“It’s Just Drilling the Skills for That Performance”: Music Educators, Social Justice, and the Performance Paradigm

In this article, I interrogate how music educators understand the importance of social justice education. Data was generated through interviews with 10 currently practicing Grade 7–12 music educators from Manitoba, Canada, and reflexively analyzed through poststructural and anti-colonial theoretical perspectives. Findings reveal that participants’ perceptions regarding the importance of social justice education are both constructed within and constrained by the dominant discourses of the Western classical ensemble paradigm. Specifically, because study participants are regulated by the expectation and normalized understanding that to be a music educator is to focus primarily on technical skill development in pursuit of performance excellence, the importance of social justice in relation to their roles as music educators is diminished and devalued. This article is significant in coming to know how the dominance of the performance paradigm potentially limits music educators’ willingness and ability to pursue social justice.