WHAT BRINGS YOU HERE? CONTEXTUAL INFLUENCES ON MUSICAL ENGAGEMENT

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to test a conceptual model of contextual influences on 7th graders’ musical engagement in school. Inspired by Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological theory of human development, I devised a conceptual model to represent contextual factors that interact in a person’s world to influence their own music making. I used restricted-use data from the Longitudinal Study of American Youth Third Cohort 2015-2016 to determine what personal and familial characteristics were associated with students’ enrollment in different types of school music classes during their 7th grade year in order to test my proposed contextual model.I used a multinomial logit model to conduct the analysis in order to ascertain which individual-level and familial characteristics were associated with 7th graders enrollment in four different categories of music courses: (a) no music courses, (b) non-band/orchestra/choir (BOC) music courses, (c) choir, or (d) band/orchestra. The restricted-use data from the LSAY Third Cohort contained student-produced responses of the types of music courses they were currently enrolled in as well as questions about their musical habits at home. The data set also contained a caregiver questionnaire that contained questions about the caregiver’s musical engagement with their own child. Results of the analysis supported the proposed conceptual model and indicated a multitude of characteristics that are associated with 7th graders’ enrollment in varying types of music courses. Different covariates were significantly associated with different types of music course enrollment. As such, students enrolled in school music courses should not be considered as a collective. The results from this study support previous research that there is not a singular profile of student who enrolls in different types of music classes (Elpus & Abril, 2019).