Music Teachers as Role Models for African-American Students

The purpose of this study was to determine what proportion of African-American students in high school settings, if any, identified music teachers as their role models. The study was also designed to determine whether there were any differences in the subjects' perceptions of the number of African-American students or teachers of their race or sex in their nonmusic versus music classes and to determine whether any significant differences existed between subjects who had or did not have a music-teacher role model as to whether they would attend a college/university after graduation and whether they would consider: (a) making music their major, (b) taking some music classes, or (c) playing or singing in an ensemble. Subjects for the study were 811 African-American high school students. Descriptive statistics, t tests for dependent/correlated samples, and chi-square analyses were used to analyze the data. Significant differences were found by subjects' choice of role models(s) and selected variables.