internal consistency. Similarly, Hewitt (2002) found that adjudication reliability actually diminished over time for junior high musicians, although these findings reflected the degree to which participants' evaluations corresponded to that of experts.

No research since Fiske has directly examined the effect of training on the internal consistency of performance adjudication, although ancillary findings of more recent studies by Wapnick et al. (2005) and Kinney (2004) have evidenced similar trends. Kinney found that students who had participated for a minimum of 2 years in a high school performing ensemble demonstrated greater internal consistency in performance evaluation than nonparticipating students, although both groups' internal consistency was poor compared with that of music faculty. Furthermore, these results suggested that participants' internal consistency diminished when evaluating unfamiliar pieces of music - a variable yet to be explored directly in this area of research.

Given the overall lack of research in the extant literature relating specifically to evaluator internal consistency, a direct investigation of the effects of formal music training on the internal consistency of performance evaluations seemed warranted. Likewise, the effects of prior knowledge of music material on the internal consistency of performance evaluations should also be examined. Considering that Duke and Simmons (2006) have suggested that expert music teachers possess an auditory image of the music material they are teaching or evaluating, it would seem that being familiar with the music material to be evaluated would have a direct effect on evaluation consistency, perhaps manifested across different levels of expertise, as well. Although Wapnick et al. (1993) provided adjudicators with scores during performance evaluation, which may have functioned to make the pieces familiar, no direct investigation comparing the adjudication of familiar and unfamiliar pieces has been undertaken.

This study was designed to expand on the extant research by examining the effects of music training on the internal consistency of performance evaluations. Because the elective nature of music training in public secondary schools usually is centered on performing ensemble participation, participants for this study included college students who had participated in high school performing ensembles and college students who had received no formal training in music outside of elementary and middle school general music experiences. To increase the cross section of music expertise being examined, undergraduate music majors, graduate music majors, and music faculty were included as comparison groups. Furthermore, this study included stimuli that were both familiar and unfamiliar to participants to examine the effects of this factor on internal consistency.

Method

Participants

Participants in this study were undergraduate nonmusic majors (n = 63), undergraduate music majors (n = 42), graduate music majors (n = 17), and music faculty (n - 9). To achieve more precision and clarify findings relating to nonmusic majors, these participants were divided into two groups based on past music experiences. Nonmusic majors who had no previous formal training in music beyond typical elementary/middle general music curricula were classified as nonparticipants (n = 28) and included 5 freshmen, 12 sophomores, 7 juniors, and 4 seniors. Twelve were male; 16 were female. Those who were not music majors but identified themselves as having at least 2 years of formal study in a high school performing ensemble (i.e., band, orchestra, or choir) as their only means of music instruction beyond elementary /middle general music curricula were categorized as ensemble participants (n = 35). Participants in this group included 7 freshmen, 15 sophomores, 8 juniors, and 5 seniors. Sixteen were male; 19 were female. Any participant in the ensemble participant group whose music training occurred longer than 5 years prior to the study was removed from the sample to ensure that music instruction would be relatively recent. Moreover, none of the nonmusic major participants had received any private instruction in music or had participated in any formal music-making experience outside of school performing ensembles. Both groups of nonmusic majors were recruited from undergraduate music appreciation and world music courses from two large state universities.

Undergraduate music majors (n = 42) attended the same two state universities and were recruited from Introduction to Music Education, Music Theory, Music History, Teaching Methods, and Student Teaching Seminar courses. Fourteen were majoring in performance, whereas 26 were majoring in music education. Two students were majoring in composition/theory. Of the undergraduate music majors, 6 were freshmen, 17 were sophomores, 1 1 were juniors, and 8 were seniors. Twenty were male; 22 were female.

Graduate music majors were masters (? = 13) and doctoral students (? = 4) in music at the same two state universities. These students were majoring in music education (n = 10), performance (n = 3), or conducting (n = 4) and had an average of 5.6 years of professional experience as either teachers or performers. Ten were male; seven were female. Music faculty (n - 9) were collegiate faculty members in music at several National Assoication of Schools of Music-accredited music programs throughout the United States and had an average of 17.4 years of teaching experience in music. Four were male; five were female. Teaching assignments for faculty were in the areas of music education, performance, conducting, history, and/or tìieory. Because sample sizes were small for graduate students and faculty, these groups were combined and labeled as experts for analysis.

Stimuli

Stimuli for the study included keyboard performances of Amazing Grace, America the Beautiful, and Edward MacDowell's To a Wild Rose (see Figure 1), which were created by nonmusicians using a MIDI software performance device with a sampled piano timbre (Friedman, Kent, & Dudek, 1992); these performances resulted from a previous study (cf. Kinney, 2004). The software program allowed the performer to have control over several major aspects of musical expression (i.e., dynamics, tempo, note lengths, and articulations'), including the potential for subtle variations in each (e.g., phrase structure could be demonstrated through dynamic changes and tempo alterations such as rubato). However, pitch accuracy was controlled by the software in these harmonized, prepared renditions. Results of the previous experiment revealed that the stimuli sounded similar to acoustic piano performances and demonstrated sufficient variability in participants' evaluations in terms of both accuracy and expression. Furthermore, all participants in the prior investigation identified Amazing Grace and America the Beautiful as familiar and To a Wild Rose as unfamiliar.

From the excerpt pool of 145 performances created in the previous experiment, 10 performances of each song (i.e., 30 total excerpts) were chosen randomly for use in this investigation. From these, 5 performances of each song were chosen randomly to repeat at some time during stimuli presentation. Thus, the entire presentation of stimuli comprised 45 excerpts, 15 of which were exact repetitions of a previous excerpt so that internal consistency could be calculated for each participant. To reduce the possibility of order effects, three different orders of presentation were used, with each presentation made up of a different, randomized order of stimuli. Care was taken to ensure that no repeated excerpt immediately followed the excerpt's original presentation. Excerpt length averaged 34.3 seconds and ranged from approximately 29 to 41 seconds each.

Procedures

Student participants in the study were tested in classroom settings using one of the three stimulus CDs, counterbalanced across groups. Prior to the presentation of stimuli, students were read the following instructions:

This is a project regarding the adjudication of musical performance. You will be asked to evaluate 45 short musical excerpts performed on a synthesizer using a piano sound. These excerpts consist of three songs, two of which you will probably know, Amazing Grace and America the Beautiful, and one you may or may not know. After hearing each performance, please indicate the degree to which you thought the performance was accurate and musically expressive. For accuracy you will see that the scale spans from one, for a performance you consider not accurate at all, to seven, for a performance you consider very accurate. Likewise, for expression you will see that the scale spans from one, for a performance you consider to be without musical expression, to seven, for a performance you consider very musically expressive. The examples occur fairly quickly so you will not have much time to think about your answers - I am simply interested in your first impressions of the excerpt, not whether your judgments are right or wrong. After the last excerpt I ask that you complete the brief demographic questionnaire attached to the last page of your response sheet. Are there any questions?

Before beginning, I will provide a computer-generated performance of each song so that you can be familiar with the excerpts you will hear. Being rendered by a computer, these performances are rhythmically/temporally accurate (i.e., aligned by computer software) but void of dynamic variation (i.e., changes in volume were equalized across all note onsets via the computer software). They serve only to familiarize you with the excerpts. It is important to remember throughout your listening that individual performers of these songs were allowed to interpret them as they wished. In other words, it is okay to judge a song as accurate without it being identical to the computer-generated example you are about to hear in terms of its speed, speed fluctuations, and degree of loudness or softness.

Participants listened to a computer-generated performance of each song immediately following the instructions. For the familiar song exemplars, each was identified by name prior to its computer-generated performance. The unfamiliar exemplar was performed without identifying it by name. Instead, it was labeled as "Song Number 3." Participants were asked again if there were any questions after listening to the three examples, and then the 45 stimuli were presented in their entirety. Upon completion of the stimuli, participants completed a brief questionnaire in which they indicated demographic information, past music experiences, and whether they had heard the familiar and unfamiliar stimuli previously.

Participants indicated responses on prepared evaluation forms that included two 7-point Likert-type scale items for each stimulus. The first scale was for accuracy, where a rating of 1 corresponded to not accurate and a rating of 7 corresponded to very accurate. The second scale was labeled "musical expression" and ranged from 1 (no expression/without musical expression) to 7 (very musically expressive). The entire experiment, including preexperiment instructions and examples and the postexperiment questionnaire, lasted approximately 35 to 40 minutes.

Music faculty participants received written instructions identical to those above and were asked to complete the adjudication of excerpts, on their own, in one sitting. Each faculty participant received two CDs; one contained the examples of the songs to be evaluated and was labeled "Examples - Play First," whereas the other contained the 45 stimuli to be evaluated. A short demographic questionnaire also was completed. All faculty participants reported that the task took between 35 and 45 minutes to complete.

Results

I calculated internal consistency for each individual through Pearson productmoment procedures (r), correlating each individual participant's evaluations on the 15 repeated stimuli. Accuracy and expression were calculated separately. I then calculated descriptive statistics for each group from these individual correlation coefficients (see Table 1 ) and used two separate repeated measures analyses of variance to compare internal consistency means on accuracy and expression, independently. Both analyses included two between-subjects factors (expertise and the three orders of presentation) and one within-subjects factor (familiar/unfamiliar stimulus conditions2). Because 23 of the 26 experts indicated on the postexperiment questionnaire that they had heard the unfamiliar stimulus previously, only three levels of expertise were included in these analyses (nonparticipants, ensemble participants, and music majors). Four music majors also were excluded from analyses for the same reason. Finally, I examined the interrelationship between ratings of accuracy and expression for each category (i.e., familiar and unfamiliar) by each subgroup of adjudicators via separate Pearson productmoment procedures. As in previous analyses, I did not analyze results pertaining to the unfamiliar stimulus for experts because of their prior knowledge of this excerpt.

Accuracy

Significant main effects were found for the variables of excerpt familiarity, F(1, 92) = 55.54, p < .001, partial η^sup 2^= .38; and expertise, F(2, 92) = 399.28, p < .0001, partial η^sup 2^ = .89. Internal consistency means were significantly higher for familiar excerpts overall, although the difference between these means was not large (M = .38 to M = .33, respectively). All three means for expertise were significantly different from each other, p < .001, using post hoc Scheffé procedures for multiple comparisons. Here, music majors' internal consistency was strongest (M= .62), followed by ensemble participants' (M = .35) and then nonparticipants' (M = .10). There was no significant main effect for order of stimuli presentation.

