For user ease, I have divided my scholarship into two sections: Manuscripts and Presentations. You can jump to either section by clicking on the linked section title or using the main course menu. Below you will find my research statement in order to frame the scholarship presented on this website.
Research Statement:
Two primary questions guide my research: (1) How might the music education profession become more adaptive and inclusive for students with differences? and (2) How do practices and discourses construct and disseminate disability and inclusion in music making and learning settings? My overarching goals are: first, to inspect how assumptions, ideologies, methodologies, and historical discourses impact music education related to inclusion and disability; and second, to uncover more equitable means of fostering open, responsive, and inclusive music learning space so that all learners are afforded chances to develop a life-long love for music learning. These goals are inspired by my experiences as a primary and secondary level music educator working with learners with differences in physical, cognitive, and socio-emotional abilities. During these experiences, I noticed how many of the approaches, techniques, and materials I used as a teacher marginalized or excluded some of the learners with whom I worked. Though I connected with special education teachers and specialists in developing more inclusive and adaptive musical experiences, I realized that much of the assistance I was offering did little to truly include learners with differences, rather these structures often acted to pacify and limit learners as full agents in their education.
Action research and short-term inquiry projects connected to my first guiding research question informed state and national presentations form 2010 through 2014 on: (1) creating accessible composition experiences where all learners might play with sound and expressive themselves, (2) using technology as a means of offering multiple means of learning and music making, and (3) developing inclusive strategies for elementary general classrooms. Work inspecting how these areas intersect led to a national presentation at the Mountain Lake Colloquium for Teachers of General Music Methods and later to a co-authored book, Accessing Music: Enhancing Student learning in the General Music Classroom Using UDL (2014). In this publication, the co-authors and I sought to offer music education practitioners means of constructing educative experiences for learners with diverse differences through thoughtful adaptations to materials and spaces. I have also expanded my inquiry related to inclusion to consider how learner agency impacts music learning at in primary and undergraduate settings. I have presented some of my work in this area, specifically using theoretical lenses informed by Freire and Green, at state and national presentations in 2015.
I also have sought to uncover other processes of fostering inclusion during a two and a half year study of the Smooth Criminals, a music therapy rock band comprised of young adults with developmental disabilities. As such, I expanded my examination to consider what the music therapy rock band afforded and constrained the young adult members. This led to poster presentations at Arizona State University, the Arizona Music Educators Association, and the Society for Music Teacher Education Symposium, a manuscript presented at the Association for Popular Music Education national conference, and a book chapter entitled “A Place in the Band: Navigating Barriers to Inclusion for Individuals Diagnosed with Developmental Disabilities in a Rock Band Setting” forthcoming in the Ashgate Research Companion to Popular Music Education. Though my initial interests in this project were to identify practices that could be translated or adapted for use in music education classrooms, based on research into the social model of disability, I came to realize that inclusion is not just the outcome of what facilitators do. Inclusion appears to be a more complex and interactional issue that stretches across approaches, materials, motivations, interests, and assumptions of both facilitators and participants within a particular experience. This realization has led to my dissertation which phenomenologically examines feelings of inclusion in music making and learning spaces for physically disabled musicians. With this project, I seek to better understand inclusion from the perspective of disabled participants, participants who are regularly excluded from discussions of inclusion and inclusive practices in music education practice and research.
Related to the second question guiding my research, I have explored how historical representations of and policies associated with disability and inclusion have shaped contemporary music education thought and practice in order to counter naturalized and medicalized approaches to disability. In a preliminary study, I examined how the historical formations of special education in the United States defined disability in relation to learner productivity, learning efficiency, and race, and how these definitions have informed exclusionary music education practices. I employed Bourdieu’s theory of cultural capital to articulate how practical outcomes of these policies may further disable learners in music education settings. This work helped me trace how ideological assumptions of ability form barriers that marginalize learners with differences and limit their access to music education, social engagement, and chances to share different means of musicking in music learning spaces. In a related work, I have inspected how disability and inclusion has been constructed in photographs from the MEJ from 1914 until 2015. With this, I have traced the approaches to disability and inclusion in field of music education in the United States related to legal and policy decisions as a means to articulate the social constructive nature of disability and to identify how discourses catalyzed in photographs and in text transmit assumptions of disability that provide problematic for inclusive music education.
