GABRIELA OCÁDIZ
Gabriela Ocádiz graduated with a Ph.D. in Music Education in 2020 from the University of Western Ontario in Canada. Her doctoral research examined pragmatically and philosophically the experiences and practices of music education taking place in community settings that provide settlement services to newcomer children and youth, and in Canadian public schools that received higher numbers of students of immigrant and refugee backgrounds. Before moving to Canada, she obtained a master’s in Music and a Kodály certification from Colorado State University, and a bachelor’s in Music Education from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). Throughout her career, she has engaged in interdisciplinary research studies, conference, and workshop presentations nationally and internationally, and has obtained an ample variety of teaching experiences in public and private schools and universities in Mexico, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, the United States, and in Canada where she currently resides.
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The Musical Actions of Mobile Youth
In this paper, I use a critical ethnographic approach (Thomas, 1993) to focus on the voices, ideas, and experiences of newcomer youth who participated in the Youth Music Program (YMP). I explore their individualities and their experiences with music education in community centres in Canada, highlighting how their perspectives may inform music educators and researchers (Karlsen, 2011). The purpose of the study was two-fold: to better understand the ways in which larger social discourses frame the interactions between newcomers and non-newcomers in mobile societies; and more specifically, to offer another perspective for debate on the impact of human mobility in music teaching and learning, envisioning possibilities for discourse and practice.
In the last decade, many societies around the world have experienced changes in their populations (UNHCR, 2019). Many of these societies have tried to shift their conceptions of and relationships with human mobility and mobile peoples (Fleras, 2015). In addition, many of them have created structures or redesigned existing organizations in order to respond rapidly to increasing immigration (Fleras, 2015; IRCC, 2019). When governments and institutions choose to implement programs for newcomers, they may however be influenced by larger social discourses, leading them to routinize their responses, actions, and interactions to favor some migratory experiences while ignoring others (Fleras, 2015; Pinson & Arnot, 2007).
Mainstream discourses that emphasize the urgent pressure to respond to human mobility have, at times, reflected and reinforced the characteristic of vulnerability in the social psyche of individuals when speaking about refugee and immigration experiences (Bauman, 2016; Clark, 2007; El-Bialy & Mulay, 2018; Pinson & Arnot, 2007). In doing so, this may have understated the variability and complexity of processes of resettlement and adaptation and contributed to their oversimplification and essentialization (Clark, 2007). In a time of “evolving realities, emergent challenges and shifting discourses” (Fleras, 2015, p. 5), experiences of transformation should be reframed so as to understand the intricacies of widespread global changes that are contextual and specific to each society, and to each individual.
In the literature in music education, newcomers have sometimes been described as engaged in complicated processes of “connecting seemingly incompatible discourses and balancing multiple and contradictory cultural identities” (Karlsen & Westerlund, 2010, p. 229-230). This understanding provides a sense of the complexity of musical identity formation in times of global mobility. I, then, consider it crucial that newcomer youth are also described as active in their personal adaptive processes, as they are capable of flexibly balancing their identities, managing to exist, co-exist, and merge with the multiple realities that surround them (Carter, 2003, 2006, 2010; Croucher & Kramer, 2016). Thus, rather than emphasizing the challenges of mobility and resettlement, discourse can also recognize the multiplicities of the actions taken by newcomers in their own personal adaptive processes.
In this paper, newcomer youth are described as highly adaptable, rather than “struggling to adapt.” I utilize this language not only because of the emergent findings from this study, but also to acknowledge newcomers in this world of instability as a highly adaptable population, rather than a vulnerable population. By changing the language used to describe and name the students with whom I worked, I seek to find more ways to understand and conceptualize the experiences of young newcomers with music, and to consider action, adaptation, and musical action, rather than struggle and despair, as more relevant than normative discourses of vulnerability to music education practices in schools and communities.
References
Bauman, Z. (2016). Strangers at our door. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
Carter, P. (2010). Race and cultural flexibility among students in different multiracial schools. The Teachers College Record, 112(6), 1529–1574.
Carter, P. L. (2003). “Black” cultural capital, status positioning, and schooling conflicts for low-income African American youth. Social Problems, 50(1), 136–155.
Carter, P. L. (2006). Straddling boundaries: Identity, culture, and school. Sociology of Education, 79(4), 304–328.
Clark, C. R. (2007). Understanding Vulnerability: From Categories to Experiences of Young
Congolese People in Uganda. Children and Society, 21(4), 284–296.
Croucher, S. M., & Kramer, E. (2016). Cultural fusion theory: An alternative to acculturation. Journal of International and Intercultural Communication, 10(2), 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1080/17513057.2016.1229498
Fleras, A. (2015). Immigration Canada: Evolving realities and emerging challenges in a Postnational world. Vancouver: UBC Press.
Immigration, Refugee, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC). (2019). Retrieved from https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship.html
Karlsen, S. (2011). Using musical agency as a lens: Researching music education from the angle of experience. Research Studies in Music Education, 33(2), 107–121.