Two significant first-order interactions were also found. Perhaps most important, there was a significant two-way interaction between expertise and familiarity, F(1, 92) = 8.32, p < .001, partial η^sup 2^= .15. Figure 2 illustrates this interaction (means are shown in Table 1 ). Means for internal consistency increased across levels of expertise for both familiar and unfamiliar excerpts. Also, although all groups' internal consistency decreased when evaluating unfamiliar excerpts, differences between familiar and unfamiliar internal consistency means were smaller for music majors (mean difference = .02) than for ensemble participants and nonparticipants (mean difference = .07, mean difference = .08, respectively; see Table 1). Furthermore, there was a significant two-way interaction between expertise and order, F(A, 92) = 4.90, p < .01, partial η^sup 2^= .10. Whereas means for ensemble participants and music majors remained stable over the three presentation orders, means for nonparticipants varied across presentations. Specifically, the nonparticipants' internal consistency mean for presentation order two (M = .05) was lower than the nonparticipants' means for presentation orders one (M = .13) and three (M = . 1 1 ). No other significant first-order or second-order interaction effects were found.

Expression

Analysis of internal consistency means for expression revealed significant main effects for excerpt familiarity, F(I, 92) = 7.08, p < .01, partial η^sup 2^= .07; and expertise, F(2, 92) = 288.98, p < .001, partial η^sup 2^= .86. As with results for accuracy, internal consistency means were higher for familiar excerpts, although the difference between these means was not large (M = .42 to M = .40). Again, all three means for expertise were significantly different, p < .001, using Scheffé post hoc comparisons. Music majors' internal consistency was strongest (M = .64), followed by ensemble participants' (M = .41) and then nonparticipants' (M = .18). There was no significant main effect for order of stimuli presentation.

One significant first-order interaction was found between expertise and excerpt familiarity, F(I, 92) = 4.23, p < .01, partial η^sup 2^= .09. Figure 3 illustrates this interaction (means are shown in Table 1). As with accuracy, means for internal consistency increased across levels of expertise for both familiar and unfamiliar excerpts. Differences between familiar and unfamiliar internal consistency means were more similar than those evidenced for accuracy. However, nonparticipants had slightly higher means for unfamiliar excerpts, whereas ensemble participants and music majors had higher means for familiar excerpts. There were no other significant firstorder or second-order interactions.

Correlational Analyses

Correlations between accuracy and expression for familiar stimuli showed linear trends across groups, with correlation coefficients decreasing as music expertise increased. Nonparticipants' ratings demonstrated the strongest correlation, r = .85, p < .001, followed by ensemble participants', r=.65,p< .001, and musicians', r= .57, p < .001. Experts evidenced the weakest correlation between these factors, and it was the only group not to show a significant relationship, r - .32, p = .21. Correlations between accuracy and expression for unfamiliar stimuli also followed a similar linear trend but were more modest, comparatively. Here, nonparticipants' ratings resulted in the highest correlation, r = .57, p < .01, followed by ensemble participants', r = .48, p < .01, and musicians', r = .30, ? = .08.

Discussion

Results of this investigation suggest that internal consistency of performance evaluation is related to music experience and training. Although previous findings in this area have been mixed, data from this study support prior studies with similar results (Bergee, 1993, 1997; Byo & Brooks, 1994; Fiske, 1977a; Hewitt, 2005; Kinney, 2004; Wapnick et al., 2005). In this investigation, internal consistency means reflected linear trends from nonparticipants to experts, with more experienced groups demonstrating greater internal consistency across both accuracy and expression evaluations. It is notable that dramatically stronger relationships were associated with level of expertise, which indicates that greater expertise was associated with higher internal consistency. Such differences are responsible, in part, for the large effect size associated with expertise (partial η^sup 2^ = .89, accuracy; partial η^sup 2^= .86, expression) and indicate that this factor was a salient influence on the consistency of performance evaluation.

Excerpt familiarity proved to influence internal consistency means, as well. Familiar excerpts were associated with higher consistency means for accuracy and expression ratings, although mean differences between familiar and unfamiliar stimuli were modest. Moreover, effect sizes associated with this variable were small in comparison with those found for expertise, indicating less influence of this factor on internal consistency. It is interesting, however, that the effect size for excerpt familiarity found for accuracy (partial η^sup 2^ = .38) was larger than that obtained for expression (partial η^sup 2^ = .07). Considering this, it appears that the degree of familiarity that a listener has with material to be evaluated is of greater importance when consistent listening for accuracy only is required. On the other hand, it appears that consistent evaluations of musical expression are less influenced by familiarity. Perhaps, with regard to consistent evaluations of expression in music, listeners hold a preconceived idea as to the nature and degree of appropriate expressive qualities found in a music performance that embodies general music acculturation and/or personal taste. Thus, evaluations of expression may reflect individual preferences for expressive parameters that remain consistent across familiar and unfamiliar music material, whereas accuracy evaluations may require prior knowledge of music material to develop a basis for consistent judgments.

The significant interactions between expertise and excerpt familiarity for both accuracy and expression also parallel previous findings (Duke & Simmons, 2006; Kinney, 2004) and lend further support to the interpretation of results discussed above. In the case of evaluations of accuracy, internal consistency mean differences all were lower when for familiar as compared with unfamiliar excerpts, however, this difference was smaller for music majors than for ensemble participants and nonparticipants. It seems apparent that differences in evaluation consistency for familiar and unfamiliar music material are contingent on degree of music expertise. If this is the case, it follows that the effects of excerpt familiarity on the consistency of performance evaluation may be related inversely to training and expertise in music. Trained musicians may be able to transfer previously acquired music knowledge to novel situations and render consistent judgments concerning the accuracy of performances.

The interaction of expertise and excerpt familiarity on the consistency of the expression evaluations proved somewhat different. Here, internal consistency mean differences were more similar for familiar and unfamiliar excerpts across differing levels of expertise. However, unlike other groups, nonparticipants were more consistent in evaluating the musical expression of the unfamiliar excerpts, although the magnitude of this difference was not large. The similarity of respective groups' consistency means across familiar and unfamiliar stimuli supports the idea that evaluations of expressive qualities in music are less contingent on the listener's prior knowledge of music material than evaluations of accuracy, although degree of expertise may be an overriding factor as to the overall acuity of evaluation consistency.

Results pertaining to familiarity deserve replication and further investigation, because little research has examined the effects of this variable on performance adjudication specifically. Although findings of this study are congruent with those of Kinney (2004) and Duke and Simmons (2006), some studies (Wapnick et al., 1993; Wapnick et al., 2005) have produced ancillary findings suggesting the opposite - more familiar repertoire might produce more divergent biases concerning performance criteria and, as a consequence, less consistent evaluations. Considering that this study was limited to compositions associated with the Instant Pleasure software device, future studies may wish to investigate familiarity using originally composed material. Because a majority of those in the expert group recognized the unfamiliar stimulus in this study, originally composed material would allow for experts to be investigated with this type of adjudicative task. Because varying levels of familiarity with repertoire often exist at adjudicated events, this line of research would prove informative for music educators.

Although there was an attempt to control for possible order effects through the use of three different presentation orders, a significant interaction effect between order and expertise was manifested, nonetheless. Finding an order effect is consistent with previous research in this and related areas (Bergee, 2006; Bergee & McWhirter, 2005; Bergee & Westfall, 2005; Duerksen, 1972; Geringer, Madsen, MacLeod, & Droe, 2006; Wapnick et al., 1993). Unique to this investigation, however, was that order interacted with expertise on consistent evaluations of music accuracy. Although internal consistency was stable across all stimuli presentation orders in the more musicexperienced groups, nonparticipants evidenced greater variability across stimuli presentation orders. For this group, internal consistency was influenced by presentation order, suggesting that context (i.e., recency of similar music excerpts) had a pronounced effect on consistent judgments of music accuracy. Thus, when confronted with this type of music task, those with less music experience may be more apt to evaluate a performance in comparison with a similar one in close proximity rather than relying on what Duke and Simmons (2006) refer to as a preconceived, "vivid auditory image . . . which detectfs] even the smallest deviations from the ones they have in their mind" (p. 14). Further research examining the interaction of these variables more directly is necessary to test this hypothesis.

Finally, correlations between ratings of accuracy and expression followed linear trends, with less of a relationship between the accuracy and expression ratings of the more experienced musicians for both familiar and unfamiliar stimuli. Results of this nature imply that those with greater experience are able to evaluate accuracy and expression independently, whereas those with less training tend to give more global ratings. Thus, experts seem better able to evaluate elements of a music performance as discrete components when faced with an adjudicative task. Conversely, those with less training may judge music performances in a holistic manner, even when asked to evaluate discrete performance parameters. Further research could examine the nature of these findings to determine how judgments concerning performance are made by less experienced musicians.

These results, which should be replicated with acoustic instruments, suggest that music expertise has an influence on the internal consistency of performance evaluation and that the familiarity of the music material to be evaluated also plays a role, albeit a smaller one. Furthermore, these two factors interact. Those with more music experience were more consistent in their evaluations of accuracy for both familiar and unfamiliar music material, whereas those with less music training were more consistent when evaluating the accuracy of familiar, as opposed to unfamiliar, music material. This is perhaps explained by previous research that has suggested that experts often tend to have an auditory image when evaluating familiar music that guides their evaluation of performance and that they transfer existing music knowledge to unfamiliar music material (Duke & Simmons, 2006). On the other hand, findings of this nature might simply be an artifact of task familiarity. Being familiar with this type of task and having had opportunities to develop it, those with extensive music training might take the task more seriously, be better able to sustain their concentration over time, or simply employ other strategies to remain internally consistent. Further research into the strategies these individuals use to attain consistency of performance evaluation would prove useful to a profession where this skill is paramount.

A University-School Music Partnership for Music Education Majors in a Culturally Distinctive Community

2009-04-04T11:02:00.001-07:00

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University-community collaborations reflect a renewed focus in higher education on institutions' civic responsibility to address current needs in society (Cox, 2000). These collaborations include university partnerships with schools as well as with neighborhood organizations and community organizations that serve children, youth, and families (Dewar & Isaac, 1998). Goodlad (1984) argued for the simulta- neous renewal of schools and the education of teachers, which by the 1990s had sprung forth into a movement to develop effective university-school partnerships. The belief in these partnerships is that students in teaching certification programs will be informed by on-the-ground experiences in schools as well as enabled to "give back" as they learn something of the rhythm and realities of the teaching profession they have selected as their own.

A strong undercurrent of university partnerships with schools concerns motivation to bridge the gap between privileged university students and underserved school populations, in that disadvantaged youth may be encouraged and motivated to learn by positive role models, many of whom are not many years from their own experience in schools (Walsh, 2006). If there is a university commitment to community service, then the involvement of university faculty and students in school revitalization can be justified. Such commitment can be found on faculties of education, including music education programs, especially those in which social justice and the welfare of urban, rural, at-risk, and culturally diverse school populations are an expressed part of their mission (DeMulder & Eby, 1999).

