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Addressing the White Racial Frame in OU Music’s Module Materials: Incorporating Active Debates to A342 Learning

In recent years there has been increasing attention to the ways that music scholarship, curricula and programming reflect and reproduce legacies of racism and colonialism. One point of focus has been the work and legacy of the Austrian music theorist Heinrich Schenker, whose centrality in the field has contributed to – and is symptomatic of – what Philip Ewell has described as music theory’s ‘white racial frame’ (Ewell, 2019). Schenker features in our study materials for the music module A342 Central Questions in the Study of Music, which is currently in its sixth year of presentation. The module team are faced with a gap between, on the one hand, the long lifespan of The Open University’s module materials, and, on the other, fast-moving, active and high-profile debates within the discipline.  

This scholarship project investigates how to effectively address this gap between ongoing disciplinary assessments of music studies’ white racial frame and current module materials in Music. Using the module A342 Central Questions in the Study of Music as a case study, the project asks: how can current, active debates about whiteness, racism and colonialism be effectively and sensitively incorporated while Music modules are in presentation, to the benefit of all learners? The project also responds to feedback from previous presentations of Central Questions in the Study of Music, where some students have expressed that they would like to see greater engagement with the module forums. We aim to interrogate whether creating connections between different aspects of the module’s content, current discussions within the discipline and wider cultural debates will help to generate more engagement with the module’s forum.