Karlsen, S. (2013). Immigrant students and the “homeland music”: Meanings, negotiations and implications. Research Studies in Music Education, 35(2), 161–177.
Karlsen, S., & Westerlund, H. (2010). Immigrant students’ development of musical agency–– exploring democracy in music education. British Journal of Music Education, 27(03), 225–239. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0265051710000203
Pinson, H., & Arnot, M. (2007). Sociology of education and the wasteland of refugee education research. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 28(3), 399–407. https://doi.org/10.1080/01425690701253612
Thomas, J. (1993). Doing critical ethnography (Vol. 26). New York: Sage.
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). (2019). Retrieved from https://www.unhcr.org/
In the last decade, many societies around the world have experienced changes in their populations (UNHCR, 2019). Many of these societies have tried to shift their conceptions of and relationships with human mobility and mobile peoples (Fleras, 2015). In addition, many of them have created structures or redesigned existing organizations in order to respond rapidly to increasing immigration (Fleras, 2015; IRCC, 2019). When governments and institutions choose to implement programs for newcomers, they may however be influenced by larger social discourses, leading them to routinize their responses, actions, and interactions to favor some migratory experiences while ignoring others (Fleras, 2015; Pinson & Arnot, 2007).
Mainstream discourses that emphasize the urgent pressure to respond to human mobility have, at times, reflected and reinforced the characteristic of vulnerability in the social psyche of individuals when speaking about refugee and immigration experiences (Bauman, 2016; Clark, 2007; El-Bialy & Mulay, 2018; Pinson & Arnot, 2007). In doing so, this may have understated the variability and complexity of processes of resettlement and adaptation and contributed to their oversimplification and essentialization (Clark, 2007). In a time of “evolving realities, emergent challenges and shifting discourses” (Fleras, 2015, p. 5), experiences of transformation should be reframed so as to understand the intricacies of widespread global changes that are contextual and specific to each society, and to each individual.
In the literature in music education, newcomers have sometimes been described as engaged in complicated processes of “connecting seemingly incompatible discourses and balancing multiple and contradictory cultural identities” (Karlsen & Westerlund, 2010, p. 229-230). This understanding provides a sense of the complexity of musical identity formation in times of global mobility. I, then, consider it crucial that newcomer youth are also described as active in their personal adaptive processes, as they are capable of flexibly balancing their identities, managing to exist, co-exist, and merge with the multiple realities that surround them (Carter, 2003, 2006, 2010; Croucher & Kramer, 2016). Thus, rather than emphasizing the challenges of mobility and resettlement, discourse can also recognize the multiplicities of the actions taken by newcomers in their own personal adaptive processes.
In this paper, newcomer youth are described as highly adaptable, rather than “struggling to adapt.” I utilize this language not only because of the emergent findings from this study, but also to acknowledge newcomers in this world of instability as a highly adaptable population, rather than a vulnerable population. By changing the language used to describe and name the students with whom I worked, I seek to find more ways to understand and conceptualize the experiences of young newcomers with music, and to consider action, adaptation, and musical action, rather than struggle and despair, as more relevant than normative discourses of vulnerability to music education practices in schools and communities.
References
Bauman, Z. (2016). Strangers at our door. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
Carter, P. (2010). Race and cultural flexibility among students in different multiracial schools. The Teachers College Record, 112(6), 1529–1574.
Carter, P. L. (2003). “Black” cultural capital, status positioning, and schooling conflicts for low-income African American youth. Social Problems, 50(1), 136–155.
Carter, P. L. (2006). Straddling boundaries: Identity, culture, and school. Sociology of Education, 79(4), 304–328.
Clark, C. R. (2007). Understanding Vulnerability: From Categories to Experiences of Young
Congolese People in Uganda. Children and Society, 21(4), 284–296.
Croucher, S. M., & Kramer, E. (2016). Cultural fusion theory: An alternative to acculturation. Journal of International and Intercultural Communication, 10(2), 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1080/17513057.2016.1229498
Fleras, A. (2015). Immigration Canada: Evolving realities and emerging challenges in a Postnational world. Vancouver: UBC Press.
Immigration, Refugee, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC). (2019). Retrieved from https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship.html
Karlsen, S. (2011). Using musical agency as a lens: Researching music education from the angle of experience. Research Studies in Music Education, 33(2), 107–121.
Karlsen, S. (2013). Immigrant students and the “homeland music”: Meanings, negotiations and implications. Research Studies in Music Education, 35(2), 161–177.
Karlsen, S., & Westerlund, H. (2010). Immigrant students’ development of musical agency–– exploring democracy in music education. British Journal of Music Education, 27(03), 225–239. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0265051710000203
Pinson, H., & Arnot, M. (2007). Sociology of education and the wasteland of refugee education research. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 28(3), 399–407. https://doi.org/10.1080/01425690701253612
Thomas, J. (1993). Doing critical ethnography (Vol. 26). New York: Sage.
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). (2019). Retrieved from https://www.unhcr.org/