With the growth of multicultural understanding in and through music, there has emerged not only an expanded view of the repertoire for performance and listening but also an increased sensitivity toward students of differentiated cultures (Drummond, 2005; Saether, 1995; Schippers, 2005). Attention recently has been directed to the cultural values of diverse communities in which students live as well as to the preferred learning styles of students from these communities (Campbell, 2001; Myers, 2003). In selected schools, ensembles have been established so that students might enjoy performance experiences in mariachi and marimba bands, West African drumming ensembles, Latin percussion and jazz groups, and steel drum ensembles (Campbell, Demorest, & Morrison, 2008). The extent to which this multicultural sensitivity can be developed without firsthand interaction with culturally diverse populations, however, is in question and may be unlikely to develop until field experiences of some consequence are initiated. Hence, a partnership that engages prospective music educators in teaching music to, and making music for, multicultural student populations may be fashioned to be responsive to this essential goal.

The aim of this research was to document the process and outcomes of a university-school collaboration called Music Alive! in the Valley (MAV), a yearlong partnership devised to provide a civic engagement of university music education students and faculty with children and teachers within a rural location of a western state. MAV was intended to serve a Mexican American community in which migrant workers lived and whose children frequently spoke only Spanish at home as well as a Native American community situated on the edge of the town where rural transitional family lifestyles showed a mix of older and contemporary Indian and non-Indian values. In the end, however, the access to the Mexican American community was the reason for its treatment as the primary site, although as the limited access to the Native American students set the tribal school as an occasional rather than the central feature of the project. We thought that the children and youth of these communities would be able to benefit from music education experiences, because the schools in which the project was established had limited access to formal music education.

MAV sought to afford opportunities for positive social contact between communities via music performances, participation, and training experiences and to provide for validation of a diversity of music expressions in the Valley. In this manner, the lives of both university and community participants were expected to be enriched through discovery of each other in and through music by virtue of the involvement of 33 undergraduate students (including 3 1 music education and 2 performance students) in school performances, sharing sessions, and short homestay residencies of 1 day to 1 week. Music, educational, and social exchanges were duly noted, and as changes in skills, knowledge sets, and cultural sensitivity were carefully documented.

Method

An ethnographic method was employed by which observations, interviews, and the examination of material culture were assembled by a team of three investigators over the course of the school year, from October through May (Emerson, Fretz, & Shaw, 1995; Spradley, 1980). The research team included (a) a graduate student coordinator who functioned as music teacher at the main school site to prepare and follow up on the university student teaching and performance experiences, (b) a second graduate student who assisted in field observations, video recordings, and interviews, and (c) a music education methods professor who prepared the university students for the residencies and served also as an on-site fieldworker. This arrangement allowed for the corroboration of evidence in a process of triangulation among the investigators, each of whom had experience as teachers of children in elementary schools (Creswell, 2005).

The partnership activity occurred over the course of 1 academic year for a total of 205 hours, including (a) 20 days of on-site teaching by the graduate student project coordinator; (b) 7 days of residency by the 33 university students in the Valley over a period of 8 months (which was linked to eight music education class sessions of preparation time at the university); (c) two pre-partnership visits to the community and five meetings at the university to discuss aims, directions, and support for the partnership; and (d) approximately 30 hours (much of it relative to the scheduling of site events and the communication to university students of teaching and performance expectations) in the administration of the partnership. Audio and video recordings were made of 32 hours of classroom teaching visits and performance events at the school sites.

Interviews with 12 children, six teachers, eight university students, and three school administrators were also recorded. Although all teachers, university students, and relevant administrators (principal, superintendent, assistant superintendent) were invited to express their perspectives before, during, and following partnership activities, not all could commit the time to sit-down interviews with one or more members of the research team. One-on-one semistructured interviews, as well as unstructured interviews, were conducted with the teachers and university students (Creswell, 2005; Fontana & Frey, 2005). One teacher from each grade level (two teachers from the fifthgrade classes) and eight university students were interviewed. Unstructured, open-ended group interviews were conducted with small groups of children as they gathered in the cafeteria and hallways and out on the playground, for as Graue and Walsh (1998) suggested, "Kids are more relaxed when with a friend then [sic] alone with an adult. They help each other with their answers. They also keep one another on track and truthful" (p. 1 1 4). Interviews with the principal, superintendent, and assistant superintendent were unstructured and open-ended and occurred in the school library during the group lunches, in the school hallways, and in the classrooms (Creswell, 2005).

There were 53 pages of fieldnotes, including jottings, fully developed notes, and transcriptions of relevant video and audio segments (Emerson et al., 1995). These fieldnotes were combined with more than 300 documents of material culture, including all pieces of relevant correspondence between university personnel and students, school site personnel, and individuals at other sites in the community. As well, there were class handouts, songs and song sheets, teaching schedules, and lesson plans. Extractions were pulled from the school's Web site, the school's annual calendar, local news coverage on the program, and articles published in the university magazines and faculty/staff weekly. The result of an academic year's worth of activity, as well as the planning period that preceded the partnership, constituted a bricolage of experiences that could be sorted and classified thematically (Berg, 2001) and was brought into a cohesive description of considerations in the making of a school-university partnership. The three members of the research team met regularly to discuss individual findings and interpretations. They engaged in a member-checking process by which they verified the accuracy of the collected data with university students, teachers, children, and administrators (Creswell, 2005). This process steered the accuracy and representation of the transcriptions and the emergent patterns of meaning and shaped perspectives on the partnership players and events.

Context

Situated at the edge of an Indian reservation and in the heart of the valley of a major eastwest river in the western United States, the region in which the collaboration occurred is known locally as "the Valley." It comprises small towns historically intended to serve the local farming communities; the nearest city with a population of 125,000 is 20 miles away by highway. There is a tribal school owned and operated by the Indian nation, which features standard academic courses and a cultural heritage class that includes instruction in the indigenous language, morals, and the arts of the local Indian tradition. The Indian nation has permitted the settlement of non-Indians, chief among whom are Mexican and Mexican American migrant worker families and their descendants of one or two generations removed from itinerant farm labor. Within the Valley's public school district are four elementary schools, one middle school, and one high school. Of these, the project activity was located principally at Riverview Elementary School (all names used in this report are pseudonyms) but with excursions also to another elementary school, the middle school, and the tribal school in the company of university personnel - the research team and the undergraduate music education students. Riverview Elementary School was indeed the primary site, but other experiences were provided to underscore for the university students the importance of understanding the community context ofthe teaching and performing they were doing and to recognize the placement of the school within the boundaries of the reservation. The public school district served 3,000 students, 75% of whom were Mexican American, with a population of 18% Native American, and the remainder mostly European American. The school population at Riverview Elementary School was 98% Hispanic, specifically Mexican and Mexican American. The student population at the tribal school included about 80 secondary school students who ranged in age from 13 to 19 years; 97% of those students identified with their Indian heritage. At the middle school, 700 students were enrolled, most of whom were of Hispanic or Indian heritage. A semiretired music teacher was employed part-time at Riverview Elementary School, a traditional arts and culture teacher was responsible for students' music instruction at the tribal school, and a full-time band teacher offered instruction in instrumental music at the middle school. Although time was limited at several of these sites, the intent was to present the university students with an amalgam of the locality - town and region - so that they might grow in an understanding of the role of the community in shaping values and needs of a school's curriculum.

University Students of Music Education

University student participants in the MAV partnership were enrolled in courses, of which the MAV partnership was set as a central piece on the syllabus and in the learning process. There were 2 Asians and 2 Hispanice among the university students involved in the experience; the remaining 27 were European-American. One course was geared toward elementary school music education methods, and the other was developed as a mixed ethnomusicology-and-education course to meet the state-mandated multicultural education requirement. As the partnership was conceived, three single-day residencies were required for the elementary music methods course, and a 1-week residency was arranged for students of the applied ethnomusicology course.

In preparation for their excursions to the Valley, undergraduate music education students spent time within their university courses devoted to learning, designing, preparing, and arranging songs, movements, and gestures to accompany the singing; preparing stories to tell; and arranging "rhythmicking" activities using body percussion and "thick sticks" that resembled foot-long claves of about 2 inches in diameter. The university students were organized into small teaching dyads and trios by the professor, based on their personalities and extent of teaching experience. They prepared outside their university class time, as well as within it, for teaching in individual classrooms of children at Riverside Elementary School and for performances and participatory experiences in music at a second elementary school, a middle school in the district, and the tribal school. As well, the university students arranged themselves on their own into small groups so as to perform standard chamber works, jazz, and selections from opera. Most students were exceptional performers and were committed to their education as teachers but had no previous experience in teaching children; they were aiming for eventual positions as secondary instrumental music teachers. Even though this partnership increased the time commitment for the undergraduate students, several students stated that this was worth the extra work. When one senior student of music education remarked that his participation in MAV had been "without a doubt, one of the most valuable experiences in my music education studies so far," several other students nodded enthusiastically and clapped to signal their agreement.

The Riverview Children

At Riverview Elementary School, the principal site of the partnership, there was a total of 14 classes, each of which contained an average of 25 children. The population of schoolchildren was divided into 3 classes at Grades 1 through 4 and 2 classes in the fifth grade. The majority of children spoke or could understand Spanish. Students came from low-income and lower-middle-class families, such that all students enrolled at the school were receiving free lunch.

The Riverview children appeared to enjoy the novelty of having youthful student teachers with them in their classrooms and were enthusiastic about having learned songs from selected world cultures that had been introduced by the graduate student coordinator and the university music education students. Based on comments made by the teachers and children in the interviews, it was apparent that the children were recalling the songs from the continent of Africa as well as from Japan, Mexico, and elsewhere in the world. Mrs. Stage, a fifth-grade teacher, expressed that the periodic music experiences had so stimulated her young students that they "can't stop singing the songs" and that "while we were getting in line, one kid asked if we could sing" on the way to the bus. When asked whether they preferred to learn songs from Mexico, Spanish-language songs, or songs from around the world, a group of third-grade girls all shouted, "From around the world!" Even though they craved exposure to world music, they easily recalled many of the Spanish-language songs that had been introduced by the graduate student coordinator and university's music education students. The children were particularly attached to songs that included dancing (such as "La Raspa" and "Cheki Morena") and the use of instruments (hand drums, sticks, maracas) for improvisation and accompanying songs. They also were thrilled to be introduced to instruments they had never previously heard live, including flute, saxophone, trumpet, and viola, and were intrigued with the sounds of operatic voices that needed no amplification. They craved more exposure to musical instruments, with many students wanting future live experiences with different types of drums, the guitar, the double bass, and the tenor saxophone. Maria, a fourth-grade girl, confided in Lisa, one of the university students who had just closed a lesson with a rousing set of body percussion rhythms, that "I could have music all around me all the time, if only I could."

