Why just me (or few others) in music education: An autoethnographic point of departure

In 2010, I started my first full-time position in higher education as a music teacher educator. Several years preceding my return to full-time graduate work, I began attending mainstream and specialized interest group conferences in music education. I was consciously aware of the lack of diversity in general, and specifically alarmed by the absence of Black men as leaders, presenters, and even conference attendees. Although underrepresented groups have seen growth in our profession over time, the case for Black men has remained seemingly unchanged, especially within the instrumental music education specialization. Recent research indicates large racial disparity between those being fully credentialed for state teaching licensure in music education (Elpus, 2015). This type of inequality within the public school workforce is but one ripple within the larger US educational landscape that contains racial achievement and attainment gaps at every juncture of the educational access pipeline from preK-12 schooling through doctoral study. I consider this underrepresentation to be problematic as we endeavor to be more inclusive as a profession and it has led me to question and examine ways this can be changed.