Measuring the Status Quo: Western Art Music in Canadian Undergraduate Music Education Programs

Undergraduate music programs in the United States and Canada have been critiqued for their heavy focus on skills and understandings associated with Western Art Music (WAM) traditions. Such traditions have been linked to Eurocentrism, colonialism, anti-Blackness, and inaccessibility. This is problematic for the field of music education when one considers that post-secondary music education programs—the de facto pathway for music teacher licensure—tend to share the same “Eurocentric core” (Walker, 2023, p. 53). This study quantifies the extent to which Canadian undergraduate music education program audition requirements and curricula reflect WAM values and content. The analysis process included database coding and analysis of specific audition requirements and courses required to complete each degree program. Findings confirm anecdotal perceptions that the majority of Canadian undergraduate music education curricula focus predominantly on WAM content.