The Staff at Riverview Elementary School

Out of 14 classroom teachers at Riverview Elementary School, 4 were Hispanic, 1 was Native American, and 9 were Caucasian and of various European-American backgrounds. There were 12 teachers who described long commutes to the school on the reservation, some living as far as an hour away; they noted that they did not "live on 'the Rez'" or in the local town. Only 2 teachers knew the local community culture from their experience as cultural insiders who were living locally in the town. Lessons in the foundational subjects of math, reading, and writing were deemed by the Riverview teachers as the critical core of hours of concentrated curricular study, so that children could gain the knowledge and skills necessary to meet the state standards. The pressure was on for these teachers as only through attainment of these standards could the school then receive state funding for bilingual education. As a consequence, other subjects, including social studies, science, and the arts, were not priorities and even scheduled times for these subjects could be shifted aside if students were observed to be falling behind in their foundational studies.

Still, the principal gave the nod on the greater presence of music in the school through the university partnership, and the Riverview teachers opened their classroom doors to the visits by the graduate student coordinator and the university students. After several meetings with the principal, the university students gained a sense of the importance placed on the partnership and music for Riverview by the principal. One university student, Jonathan, a 22-year-old trumpet player, observed that "The person who stood out the most to me when it came recognizing the role of music in kids' lives was the principal. He spoke passionately about what our program meant for his school and told us how much he appreciated our time with his students." Yet, the responses of the school's classroom teachers to the music project varied, from the skeptical kindergarten teacher who graded papers when the university contingent arrived at her classroom, to others who joined in me singing and watched, intrigued, as instruments were demonstrated and the children were led in dances and singing games.

Several primary-level teachers expressed an interest in facilitating the learning of math and English-language comprehension through music. They implied that if children could learn basic concepts through music (from alphabet letters to mathematical functions), then they could justify visits by the university music students all the more. Ms. Garcia, a fourth-grade teacher, was convinced of the power of music for motivating children's learning: "It makes it so much more fun. When we throw in a song they get, that is when I have all their attention and they're all participating. You know the months, they know them all; there are 12 months and they know them all because they have a song to go with it." Other teachers commented that although they favored music activities in their classroom, they could never imagine themselves using music. Several confessed their lack of confidence in singing in front of the children or their worries about "not knowing the notes." AU teachers had access to compact disc players and televisions, on which music often played in their classroom, but few aside from the kindergarten and first-grade teachers admitted to singing aloud or actually teaching music to their children. All teachers were appreciative of the music enrichment offered to their children and even expressed mild frustration when the graduate student coordinator or the university students were unable to fit a visit to their classrooms into the already tight teaching schedule.

A Collage of Partnership Components

The partnership entailed a variety of in-class teaching and music exchanges, as well as opportunities for performance, dialogue, and cultural experiences. In addition to the multiple teaching segments that occurred in each visit, the university students performed for the children in various concerts and learned about the school and community through occasions to discuss school and district goals with teachers, the principal, and even the superintendent and his assistants. The following components compose a collage of experiences that unfolded through the course of the partnership.

Behind the Scenes

Whereas the most visible aspect of the partnership was the presence of university students in the schools, considerable effort was expended in advance of these music residencies to develop the partnership. At the university, the partnership had been conceived of by a member of the music education faculty as a valuable means of addressing the need for prospective teachers to understand the ramifications of socioeconomic and ethnic-cultural characteristics of some of the students with whom they may work one day, who are rural, poor, and from minority families. A campaign ensued to persuade university colleagues to support the project, through memos to the director of the music unit and presentations to the faculty as to the project aims, procedures, and the extent of student off-campus involvement. A proposal was developed and circulated to the Dean of Arts & Sciences, the Office of Minority Affairs, and members of the Community Outreach Office, and meetings were scheduled to discuss shared financial support by these entities. Over a period of 4 months, an active exchange of electronic messages and meetings brought about the assignment of a budget sufficient to support a teaching assistantship for the graduate student coordinator, transportation costs (including rental of a fleet of cars and vans), meals, a per them bursary to the university students, and teaching materials (including an assortment of nonpitched percussion instruments). The dean's own diversity initiative, the subject of his annual address to the university faculty, was the reason for his support of MAV, albeit not fully but in coordination with other campus departments.

Three large ensemble directors slowed the course of approval by the music faculty for the partnership project, raising questions as to student commitment to their ensembles as well as their reduced capacity to perform if the residencies interfered with rehearsal time. One director threatened to drop students from his ensemble if they were to participate in the off-campus partnership, sending a communiqué to the faculty suggesting that "partnerships should be run during the summer or at breaks between terms, not in conflict with the academic calendar." Through a number of individual meetings, the music education professor was successful in convincing the directors to lend their support to the partnership if residencies could be brief enough and scheduled early each term so as to avoid students' absences in the period of intensive preconcert rehearsals. A consistent flow of communication was deemed necessary to keep music faculty reminded of the partnership events and to seek respectfully their approval for every visit by students to the Valley. Articles in the faculty weekly newspaper and in the high-gloss quarterly university magazine served to celebrate and to validate the partnership.

Homestays

The university students stayed overnight with local families, and accommodations were arranged such that two or three students of the same gender were assigned to a particular family. A family homestay allows students to enter quickly the cultural and linguistic environment of a community and can provide a unique experience where students gain firsthand knowledge of what family life is like in an informal setting, as an extension of knowing the community in which the school is located (Paige, Cohen, Kappler, Chi, & Lassegard, 2002; Schmidt-Rinehart & Knight, 2004). Breakfast and lunch were taken as a student group, but dinner was left to share with the host family. Students were given opportunities to learn the histories of long-standing Mexican American families in the Valley, their migrant fieldwork across several generations, and the newly arriving migrants from Mexicrj - many of them relatives of the settled families. When asked about his homestay experience, Jeff noted, "We had a great time. We talked all night about where the dad came from and got to learn how he creates radio ads for a Mexican radio station." The university students agreed that the rhythm and pace of the community was felt in more intimate ways through the course of their homestays.

The Tribal School

In shaping an understanding of the unique nature of the community in which Riverview was located, arrangements were made for the university students to visit with students of the tribal school. Riverview Elementary School and the tribal school are located about 3 miles from one another, and yet, the schools are distinguished from one another in various ways. The tribal school served adolescents from 12 to 19 years old and was intended by the elders to impart wisdom of both American and tribal nations. Studies in math, science, and language arts were complemented by native language and culture classes. In a long-term project of the culture class, male adolescent students across several grade levels had constructed traditional hand drums and were taught social songs to sing while playing these drums. During one visit, in which the university students initiated a performance of several songs on saxophone, guitar, and flute, students of the tribal school followed by singing and drumming. Although these performances began with hesitation and uncertainty, in the belief that one group should not appear dominant over the other, they turned to a communal discourse in which all were made to feel welcome to participate in conversation about music, musical instruments, and song texts. The visit to the tribal school culminated with the university students putting down their instruments, joining hands, and joining the dance of circling around the singing and drumming students of the tribal school. The leave-taking at the close of the gathering was replete with discussion of future music collaborations, handshakes, and smiles all around. A chorally bound university student, Sarah, commented as to the "awesome" vocal talents of the male students of the tribal school and expressed what the others were feeling as they packed up: "We learned a lot, but there's more, so it's sad that this is our last visit."

Middle School Visits

The university contingent twice visited with sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-grade music students at the middle school. These visits were set up in conjunction with goals of a federal grant program aimed at preparing low-income students for pathways that would lead to their university education beyond secondary school. The university students performed vocally and on orchestral and band instruments and invited middle school students to join on drums and hand-held percussion instruments. A communal session with rhythmic percussion was initiated, too, to provide a friendly full-group participatory experience in music. Discussions of music careers arose at both sessions, with give-andtake dialogue on preparation in high school for college careers in music and across the disciplines. It is important that there was bridge building throughout these visits, so that university and middle school students, faculty, and administrators could develop a dialogue that centered around music, that was deepened through music making, and that allowed each side to know something of the other.

Lunchtime Exchanges

Each day at Riverview Elementary School, the university students would emerge from their first 2 hours of teaching exhausted, inspired, and ready for the local Mexican cuisine in catered meals, for time to deconstruct their teaching experiences, and for discussion with visitors who were scheduled into this time. Riverview's principal offered information on the school and its curriculum to the university students while they ate in the school library by sharing with them the school's academic goals for the children and his personal intent to build strong connections between school and the children's homes, their teachers, and their families. Tanya, a 23-year-old pianist steering toward certification in instrumental music education, was particularly taken by the realization that "in a school where so many students straggle to meet basic reading, writing and math requirements, the principal sees music as essential and not an 'extra' that can be taken away." The principal discussed the community's use of the school's physical facilities for after-school activities for children and for families, including English-language and citizenship classes. The school district's superintendent and assistant superintendent visited with the university students, too, at the lunch hour, and brought to them a broader sweep of the school district's goals for literacy and numeracy and described the secondary school choral and instrumental programs as highly visible in their contributions to the culture of the community. The district nurse spoke to students about the medical conditions of many of the low-income students, who would arrive to the nurse's office early on Monday mornings with whatever sicknesses they incurred over the weekend but were unable to have tended due to the lack of family health care arrangements. The university's local administrator of programs in the Valley, who aided in creating the collaboration and gathering support, appeared often to show his support for the students and to respond to questions concerning the community in which they were working. The university students were emeiging with an understanding of life on "the Rez" in particular among families with children who were facing the hardships of immigration and limited education and training and who had not yet learned English as a second language. Yet, one comment from Jeff, on the commitment of local families to schooling, paved the path to an enthusiastic discussion by the student group: "It is an unfortunate misconception that working-class parents don't have the time or inclination to be involved with their children's education, as this is obviously not the case at this school!" The group settled into a sense that families and school personnel were connecting well in their shared goals to provide children with a wholesome and holistic education.

The Winter Concert

A concert in the school's multipurpose hall was one highlight of the partnership as it played itself out at Riverside Elementary School. Children performed together the songs they learned from the graduate student coordinator, which were reinforced by the undergraduate students in their visits, including a combination of Spanishlanguage folk songs, an Anglo-American play party song, and a South African freedom song. There were grade-level song performances and an all-school song ("While we're here, we will sing!") that had been selected for its appropriateness in instilling a respect for singing as a socially unifying experience. For many, it was a first experience for them to stand straight and tall in the bleachers and to sing in a semiformal ensemble to a piano's accompaniment. Children then sat to enjoy the varied repertoire presented to them by the university students, recalling later "The Donkey" and "The Butterfly" songs from Taiwan sung in Chinese and played on the piano as well as a jazz rendition of Santana's "Oye Como Va."