In the future, I hope to conduct other phenomenological studies into inclusion as experienced by persons with other types of differences from normative constructions of ability, gender, race, and sexuality. I also hope to examine disability and inclusion through art-based research approaches in order to more thoroughly understand how these phenomena manifest in music making and learning space and in the lived experiences of disabled musicians and music learners. In general, I hope that my research will assist music educators and music education researchers in critically assess how their assumptions and approaches impact inclusion of learners with differences while also forwarding new means of fostering inclusion.
Two primary questions guide my research: (1) How might the music education profession become more adaptive and inclusive for students with differences? and (2) How do practices and discourses construct and disseminate disability and inclusion in music making and learning settings? My overarching goals are: first, to inspect how assumptions, ideologies, methodologies, and historical discourses impact music education related to inclusion and disability; and second, to uncover more equitable means of fostering open, responsive, and inclusive music learning space so that all learners are afforded chances to develop a life-long love for music learning. These goals are inspired by my experiences as a primary and secondary level music educator working with learners with differences in physical, cognitive, and socio-emotional abilities. During these experiences, I noticed how many of the approaches, techniques, and materials I used as a teacher marginalized or excluded some of the learners with whom I worked. Though I connected with special education teachers and specialists in developing more inclusive and adaptive musical experiences, I realized that much of the assistance I was offering did little to truly include learners with differences, rather these structures often acted to pacify and limit learners as full agents in their education.
Action research and short-term inquiry projects connected to my first guiding research question informed state and national presentations form 2010 through 2014 on: (1) creating accessible composition experiences where all learners might play with sound and expressive themselves, (2) using technology as a means of offering multiple means of learning and music making, and (3) developing inclusive strategies for elementary general classrooms. Work inspecting how these areas intersect led to a national presentation at the Mountain Lake Colloquium for Teachers of General Music Methods and later to a co-authored book, Accessing Music: Enhancing Student learning in the General Music Classroom Using UDL (2014). In this publication, the co-authors and I sought to offer music education practitioners means of constructing educative experiences for learners with diverse differences through thoughtful adaptations to materials and spaces. I have also expanded my inquiry related to inclusion to consider how learner agency impacts music learning at in primary and undergraduate settings. I have presented some of my work in this area, specifically using theoretical lenses informed by Freire and Green, at state and national presentations in 2015.
I also have sought to uncover other processes of fostering inclusion during a two and a half year study of the Smooth Criminals, a music therapy rock band comprised of young adults with developmental disabilities. As such, I expanded my examination to consider what the music therapy rock band afforded and constrained the young adult members. This led to poster presentations at Arizona State University, the Arizona Music Educators Association, and the Society for Music Teacher Education Symposium, a manuscript presented at the Association for Popular Music Education national conference, and a book chapter entitled “A Place in the Band: Navigating Barriers to Inclusion for Individuals Diagnosed with Developmental Disabilities in a Rock Band Setting” forthcoming in the Ashgate Research Companion to Popular Music Education. Though my initial interests in this project were to identify practices that could be translated or adapted for use in music education classrooms, based on research into the social model of disability, I came to realize that inclusion is not just the outcome of what facilitators do. Inclusion appears to be a more complex and interactional issue that stretches across approaches, materials, motivations, interests, and assumptions of both facilitators and participants within a particular experience. This realization has led to my dissertation which phenomenologically examines feelings of inclusion in music making and learning spaces for physically disabled musicians. With this project, I seek to better understand inclusion from the perspective of disabled participants, participants who are regularly excluded from discussions of inclusion and inclusive practices in music education practice and research.
