On Demographics, Diversity, and Democracy.

In the late 1990s, one of my University of Colorado music education colleagues and I began conversing about the lack of racial/ethnic diversity within our student body and the music education profession writ large. Depending on the nature of their school music program and personal economic circumstances, our outreach program attendees may not have experienced music education in a way that motivated them to consider a music career. The situation appears no better within music teacher education, with an estimated 80% of prospective music education majors ([12]) and 86% of music teacher licensure candidates identifying as White ([6]). [Extracted from the article]