The Cinco de Mayo Excursion

A final daylong residency in the Valley was scheduled in early May, so as to allow the university students to enjoy the Cinco de Mayo celebration sponsored by Riverview Elementary School. Following classroom visits for music exchanges with the children, the university students joined in preparations for an immense barbecue of came asada, rice and beans, and hot dogs and chips. Larry, a trombone player with hopes for a high school teaching career, observed that "It's weird actually being a minority here," a situation he had not often experienced prior to his participation in the MAV project. A wide variety of traditional and contemporary Mexican music blared through two huge speakers in the multipurpose room, and a DJ's station was set up. Food and drink were consumed by more than 900 children and adults, including parents, siblings, grandparents, and all Riverside teachers. Self-selected Riverview students performed folklórico dancing in the traditional style and dress of the province of Jalisco, Mexico. The official music-and-dance program concluded with several awards bestowed by the principal to students, staff, and school volunteers (including the university contingent). For this particular event, all university students were European American, and none had previously experienced a Mexican American celebration firsthand, so they were indeed the minority guests at the event. Between the communal dinner and the start of the dancing in the gym, Daniel, a choral music education major, noted that he had witnessed "a real sense of community" throughout the school day and at the Cinco de Mayo celebration precisely the aim that the principal had hoped to accomplish.

For the university students, the combined MAV program components comprised much more than a supervised music teaching experience in an elementary school. Interactions with students and teachers at the tribal school, the visit to the reservation's cultural museum, the performance exchange at the middle school visit, the homestays with families living in the community, the ongoing dialogues with school personnel, and participation in the Cinco de Mayo celebration were gainful events that brought the university students an understanding of the community in which they were teaching and reinforced the importance of connecting to the community in all school music positions in which they eventually may work.

Benefits of a Music Education Partnership

Participants in the partnership benefited in musical and cultural ways. University personnel and community members, children and adults, professional teachers and preprofessional students found the exchanges gainful, such that the result was an understanding of music, education, and culture as they are enfolded and linked to one another.

University Students

Students were initially apprehensive about traveling 2Vi hours from the university campus to teach at an elementary school in a rural district, and several suggested that a more convenient situation should easily be arranged for the project in a school nearby. These feelings were quickly assuaged, however, when students arrived in the Valley and were fully immersed within the school and community. Jennifer, a 22-year-old violin student, burst into a class discussion about children's responses to lesson segments:

I loved the students who scurried to sit next to us and so desperately wanted to participate. I especially loved the little girl who shouted, "again, again," as she pleaded to sing "Bucket of Water" just one more time. It made me feel like I was doing something right.

The university students were greeted by children eager to learn. One 20-year-old percussion student, Robert, remarked that the children in the Valley seemed to "welcome music into their lives, and us, more readily than children in the schools close to campus." He continued, adding, "They smile, laugh, and engage themselves fully, which speaks volumes about what a joy music is to them."

Mark, a 21 -year-old junior in the music education program, remarked that as a result of the project, he realized "the importance of knowing and understanding another culture in order to connect to students" who were removed from his own experience. Jonathan acknowledged the importance of including cultural components in his music lessons and promised that he would "in the future prepare more basic spoken Spanish phrases to use in teaching these children, especially with the kindergarten children who do not speak English." Jessica, a 2 1 -year-old trumpet student who had grown up only 20 minutes away in a White middle-class community, admitted that "I had had no idea of the struggles of Mexican American families in the Valley to school their children" in an all-Englishspeaking program of study. After the completion of the elementary methods course, Bryan, age 22, candidly remarked, "I learned more from the residency than from all the work we did in class." Christina, a 20-year-old junior, said, "I learned that even though we didn't speak the same primary language, we could both speak the language of music together." Several students were surprised that so distinctive a cultural community (or communities, given the project's placement within both the Mexican American and Native American settings) could exist within the same state, just a few hours' drive from their university campus. Mary, a 22-year-old senior, remarked with surprise, "My perception was that such cultures only existed further south [in California and Texas]."

Most students involved in MAV were instrumental music education majors who had not given consideration to teaching music to elementary school children but who observed that through this experience they had become intrigued with the possibility. Even though many students remarked on the challenges of arranging their class studies and ensemble schedules to fit the visits, they appeared grateful for the experience and enthusiastic with possibilities for returning to the Valley to teach children and for knowing the community in which the school resides.

Riverview Children

Although the children were intrigued with music of the world's cultures, they hungered for songs from Mexico. Marco, a fifth-grade boy, age 1 1 , aptly stated, "It [the music classes taught by the graduate student coordinator and the university students] brings energy that we usually don't get a lot of in the classroom. It makes me feel better after so I can carry on with math!" The Riverview children, cheering the music education majors into their classrooms, welcomed them with open arms for the new music experience the children would have. Maria, a second grader, shouted out as the university students entered the room one afternoon, "Yeah! We are having Music Alive!" The children were balancing their need for familiar music (with a Mexican flavor) with the invitation to discover the diversity of music that was presented by the university students in their school visits. They were attracted to the youth and energy of the university students, and they enjoyed the friendly banter they were permitted to carry on with the university students. Tanya recalled the comment of one third-grade girl who sang every song with a clear and well-tuned voice: "I only wish that we had more music time." These student teachers were never remiss in exuding genuine interest and excitement in their interactions with the children.

Riverview Teachers

Mrs. Martinez, a fifth-grade teacher, noted that the "Spanish songs" were beneficial to her children, along with exposure to different languages and cultures that occurred through the world music excursions that the university students had designed for the children. Another fifth-grade teacher, Mrs. Smith, commented that "our kids think everybody's from Mexico" or from the immediate Mexican American community, so that the diversity of songs and rhythms was able to transport the children to places and times beyond their most familiar experiences. Several teachers pointed out that the Riverview children had not had many opportunities to experience live music performances, with skilled musicians singing and playing for them and with them.

Mrs. Flores, a fourth-grade teacher, candidly remarked why she favored the visits of the university students. "We had a music teacher who did the same thing from kindergarten to Grade 5. The same thing every class! This is different music, and varied." Ms. Pena, a first-grade teacher, noted enthusiastically that "the students loved it [the MAV program]. We have music here at school, but not enough. Our school is very lucky to have this opportunity." Most teachers were well aware of the positive effect of the university students on the children, in that they served as role models with high energy in their music making, demonstrations, and encouragement of the children's efforts. One fourth-grade teacher, Mr. Evans, insisted that "the music program is no intrusion. It is necessary. Kids enjoy it. They are singing more because of these visits by the university students."

Challenges of a Partnership

The idea of this partnership sprang from the desire of university personnel to engage undergraduate students in field experiences that could encompass the performance and teaching of music as well as the experiences of coming to know something of children and youth living in communities far removed from their own. Buys and Bursnall (2007) posited that university-community partnerships require that diverse interests and people come together to achieve "a common purpose via interactions, information sharing, and coordination activities," and the diversity was immediately evident in the mix of MAV participants - children, university students, and faculty and staff of the school and university. Sargent and Waters (2004) created a framework for academic collaborations comprising four phases: initiation, clarification of aims and procedures, implementation, and completion. These phases unfolded one after another and were key to the success of the MAV project.

The school community welcomed the opportunity they saw for bringing advanced musicians - many of them with professional performance experience - into classrooms with the children. They assumed that regular performances for the children would enrich their lives and the life of the school itself, even as the university's intention, repeatedly noted, was to facilitate active music making by the children. The principal's casual remarks, and those of most of the teachers, were an indication that music would be a "very nice" kind of cultural enrichment, and mostly innocuous, so long as it was limited to short classroom visits that did not disrupt the academic studies for standardized tests in language arts and math. At the end of the program, the principal remarked that he had been wary about taking time away from preparing for the standardized state test. He was pleased when the children's scores on their reading exams significantly improved, and he hinted that music might have enhanced their reading skills in ways that he could not explain.

A university-school alliance requires a continuing commitment by all parties and, even then, is quite naturally beset by challenges specific to the circumstances of the partnership. There were systematic site constraints, in particular determining together how best to work within the mission and personnel schedules of the school and the university. Developing a university-community collaboration takes planning far in advance of the projected dates of the program. University and school personnel involved in spearheading the partnership project learned to take the lead in developing the initiative, making executive decisions, writing letters to invite participation, crafting proposals to the funding sources, monitoring the budget, coordinating calendars, and making logistical arrangements involving travel, accommodations, meals, in-school teaching, and concert performances.

The implementation of best-intended plans is often risky and can bump along with roadblocks and detours toward their realization. The challenge of the MAV partnership project was in the considerable organization far in advance of the visit by university personnel. Scheduling was complicated, in particular due to numerous schedules with which to contend: university students' course schedules, school auricular events, individual classroom activity set by classroom teachers, and host family arrangements. Clear and constant communication concerning upcoming visits proved essential to short-term residencies. The development of a strong communication network, however, appeared to encourage productive initiatives and to shore up the enthusiasm of participants in the partnership (just as poor communication might have otherwise blighted the image of the project and encouraged the perception that a partnership was more frill than substance). Continuous contact and the development of a working relationship are vital to the success of a university-community partnership (Walsh, 2006). According to Walsh, the main factor in determining successful university-community collaborations is the existence of "supportive, understanding, open-minded, and genuinely interested site people" (p. 47) from both the university site and the community site.

A central tenet of a working partnership is for key players to know the territory of the project in which they will engage (Walsh, 2006). This necessitates careful "homework" in study of the strengths and needs of all involved, including school teachers and their children, university students in music education programs, and other school and university personnel. The principal's secretary was an important ally in the MAV project, a truly key player, in that she was instrumental in distributing information to teachers, determining the schedule of classroom visits and performances, and handling various other on-the-ground logistics during the visits and performances. To be sure, phone and face-to-face conversations were deemed to be more effective than impersonal e-mails in crafting a working partnership.

Following an initial period of stops and starts, the MAV project was running more smoothly, in particular once explicit definitions of participant roles had settled in. During the initial visits by the graduate student coordinator and the university students, classroom teachers were not always clear of project procedures or about their own specific roles. They were uncertain as to whether to leave their classrooms and allow the music student teachers to have free reign with the children or whether they should remain, participate in the music activity, and help manage the children during the music lessons. Following discussion among the principal, teachers, and university personnel, a consensus was reached such that classroom teachers would actively participate during the music lessons and stand by for the delivery of classroom management advisories. This decision optimized the experience for both the university students and the Riverview children. As players in the partnership became grounded in project goals and familiar with various project expectations and tasks, frustrations were minimized. What Cox (2000) had theorized about partnerships, that "each party to the partnership is an important source for stimulating questions, participating in information gathering, and selecting and applying the solutions" (p. 15), had played out in full in the MAV project.

Discussion

The distance between the Valley and the university was considerable - literally, with regard to the miles between them and the formidable mountain range that separated the coastal city from the Valley, and figuratively, in the gap between students-becoming-teachers in an urban university and the children, teachers, and families of a culturally distinctive rural community. It was the partnership's aim that this distance be lessened, as all involved would learn about one another through meaningful experiences in music. The completion of a first year's partnership led to important insights in music, education, and culture that may well shape the work of the prospective teachers (and the children of the Valley) for generations to come.

