The days after: music educators' responses to school shootings

Weiger, Erich A.

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Description

Title

The days after: music educators' responses to school shootings

Author(s)

Weiger, Erich A.

Issue Date

2021-11-12

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Revell Barrett, Janet

Doctoral Committee Chair(s)

Revell Barrett, Janet

Committee Member(s)

• Fairbanks, Stephen
• Kruse, Adam
• Nichols, Jeananne R

Department of Study

Music

Discipline

Music Education

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Degree Level

Dissertation

Keyword(s)

• music education
• trauma
• school shootings
• narrative inquiry

Abstract

School shootings have become a tragic and too frequent occurrence in communities across the United States. While research has shown that these events are rare (Duwe, 2017), their impact on society has been profound. Since the 1999 Columbine incident, discussions of safety preparedness and even the physical structure of schools have taken place across the country. Lockdown drills are scheduled as part of the overall regimen of school safety drills (Hendry, 2015; Jackson et al., 2018; Schildkraut et al., 2020; Trump, 2011). Researchers have documented negative impacts of these drills on the students and teachers they are designed to protect (Blad & Will, 2020; Connell, 2018; Schildkraut et al., 2020; Stevens et al., 2019). Music educators, like their colleagues in other subjects, are not immune to the repercussions that these tragic events have on schools and communities. In response, they may turn to music as a means of providing care to their students. Despite a growing level of research into the intersection of trauma and music education (Bradley, 2020; Hess & Bradley, 2020; McEvoy & Salvador, 2020), we know little about the traumatic impact of school shootings on music educators and students, however. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to describe and understand the experiences of three music educators both during and in the aftermath of a school shooting incident or a traumatic lockdown drill. Central issues addressed by the literature on school shootings and lockdown drills include the difficulties in defining the term “school shooting,” an overview of five major incidents that have impacted school safety since Columbine, and the actions that schools have taken to prepare for both the physical and emotional safety of students and teachers. The role that music may play in the aftermath of a traumatic event, particularly in relation to the philosophy of emotions and music, is discussed. As a framework, I review literature relevant to music educators’ providing care in their music classrooms and provide details about the ethic of care and teachers’ caring actions. Three participants were selected through a process of identification starting from the United States Naval Academy Postgraduate School’s K-12 School Shooting Database (Riedman & O’Neill, 2021) followed by a process of self, peer, and expert nomination. Data generation for this study utilized episodic narrative interview (Mueller, 2019), a research method that elicits focused storytelling from participants as it relates to a central phenomenon. Narrative analysis guided the presentation of these accounts. Chapters 4, 5, and 6 present the participants’ stories as constructed narratives, providing intimate, emotional, and detailed descriptions of three music educators’ actions during and after a school shooting event. Each chapter was constructed using the participant’s own words as closely as possible to ensure fidelity to their lived experiences. The experiences of the participants varied according to the amount of preparation they had before the shooting, their personal backgrounds, the space in which were sheltered, and the flow of time. Participants’ actions in the aftermath of the shooting incidents were marked by a change in their perception of school safety and school safety measures. The three narrative accounts describe the teachers’ reflections on their actions as they helped students respond to trauma through discussion, the use of music, and the presence of caring. Implications of this study include the importance of music educators’ use of music in the response to a school shooting or a traumatic incident, and the central roles that caring and interpersonal connections play as students, music educators, and the school community recover from a tragic event.

Graduation Semester

2021-12

Type of Resource

Thesis

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Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2021 Erich Weiger

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