Related to the second question guiding my research, I have explored how historical representations of and policies associated with disability and inclusion have shaped contemporary music education thought and practice in order to counter naturalized and medicalized approaches to disability. In a preliminary study, I examined how the historical formations of special education in the United States defined disability in relation to learner productivity, learning efficiency, and race, and how these definitions have informed exclusionary music education practices. I employed Bourdieu’s theory of cultural capital to articulate how practical outcomes of these policies may further disable learners in music education settings. This work helped me trace how ideological assumptions of ability form barriers that marginalize learners with differences and limit their access to music education, social engagement, and chances to share different means of musicking in music learning spaces. In a related work, I have inspected how disability and inclusion has been constructed in photographs from the MEJ from 1914 until 2015. With this, I have traced the approaches to disability and inclusion in field of music education in the United States related to legal and policy decisions as a means to articulate the social constructive nature of disability and to identify how discourses catalyzed in photographs and in text transmit assumptions of disability that provide problematic for inclusive music education.
In the future, I hope to conduct other phenomenological studies into inclusion as experienced by persons with other types of differences from normative constructions of ability, gender, race, and sexuality. I also hope to examine disability and inclusion through art-based research approaches in order to more thoroughly understand how these phenomena manifest in music making and learning space and in the lived experiences of disabled musicians and music learners. In general, I hope that my research will assist music educators and music education researchers in critically assess how their assumptions and approaches impact inclusion of learners with differences while also forwarding new means of fostering inclusion.
Publications
Dissertation;
Rathgeber, J. (2019). Troubling disability: Experiences of disability in, through, and around music. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ.
Peer-Reviewed Articles:
Bylica, K., & Rathgeber, J. (Forthcoming). Fostering meaningful feedback through the Critical Response Process. Music Educators Journal, #(#), ##-##.
Rathgeber, J., Bernard, C. F. (2022). When I say “modern,” you say, “bands: A critical narrative of modern band and Little Kids Rock as music education curriculum. Journal of Popular Music Education, 5(3), 337-358(22).
Stringham, D. A., & Rathgeber, J. (2021). Becoming music teachers In the time of COVID-19: A mixed-method investigation of music teachers’ professional visions. Journal of Music, Heath, and Wellbeing, Autumn, 1-26.
Rathgeber, J., Hoye, J., McNure, C. J., & Stringham, D. A. (2019). Imagining possible futures/impacting professional visions: A reflective case study of a community-centric, ukulele-based participatory musicking project. Qualitative Research in Music Education, 1(1), 5-28.
Rathgeber, J., & Mantie, R. (2019). Markers of agency in preservice music teachers: A directed content analysis of written coursework. Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education, (219), 27-46.
Peer-Reviewed Book Chapters:
Rathgeber, J., Thomas-Durrell, L., Miller, M., Pilmer, E., Stelzer, S., Stringham, D. A., & Templeton, G. (Forthcoming). Beyond performing inclusion: Learning and teaching through Disability Studies. In K. McCord, C. Cowell &, D. VanderLinde (Eds.), Oxford Handbook On Special Music Education and Music Therapy
Rathgeber, J., & bell, a. p. (Forthcoming). Disability as disruption in music education. In SAGE Handbook of School Music Education.
Rathgeber, J., & Rathgeber, W. (Forthcoming). Approximating by ear: A scaffolded approach. In B. Powell & G. D. Smith (Eds.), The Modern Band Handbook: Practical Perspectives and Lessons for Music Educators. Oxford University Press.
Rathgeber, J. (2022). Cripping popular music. In B. Powell & G. D. Smith (Eds.), Places and Purposes of Popular Music Education (pp. 346-354). Intellect Books.
Hammel, A. M., & Rathgeber, J. (2021). Living at the intersection of tablets, music, and disability. In G. Greher, & S. L. Burton (Eds.), Creative Music Making at Your Fingertips: A Mobile Technology Guide for Music Educators (pp. 29-42). Oxford University Press.
Rathgeber, J. (2020). Design to break barriers: An adaptive instrument project. In A. P. Bell (Ed.), The music technology cookbook: Ready-made recipes for the classroom. Oxford University Press.
bell, a. p., & Rathgeber, J. (2020). Can the disabled musician sing? Songs, stories, and identities of disabled persons in/through/with Social Media. In J. Waldron, S. Horsely, & K. Veblen (Eds.), Oxford Handbook of Social Media and Music Learning (569-590). Oxford University Press.