Further research on university-school partnerships in music education could benefit from longer periods of residence by prospective teachers in one or more school sites (should university course and ensemble schedules be negotiated to allow increased on-site experiences). It would be insightful for university students, and perhaps school children and teachers as well, to keep journals of their experiences that might later be made available for examination and interpretation. Follow-up study could be useful, too, to determine the strength of the effect of the partnership on the lives of participants. Will children continue to sing the songs given them by the university student teachers? Will classroom teachers rally for the hiring of a full-time music teacher to provide continuous sequential music education and training to the children? Will the university students attend to the social and cultural characteristics of the community in which they will teach? A partnership akin to Music Alive! in the Valley may bring trust and goodwill to its participants and holds the potential to benefit an underserved community while also developing cultural understanding of all who participate.

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2009-04-04T11:02:00.000-07:00

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But then herson Troy tinned 11.

When he had been diagnosed win am id case of attention defect disorder (ADD) four years earlier Lara (not her real name) and her husband had put him on Rialh. Over the next four years , his schooling progressed well His energy seem ed nothing more than the ram bunctbusness of youth. As a result they never changed the original dosage even as his body grew. Finally overa summer; they took him off the drug. He was fine.

As falloapproached, Lara laced a tough ethral choice . It w sn't about whether to go back to the drug; that was behind them. It was about whether to tell his teachers . He was heading into a new schcolwhere nobody knew his past. Should she share it?

On the one hand, she feltan obligation to tell When you are dealing with people who are educating your child,'' she said, "they need to understand your chid." For her, schooling is a two-way street," that requires cooperation am ong patente and teachers.

On the other hand, she was keen to protect hte identity as a healhy, vigorous invidual rather than a chid with ADD . 'You read about people whose kids get labeled," she said "and you say, "I can't believe that happened so fasti' But children do get labeled pretty fast."

Why was her dilemma so tough? Because it piled her core ethical values against each other. It was right to honour the community of educators - and right to defend her son's individuality. Truth-telling required her not to mislead the school- yet byaly made her protect. Troy from ham fulprofiling. With individual needs confronting community benefits , and with truth up against byaly, there were powerful oral arguments stacked up on each side . Both were right.

Which should she choose?

In the end, she and her husband remaned silent. At her first parent-teacher conference, Lara heard a glowing report. Troy was doing well in class, the teacher told her adding that "his grades are good, and we love having hin here." Case closed, Lara thought wih enormous relief So as she gotup to leave, she toll his teacher they had taken Troy off Rialh that summer

And within seconds, Lara told me, everything changed. The teacher "shook her head and said, Oh, now I understand why Im having so many problems with your son G" Eon that point forward, Lara says, he was "mmediately labeled" and 'everything went downhill"

To this day, Lara says, "Im convinced that she just decided to labelhm . It didn't matter whether he was just being a typical kid. In her mind he wasn't being typical he was that kid with ADD who needs to geton his medication again'"

Troy is now 14 . He's changed schools again. Since that tin e, Lara adm is, "I have not told the schcolsystem a thhg ." Troy occasionally loses hte concentration, but he's learning to handle the chalenge wihout using drugs or going public . "It was a tough fight going forward," she concludes .

But was Ian ethical fight? Was the a wise defense of his dignity - oran irresponsible disobedience of expectatbns?

Lara's dilamma rem inds us that our toughest moral isues are not right-versus-wrong but right-versus-rght. Is it right to take a firm stand against the all-too-hum an tendency, even among well-meaning educators, to see carratures instead of individuals? Many would say "yes" . For them , ethics te about consequences : IE fangs turn outwell (as ultimately happened in Troy's case) , you did the righ thing.

But isn't it also right to share pertinent details with teachers, so they can better care for their studente? Yes indeed. Many think Lara should have engaged in full disclosure, despite the risk of a teacher vulnerable to resist stereotyping. For them , ethics is about universal laws : Stick to the principes you want everyone to obey wihout exception (transparency, in this case), and you usher in a more ethicalworld .

Consequences versus principles - or; in phibsophical tem s, John Stuart Mills utilitariarism versus Emanuel Kant's categorical in peratnve .Across that see-saw are balanced the word's toughest ethical issues . Every reader of Lara's dilemma, Isuspect, sees the rightness on both sues - yet intuitively feels that one right is higher Grasping the simple fact that ethics te about much more than good and bad, we're ready to replace 'Im -rightyou're-wrong' arguments with rght-versusright dialogue -for ourselves , for our students, and for their parents.

Anything less misrepresents the moral intimacy of our world.

LIVING TOGETHER WITH DIFFERENCES: QUEBEC'S NEW ETHICS AND RELIGIOUS CULTURE PROGRAM

2009-04-04T11:00:00.000-07:00

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NOWADAYS IT IS GENERALLY agreed that education plays a vital role in learning to live together through the progressive discovery of others, their culture and spirituality, and through involvement in common projects. The renewed curriculum in Québec follows this general tendency, since such learning is at the very heart of the aims targeted by the new Québec Education Program.

It first aims to enrich students' world-views by encouraging them to look "critically at themselves and their actions, opinions, and values," emphasizing that it "is important for all members of the school community to be on the lookout for opportunities to support students in their process of reflection, which contributes to the formation and expression of their world-view." Its second aim, which focuses on the construction of students' personal, social and cultural identity, raises the issue of the autonomy of the individual in relation to the community. It claims that "the possibility of expressing their opinions, making choices, and learning to justify them and assess their consequences helps students develop their autonomy" and that "contact with ethnic and cultural diversity can make them realize that they are part of a community and help them to take their place in that community while affirming their own values in a spirit of respect for differences." Students learn to express their perceptions, feelings, and ideas and recognize how other people's opinions can influence their own reactions. This second aim also supports "encouraging them to take positions on major social issues and providing them with the opportunity to reflect on the moral and spiritual tenets of their community." The third aim promoted by the new curriculum is student empowerment. "Knowing what action to take in response to the complexity of current issues or how to confront major ethical and existential questions gives young people power over their lives."1

These aims reinforce the vision of the Québec Education Program as an education for living together with differences. The education that young Quebecers receive is intended to involve them in a process of reflection and questioning, not only with respect to their own world-views, their values and those of others, but also with respect to the major issues of living together in Québec society.

The implementation of the new Ethics and Religious Culture (ERC) program further pursues this vision by providing a unique opportunity for young Quebecers to learn to live together with differences. Indeed, by defining its goals as the recognition of others and the pursuit of the common good, the program seeks to develop students' competency to engage in dialogue about ethical and religious issues in order to better understand the different representations (particularly religious) that people have of the world and of humanity, as well as the different ways of living a moral life and promoting harmonious social relations within the community.2

RELIGIOUS AND SECULAR CONCERNS

This ERC, which was established by Bill 95 and replaces courses on religious (Catholic and Protestant) education and moral education, reflects the will of the population as expressed in prior consultations and in hearings during the Parliamentary Commission on Education during the spring of 2005.3 Nevertheless, it has been greeted with some controversy.

On one side of the debate, some Christians denounce what they refer to as the "outright secularism" and "relativism" of the program and call for its removal, basing their arguments on the principle of parental choice in matters concerning the education of their children. On the other side, secularists hold that grouping ethics, religious culture, and secular world-views in a single course necessarily involves dealing with moral issues from a religious perspective.

According to the MELS (Ministère de l'Éducation, du Loisir et du Sport), at the start of the 2008 school year, about 1,300 parents (out of a total of about one million students) requested an exemption from the ERC course for their children,4 arguing in some cases that the course "made a mockery of the Catholic religion" [translation].5 Despite extensive media coverage of pressure groups agitating for the removal of this mandatory course, only 72 students throughout the province actually withdrew from it. The MELS position has been to refuse all requests for exemption at either the elementary or the secondary level.6

For its part, the Coalition pour la liberté en éducation (CLÉ) (Coalition for Freedom in Education) argues that "parents should be able to choose an education along denominational lines, under the supervision of 'competent religious authorities,' who could be either Christian, Muslim or Jewish" [translation] . The CLÉ is demanding that the Québec government guarantee this freedom of choice by, among other things: "reinstating in article 41 of the Québec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms aclausetothe effect that academic programs must respect the beliefs and convictions of parents with children in educational institutions; adding article 41 to the list of articles for which no derogation can be obtained, by virtue of article 52 of the Charter; modifying Bill 95 in order to give back to pa rents their freedom to choose between moral and religious instruction for their children in school, in line with their beliefs and convictions ..."[translation]7

Among those Christians who oppose the ERC course is Cardinal Marc Ouelletwho, during the debates on reasonable accommodations in the fall of 2007 (Bouchard-Taylor Commission) and more recently in an article in Vita e Pensiero, firmly expressed his objections: "It would be extremely naive to believe that a cultural approach to the teaching of religions will produce new little Quebecers who are pluraliste, experts in inter-religious relations and impartially critical towards all beliefs. The least that can be said is that the thirst for spiritual values will hardly be quenched and the tyranny of relativism will render the transmission of our religious heritage even more difficult....This law does not serve the common good and its imposition will be perceived as a violation of citizens' religious liberties. It would be unreasonable to retain it as it was originally decreed, because it would lead to a strict secular legalism that would exclude religion from the public sphere" [translation],8

On the other hand, the Assembly of Québec Catholic Bishops (AQCB) is not opposed to the ERC course. In a letter to the Minister of Education, March 11 , 2008, the AQCB "acknowledges there are many considerable advantages in the Ethics and Religious Culture (ERC) program," but at the same time insists that there are "a certain number of limitations and difficulties that are quite inherent in the nature of the ERC program. However, we feel that some of these can be avoided."9

Both Loyola High School in Montreal and a couple from Drummondville (a municipality in Central Québec) have challenged Bill 95 in court. When these judgments come down, they will constitute an interesting test of legality, They may either confirm the course's legitimacy, require the MELS to readjust the program to respond to new requirements that could emerge, or invalidate it. Whatever the result, a return to the old regime of opting between denominational (Catholic or Protestant) instruction and moral instruction is highly unlikely, since this system of options infringed upon the right to equality10 and also because a large majority of Quebecers do not want public schools to dispense religious instruction. If we accept the results of the Léger Marketing survey published in the daily newspaper Le Devoir on September 16, 2008, only 16 percent of Quebecers are in favour of religious instruction in schools.11

While those who support a return to denominational schooling denounce the stand taken in favour of strict secularism, secular groups oppose the ERC course because they fear that ethical issues will end up being addressed from the perspective of a particular religion. They are concerned that combining ethics and religious culture in the same course will simply perpetuate the existing confusion between the respective domains of ethics and religion. According to Mouvement laïque québécois (MLQ) (Québec Secular Movement), combining ethics and religious culture in one and the same program implies "preserving religion's stronghold over moral education, ethics and civics education. Amalgamating ethics and religious culture in a single course will inevitably lead schools to deal with moral questions from a religious perspective" [translation].12 MLQalso claims that the integration of culture and religion "suggests that ethical behaviour cannot be developed unless it is tied to a religious belief and that a person who has no religion is necessarily amoral or immoral"[translation].13

The MLQ has petitioned the Minister of Education "to remove the religious culture component from the new program entitled 'Ethics and Religious Culture'; to create a single course in 'Ethics and the Practice of Dialogue', which would be open to the entire student population; and to provide an optional course in religious studies in Secondary Cycle Two only" [translation].14

ETHICSAND RELIGIOUS CULTURE: CANTHEYBE RECONCILED?

