Feminist music therapy pedagogy: A survey of music therapy educators

Nicole Hahna , Melody Swantes

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

12 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This study surveyed 188 music therapy educators regarding their views and
use of feminist pedagogy and feminist music therapy. The purpose of this study was two-fold:
(a) to determine how many music therapy educators used feminist pedagogy and (b) to determine if there was a relationship between the use of feminist pedagogy and academic rank of the participants.
Seventy-two participants responded to this study, with 69 participants included for data analysis. Stake and Hoffman's (2000) feminist pedagogy survey was adapted for this study, examining four subscales of feminist pedagogy: (a) participatory learning, (b) validation of personal experience/development of confidence, (c) political/social activism, and (d) critical thinking/ open-mindedness. The results revealed that 46% (n = 32) of participants identified as feminist music therapists and 67% (n = 46) of participants identified as using feminist pedagogy.
Results of a mixed ANOVA revealed a statistically significant difference within the four survey subscales (p < .0001), no significant difference (p = .32) for academic rank, and no significant interaction (p = .08) of academic rank and the four survey subscales. A Tukey post hoc analysis of the data indicated that the survey subscale measuring political activism (p < .0001) was significantly lower than the other three survey subscales. In addition, a qualitative analysis on open-ended responses is also included. Discussion of the results, limitations, and areas for future research are addressed.
Original languageDanish
JournalJournal of Music Therapy
Volume48
Issue number3
Pages (from-to)289-316
Number of pages8
ISSN0022-2917
Publication statusPublished - 2011

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