Rathgeber, J. (2017). A place in the band: Negotiating barriers to inclusion in a rock band setting. In G. D. Smith, M. Brennan, P. Kirkman, Z. Moir, & S. Sambarran (Eds.), Routledge Research Companion to Popular Music Education (pp. 369-381). Routledge.
Book:
McCord, K., Gruben, A., & Rathgeber, J. (2014). Accessing music: Enhancing student learning in the general music classroom through UDL. Alfred Music Publishing.
Book Review:
Rathgeber, J. (2015). Hear, listen, play: how to free your students' aural, improvisation and performance skills [book review]. Music Education Research, 17(1), 121-123.
Dissertation;
Rathgeber, J. (2019). Troubling disability: Experiences of disability in, through, and around music. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ.
Peer-Reviewed Articles:
Bylica, K., & Rathgeber, J. (Forthcoming). Fostering meaningful feedback through the Critical Response Process. Music Educators Journal, #(#), ##-##.
Rathgeber, J., Bernard, C. F. (2022). When I say “modern,” you say, “bands: A critical narrative of modern band and Little Kids Rock as music education curriculum. Journal of Popular Music Education, 5(3), 337-358(22).
Stringham, D. A., & Rathgeber, J. (2021). Becoming music teachers In the time of COVID-19: A mixed-method investigation of music teachers’ professional visions. Journal of Music, Heath, and Wellbeing, Autumn, 1-26.
Rathgeber, J., Hoye, J., McNure, C. J., & Stringham, D. A. (2019). Imagining possible futures/impacting professional visions: A reflective case study of a community-centric, ukulele-based participatory musicking project. Qualitative Research in Music Education, 1(1), 5-28.
Rathgeber, J., & Mantie, R. (2019). Markers of agency in preservice music teachers: A directed content analysis of written coursework. Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education, (219), 27-46.
Peer-Reviewed Book Chapters:
Rathgeber, J., Thomas-Durrell, L., Miller, M., Pilmer, E., Stelzer, S., Stringham, D. A., & Templeton, G. (Forthcoming). Beyond performing inclusion: Learning and teaching through Disability Studies. In K. McCord, C. Cowell &, D. VanderLinde (Eds.), Oxford Handbook On Special Music Education and Music Therapy
Rathgeber, J., & bell, a. p. (Forthcoming). Disability as disruption in music education. In SAGE Handbook of School Music Education.
Rathgeber, J., & Rathgeber, W. (Forthcoming). Approximating by ear: A scaffolded approach. In B. Powell & G. D. Smith (Eds.), The Modern Band Handbook: Practical Perspectives and Lessons for Music Educators. Oxford University Press.
Rathgeber, J. (2022). Cripping popular music. In B. Powell & G. D. Smith (Eds.), Places and Purposes of Popular Music Education (pp. 346-354). Intellect Books.
Hammel, A. M., & Rathgeber, J. (2021). Living at the intersection of tablets, music, and disability. In G. Greher, & S. L. Burton (Eds.), Creative Music Making at Your Fingertips: A Mobile Technology Guide for Music Educators (pp. 29-42). Oxford University Press.
Rathgeber, J. (2020). Design to break barriers: An adaptive instrument project. In A. P. Bell (Ed.), The music technology cookbook: Ready-made recipes for the classroom. Oxford University Press.
bell, a. p., & Rathgeber, J. (2020). Can the disabled musician sing? Songs, stories, and identities of disabled persons in/through/with Social Media. In J. Waldron, S. Horsely, & K. Veblen (Eds.), Oxford Handbook of Social Media and Music Learning (569-590). Oxford University Press.
Rathgeber, J. (2017). A place in the band: Negotiating barriers to inclusion in a rock band setting. In G. D. Smith, M. Brennan, P. Kirkman, Z. Moir, & S. Sambarran (Eds.), Routledge Research Companion to Popular Music Education (pp. 369-381). Routledge.
Book:
McCord, K., Gruben, A., & Rathgeber, J. (2014). Accessing music: Enhancing student learning in the general music classroom through UDL. Alfred Music Publishing.
Book Review:
Rathgeber, J. (2015). Hear, listen, play: how to free your students' aural, improvisation and performance skills [book review]. Music Education Research, 17(1), 121-123.