Despite concerns expressed from both religious and secular perspectives, the idea of a single course integrating the study of ethics and religious culture seems imminently reasonable if our goal is to teach young people to live together with differences. While it is true that attempts to derive so-called 'natural morality' from what were essentially religious premises have in the past blurred those lines, there would be nothing gained by addressing ethics and religious culture as discrete and isolated domains. That said, it is important to distinguish between the moral systems themselves, as expressed by both religious and secular traditions, and the goals of ethics education.

It is crucial for the study of ethics and world-views to inform each other. An education in ethics would be incomplete if it were cut off from the study of expressions of meaning and ways of living associated with religious experience. Similarly, an education in religious culture would remain incomplete if it were restricted to the study of cultural phenomena as separate from a more comprehensive ethical perspective.

Finally, even if instruction in ethics and instruction in religious culture can be conceived independently of each other, combining them in a single program coordinates the major preoccupations of both perspectives, neither one of which can, on its own, address either questions of meaning or questions of coexistence. Neither one of these questions belongs exclusively to the domain of ethics or the domain of religious culture. On the contrary, both ethics and religious culture are concerned with issues of meaning and of coexistence. An education in living together with differences aims to develop students' capacity to examine their convictions intelligently ('l'intelligence des convictions') as well as to promote their "commitment to harmonious coexistence in society" [translation].15 In this respect, to conceive of ethics and religious culture as intimately linked is both an innovative approach and a wise choice.

In its orientation document, MELS makes its objectives clear: "It is pedagogically desirable to facilitate students' understanding of the world by not putting up barriers between worlds that, although specific, may be complementary."16 We need "to work together for students, enriching the students' general culture, allowing them to open up to others with tolerance and respect, equipping them to act responsibly toward themselves and others, and teaching them to live together in a democratic Québec that is open to the world."17 This kind of learning is essential for society, because it prepares students to live in a pluralist and open society by developing their capacity to act responsibly toward themselves and others, by adopting attitudes of respect and tolerance for others and their convictions, and especially by developing "a sense of civic responsibility when expressing one's convictions and values, and becoming aware that individual choices affect the community."18

DEBUNKING MYTHS: THE B.C. STUDENT TRANSITIONS PROJECT

2009-04-04T10:58:00.000-07:00

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BRITISH COLUMBIA'S Student Transitions Project (STP) is challenging long-held myths about the movement of students through the education system in that province and may become a catalyst for re-examining commonly held ideas about students' transition to post-secondary education across the country.

The STP is a collaborative effort among B. Cs Ministries of Education and Advanced Education and the province's public post-secondary institutions. The British Columbia Council on Admissions and Transfer (BCCAT) is also a partner in research emanating from this initiative. All students entering the Kindergarten to Grade 12 (K- 12) system in B.C. are assigned a nine-digit personal education number (PEN), and this unique identifier follows them throughout their education in the province. The STP links the student PENs between the K-12 and public post-secondary education systems, tracking student transitions while protecting personal privacy. The goal of the STP is to provide reliable information at predictable times and in a timely manner to assist school districts, post-secondary institutions, and government in planning programs and managing access to higher education.

The STP began in 2005 and has produced a number of reports on student transitions in the province, including the flow of high school graduation cohorts into public post-secondary institutions over multiple years, the movement of those cohorts among public post-secondary institutions over multiple years once they enrol, and the movement of transfer students from colleges to universities to complete their degrees. As a result of this initial work, we are beginning to build a much better understanding of the patterns of student movement over time, and this understanding is helping to challenge some long-held beliefs about student transitions.

MYTH #1: The immediate transition rate from secondary to post-secondary is only about 20 percent.

At a regional meeting of B.C. school superintendents in the of Fall 2007, where STP research findings were being presented, attendees were asked to estimate how many high school graduates went on immediately to post-secondary education. The answer received was 19 percent.

This response may stem from statements made in B.C. about 'university' transition rates, which are in the 20 percent range but exclude transition to other types of public post-secondary institutions. The figure may also arise from a possible misinterpretation of the following statement in a 2004 Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation publication: "British Columbia's post-secondary participation rate of 22.4% in 2002-03 was the country's lowest, well below the national figure of 33.9%." Elsewhere the article states that "High enrolment growth was offset by high population growth."1 Thus, a figure in the 20 percent range has been used, albeit for measuring post-secondary participation rates, rather than transition rates. Furthermore, the same article provides low rates of participation among B. Cs 18 to 21 -year-olds at the university and college level (at 13.3 percent and 9.1 percent, respectively).

THE REALITY

The misconception about low transition rates may be attributed to a misunderstanding of the difference between participation and transition rates. Participation rates typically measure full-time students in post-secondary education as a percentage of the overall population, whereas transition rates measure high school graduates in post-secondary education (both full-time and part-time) as a percentage of the high school graduation class.

The STP has traced the enrolment of each high school graduating class in B.C. public post-secondary institutions beginning with the 2001/02 graduation cohort. Table 1 shows that 51 percent of the 2001/02 graduation cohort transitioned to post-secondary within 12 months of graduation. Furthermore, there is remarkable consistency in the number of immediate-entry students from each of the next four graduation cohorts (between 50 and 51 percent).2 These data only include entry to a public post-secondary institution, not to private or out-of-province institutions, because the PEN does not allow us to track those students. Finally, over the five years of cohort data, 1 9 percent of the graduation cohort entered a university immediately after graduation while 32 percent entered colleges, university colleges, or institutes (see Figure 1),

MYTH # 2 : IE you don't attend post-secondary inmideately after high school graduation, you are unlikely to do so .

This is another statement that we often hear from parents and educators. It is a commonly held belief that students who do not make the transition to post-secondary immediately risk not attending at all.

THE REALITY

While there is definitely a drop in the percentage of students who attend post-secondary education after one year out from graduation, they still enrol in large numbers. Table 1 shows that of the 2001/02 graduation cohort, over 11 percent enrolled after a one-year delay, a further five percent after two years, three percent after three years, and two percent after four years. Thus after five years, 72 percent of the 2001/02 cohort had enroled in a public post-secondary institution in B.C. There is also remarkable consistency in those delayed entry numbers for other graduation cohorts. So students do continue to make their way into post-secondary education, even after taking one or more years off following high school graduation.

However, there are differences in delayed entry patterns among students. For instance, delayed-entry students are more likely to have graduated with lower academic qualifications than immediate-entry students and are therefore more likely to attend a college or institute than a university. Aboriginal high school graduates are also more likely to delay their entry to post-secondary education in B.C. (see Figure 3).

MYTH #3: Post-secondary participation rates are increasing.

A recurring assumption in post-secondary enrolment planning is that post-secondary participation rates in Canada are rising, This was a key premise in the post-secondary enrolment projections prepared by the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC) in 2007.3 Claire M. Morris, president of AUCC, defends the report's methodology in a statement to the Ottawa Citizen: "Our study, Trends in Higher Education, showed that participation rates are, in fact, much more significant drivers of enrolment increases than population change and illustrated that all indicators point to a continued climb in the percentage of Canadians seeking university degrees. "4

Rising participation rates are also cited in research reports at the regional level in British Columbia: "There is no reason to believe that participation rates will decline in the Fraser Region. At a minimum, they will stay constant. Our expectation is that they will actually increase because of trends in high school graduation rates, skill and knowledge needs in the labour market, the experience of other jurisdictions, and the rising economic and social status of the population in the Fraser Region"5

THE REALITY

Participation and transition rates are not synonymous, but they are related. Participation includes both transition and retention of students divided by the overall population. Therefore, if participation rates of university-age students were rising, transition rates of this age group would likely be rising at the same time. Furthermore, since post-secondary enrolments are largely comprised of recent high school graduates, any increases in overall participation rates are likely to coincide with rising transition high school. However, STP reveals that transition high school graduates are not rising.

STP has thus far focused its research on post-secondary transitions of university-age students and does evidence of possible changes in transition rates students (24 years of age and older), Over the forthcoming years of the project, it will be possible to make itive statements about transition and participation the broader B.C. population.

Contrary to the Fraser Region Consortium's 2003 predictions of a likely increase, immediate entry transition rates of high school graduates from the Fraser Region into B.C. public post-secondary institutions have indeed remained constant, between 54- and 55 percent per year (see Figure 2), As well, the Fraser Region's delayed entry rates for students up to five years out from graduation have remained constant,

Furthermore, despite a strong economy, it does not appear that B.C's high school graduates are being lured away from post-secondary education and directly into the hot job market, If this were the case, we would see declining transition rates, but SIP shows that immediate and delayed-entry transition rates remain stable in British Columbia (see lable 1).

Increasing or decreasing transition rates might still be on the horizon for BC. for any number of reasons and, if so, the SIP is well positioned to monitor this situation over the comingyears at a provincial and regional level.

MYTH #4: The formation of regional community colleges in British Columbia will help to equalize post-secondary participation rates across the province.

John Macdonald wrote an influential report in 1962 about the expansion of post-secondary education in B.C. One of his objectives, when he proposed the formation of a regiona~ college system, was to provide higher educational facilities on an equal basis throughout the Province wherever possible" in order to provide the opportunity for every suitably qualified young person of this Province to acquire the intellectual skills which are necessary, both for his own future and the future prosperity of this Province."6 Five decades later, B.C. has college campuses spread throughout the province.

THE REALITY

Regional transition rates of high school graduates entering post-secondary education in B.C. remain unequal. For example, there is a 33 percentage point spread in the immediate entry transition rate of graduates from the Vancouver/ Langara college region (6cc percent) versus graduates from the College of the Rockies region in Southeastern B.C. (33 percent). Although STP recognizes that roughly three to five percent of the Rockies graduates pursue post-secondary education outside of the province over a five-year period, the transition rates are still far from equal across the province. It is likely that post-secondary education transitions are influenced not only by the presence of a college in the region but also by socio-economic factors.

MYTH #5 : Aboriginal transition to and participation in post-secondary education lags behind non -Aboriginal participation.

Statistics Canada reported in the 2006 Census that 12 percent of B. Cs Aboriginal population of 15 to 24-year-olds (versus 21 percent of B.C.'s non-Aboriginals of the same age group) have attained education credentials above a high school certificate or equivalent. A perception that Aboriginals participate in post-secondary education at lower rates than non-Aboriginals is in keeping with these figures. This perception is also supported by Geoff Plant's Campus 2020 recommendation to British Columbia to "ensure rates of Aboriginal post-secondary participation and attainment are equal to the rates for the general population,"7

THE REALITY

Although the above perception may be true for the overall Aboriginal population, it is not true for high school graduates. STP finds that the long-term post-secondary transition rate of students who successfully graduate from high school is nearly as high among Aboriginals as non-Aboriginals. The Aboriginal post-secondary transition rate, within five years of secondary school graduation in 2001/02, lags only three percentage points behind non-Aboriginal graduates - 69 percent versus 72 percent (see Figure 3). However, it is also evident from the lower rates of university transition by Aboriginal students (G percent within five years of high school graduation versus 19 percent among nonAboriginal students) that more Aboriginal students enrol in colleges than in universities.

STP concludes that the significantly lower Grade 12 graduation rates of B.C.'s Aboriginal students (46 percent versus 79 percent for non-Aboriginal) is the critical barrier to postsecondary participation among Aboriginal students. This is consistent with a recent study of Aboriginal PSE by Michael Mendelson in which he notes that elementary and secondary programs have failed to serve Aboriginal children well, resulting in fewer Aboriginal high school graduates who are eligible for post-secondary study.8

HOW IS STP DATA BEMG USED?

Besides challenging widely held myths, STP research is also useful to government and institutions for planning purposes. For instance, STP research results are a standing item on joint executive meetings of the Ministries of Education and Advanced Education in B.C. Below is evidence of how the data are being used by one B.C. post-secondary institution, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, situated in the Surrey/ Richmond/Langley area of the Lower Mainland.

The registrar's office at Kwantlen has been closely reviewing STP datato assist with ongoing enrolment management planning, The institution looks at trends in the number of graduates from regional high schools who enrol immediately or as delayed entry in Kwantlen versus other postsecondary institutions. This information helps Kwantlen in its efforts to engage prospective students through brand management, engagement initiatives, and personalized contact. Kwantlen also uses evidence of the movement of students among post-secondary institutions and data from studies of the mobility of transfer students to determine the institution's evolving role as both a sending and a receiving institution in the B.C. Transfer System. This information helps Kwantlen with both recruitment decisions and program planning as it mounts new certificates, diplomas, and degrees to meet the needs of students in its catchment area. Thus the STP indirectly benefits students because of program decisions based on the data it provides.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS FOR STP RESEARCH

The STP has taken an incremental approach to its work so that it slowly builds its ability to report accurately on student transitions based on complex data sets and linked with the PEN. Now that the STP has had a few cycles of answering similar transition research questions by adding a year of data each time, it is planning to add additional data sets to further enrich our knowledge of student transitions beyond the B.C. public education system. The STP is in the early stages of conducting research on the movement of high school non-graduates into post-secondary programs and on the number of applicants who apply to, are qualified for, are given an offer from, and register at one or more post-secondary institutions in B.C. The applicant data should increase our understanding of the match between the demand for and supply of spaces in different programs. Work is also underway to link STP data to data from the Passport to Education program, which provides qualified high school students with passport stamps towards postsecondary tuition, and to data from the Student Financial Assistance program. These two data sets will allow the STP to track mobility of students into private and out-ofprovince institutions. The STP is also considering linking with student outcomes data from college and university student surveys to determine the paths taken by students once they leave post-secondary,

To the best of our knowledge, two other provinces, Alberta and Quebec, have also tracked student mobility using a unique student identifier. The STP would like to be part of any initiative designed to link student level data across Canadian jurisdictions to build a better understanding of student transitions on an inter-provincial basis.9

Internet eases back-to-school blues

2009-04-04T10:57:00.000-07:00

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Back-to-school shopping is not what it used to be. The annual ritual that brings smiles to retailers and usually leaves parents weary and exhausted is now easier, as more parents and students abandon the race to the mall and opt to fill their carts on-line.

A study conducted last year by the marketing research firm NPD Group found that more than one-quarter of back-to-school shoppers planned to make their purchases over the Web.

As she prepares to start college this fall at Wesleyan, Carmen Valdez, 18, says she's increasingly relying on the Internet, though she has not eliminated the occasional excursion to the store.

"You can definitely get better deals on-line," says Valdez, who recommends Rustyzipper com for vintage clothing bargains and Containerstore.com for storage and organizational supplies. She insists convenience is what makes back-to-school shopping online a no-brainer.

"It's definitely easier to just point and click. I can order things and have them mailed directly to my dorm," says the South Florida resident who will relocate to Macon, Georgia, for college.

Valdez is also a big fan of The Fledgling.com, which bills itself as "the student e-store"-one-stop college shopping for students. The site offers everything from alarm clocks to wall decor. Students can even sign up on-line for a free student pack.

Convenience is not the only motivator fueling on-line buying, though. The annual Yahoo!/ACNielsen Internet Confidence Index released recently reveals that other factors such as product information and price comparisons are foremost on the minds of consumers.

For the second consecutive year, OfficeMax.com is featuring a "School Supply Registry" that allows schools and teachers to display their supply list online. Parents and students at participating schools need only enter the appropriate registry code and proceed to order. By late June, 100 schools from across the nation had set up registries. The program was so successful last year that OfficeMax decided to start two months ahead of schedule this time, says Steve Baisden, investor and public relations manager for OfficeMax.

"We're targeting teachers and students in grades K-8," says Baisden. "In order to entice teachers, we've put together incentives. The first 50 teachers to sign up receive a teacher supply pack; we're also running a sweepstakes-five different schools throughout the country will get a $200 pizza party."

Schools, of course, still have the option to go at it the oldfashioned way by establishing a physical registry at a brick-andmortar OfficeMax store.

Even publishers, who have traditionally relied on booksellers, have not been squeamish about going around the middleman and starting e-stores, particularly for college students. Publisher Houghton Mifflin's on-line college store offers more than traditional texts; college survival books are also included in its virtual fare.

Not everyone is rushing to make those on-line registers ring, though. Many Hispanics, for example, do not own PCs and, therefore, lack Internet access at home. (The latest data from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration show that just 33.7 percent of Hispanic households owned PCs in August 2000). But others who do say they are set in their ways.

Leydanis Gil, whose five-year-old daughter, Amanda, is starting kindergarten at a Miami Lakes, Florida, Montessori school, prefers making the trek out. She says nothing beats the immediate gratification of finding a much-coveted item and taking it home.

"Amanda just likes to pick out the style for her lunch box and backpack:' Gil says.

"It's also a lot more convenient to try on clothes right in the store, than to order it and send it back if it doesn't fit."

However, those willing to sacrifice touching and feeling their way through the aisles to spare the long lines and back orders might find the following sites worth checking out: Ebags.com for backpacks and accessories; Frugal-moms.com for tips on the best bargains on- and off-line; Frenchtoast.com for school uniforms; Textbooks.com for new and used college texts; Supplypak.com, which bills itself as the one-stop school supply shop; and Shopweb.net/backschool.htm for a no-frills, comprehensive on-line back-to-school shopping guide.

The Seductive Call Of School Supplies

2009-04-04T10:56:00.000-07:00

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Binney & Smith, which manufactures Crayola products, this year introduced twistable crayons, which look like long, slender lip gloss pencils. They come in packs of eight classic colors and never need sharpening. ''They're for kids who think they've outgrown the coloring years,'' said Susan Tucker, a spokeswoman for Binney & Smith. Although it's too early to tell how much of the formidable back-to-school crayon market the new crayons will capture (last year, Crayola sold 32.6 million boxes of crayons, with an old favorite, the 24-count box, leading the pack), if a need arises, you can get the twistables online at Crayola.com ($2.87).

THE CLASSICS -- Figuring that more and more parents will want to take advantage of the convenience of one-stop shopping, online retailers like Staples and Office Depot are offering wider selections of the basics this year. Office Depot, in fact, started a new site last month, School.com, to focus on the classics, from glue sticks ($1.49 for a four-pack) to three-hole filler paper (59 cents for 200 sheets). Staples offers free shipping on orders over $50, and School.com on orders of at least $50.

My next call was to Wendell Holloway, the man who arguably was to blame for my trouble last year. His company, Interactive Publishing, created the first stretchable book covers as far back as 1991 and holds a patent on a particular style that comes complete with a stretchable bookmark. For much of the 1990's, they were sold directly to schools; three years ago, Mr. Holloway's book covers moved into the retail channel. (The covers are $4.99 apiece in a wide selection of patterns at the company's Internet site, at book-looks.com.)

U.S. students help pay for Afghan school supplies

2009-04-04T10:55:00.000-07:00

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When thousands of students in Afghanistan return to school next month, they may not have desks to sit at, or roofs over their heads, but they will have basic school supplies, thanks in part to the efforts of thousands of students in the United States.

The Blue Pack Project, which is organized and operated by the Washington-based Academy for Educational Development, started up in March 2002, when 40,000 packs of school supplies were sent to Afghan students in refugee camps in Pakistan.

Now, the organization hopes to distribute 200,000 packs, which cost $10 each and include such supplies as pencils, pens, a chalkboard, chalk, paper, and a thermos for clean drinking water, to students in Afghanistan.

First Schooling for Many

The first large shipment--30,000 bags-is scheduled to go out this week to the provinces of Konar, Jalalabad, Laghman, and Nuristan. A majority of children in the war-plagued country have never been to school, as the extremist Taliban regime had restricted education to a small number of boys, who were taught only basic academic skills. (See Education Week, Oct. 10, 2001.)

Poverty remains rampant in the country, and the packs are the first items many children can call their own, said Stephen F. Moseley, the president of the Win.

So far, $800,000 has been raised for the project, including $50,000 sent in from students in the United States.

Part of the money is used to purchase the supplies, which are bought in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The AED has hired more than 100 "war widows," women who have lost their husbands in the fighting that has ravaged the country for the past two decades, to assemble the bags. They are paid 10 cents per bag.

"If they assemble 50 bags in a day, they earn enough money to pay for a good meal, including meat, for a family of five or six," said Sara Amiryar, the AED's Blue Pack coordinator in Afghanistan.

Having the proper supplies gets the Afghan students excited about learning, Ms. Amiryar said.

The students "are so appreciative, because they have so little," she said. "Some kids asked if it was possible to meet one of [the U.S. students] one day and say thank you."

School supply tax deduction now law

2009-04-04T10:53:00.000-07:00

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For the 2002 and 2003 tax years, K-12 teachers, counselors, and paraeducators--employed for at least 900 hours in a school year--can claim an "above-the-line" tax deduction for the first $250 of out-of-pocket expenses on student supplies. An eligible school employee does not have to itemize to qualify.

The new deduction-yielding a $409 million benefit over two years-is included in the economic stimulus bill signed by President Bush on March 9.

This write-off, backed from its inception by NEA, results from three years of effort by Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine), with help from Senators Mary Landrieu (D-Louisiana) and John Warner (R-Virginia).

"This legislation is important," says NEA President Bob Chase, "because it recognizes that often school employees go beyond their regular responsibilities, purchasing materials so that they can be better at their jobs and more helpful to their students."