Assistant Professor of Music Education

Phone: 212 998 5607
Email: cathy.benedict@nyu.edu

* Music and Performing Arts Professions
* "Music (Performance, Business, Technology, Education, Composition)"

Cathy Benedict has been teaching music education graduate and undergraduate classes at New York University since 2000. She is currently an Assistant Professor and Coordinator of Undergraduate Studies in Music Education. Her scholarly interests lay in the reciprocity of the teacher/student, student/teacher relationship and the difficulties in facilitating music education environments in which students engage in a transformative process that encourage a perspective of a justice-oriented citizen. To this end, her research agenda focuses on the processes of education and the ways in which teachers and students can share a path of learning that interrogates and challenges taken-for-granted normative practices.

Degrees Held
* Ed.D. Columbia University, Teachers College, Department of Curriculum and Teaching
* M.Ed. Columbia University, Teachers College, Department of Curriculum and Teaching
* M.M.E. Holy Names College, Emphasis on Kodaly, Oakland, California
* Orff Certification Level III

Publications

• Benedict, C (Fall 2009). Chapter 7: Designing Music Curriculum. In H. Abeles & L. Custodero (eds.) Music Pedagogy: Frameworks for Practice. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
• Benedict, C (Fall 2009). Chapter 8: Methods and Approaches. In H. Abeles & L. Custodero (eds.) Music Pedagogy: Frameworks for Practice. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
• Benedict, C. (Summer 2009). Policy, Narrativity, and the Representation of Reality. Arts, Education, Policy Review, 110, (3), pp. 22-26.
• Benedict, C. (July 2009). Processes of Alienation: Marx, Orff and Kodaly. British Journal of Music Education, 26 (2), pp. 213-224.
• Allsup, R. & Benedict, C. (Spring, 2009). The Problem of Band: An Inquiry into the Future of Instrumental Music Education. Philosophy of Music Education Review, 16 (2).
• Benedict, C. & Schmidt, P. (2008). Pedagogias Críticas e Práticas Músico-Educativas: Compartilhando Histórias Práticas, Políticas e Conceituais (Critical Pedagogies and Music Education Practices: Sharing Practical, Political and Conceptual Histories). ABEM Journal (Associacao Brasileira de Educadores Musicais).
• Benedict, C. (Fall 2007). On the Narrative of Challenged Assumptions. Research Studies in Music Education, 29.
• Benedict, C. (Spring 2007). Naming Our Reality: Negotiating and Creating Meaning in the Margin. Philosophy of Music Education Review, 15, (1), pp. 23-35
• Benedict, C. & Schmidt, P. (December 2007). From Whence Justice?: Interrogating the Improbable in Music Education. Action, Criticism and Theory for Music Education, 6, (4).
• Benedict, C. (2006, March). The U.S. National Music Standards Viewed Through A Critical Theorist Framework. Music Education Research, 8 (1).
• Benedict, C (2006). Defining Ourselves as Other: Envisioning Transformative Possibilities (Chapter 1). In C. Frierson Campbell (ed.), Perspectives in Urban Music Education. Lanham, Maryland: R & L Education.
• Kassell, C. (March 1998). Music and the Theory of Multiple Intelligences. Music Educators Journal, 84 (5), 29-32.

Courses
* New Student Seminar: E27.0005
* Teaching Music in the Elementary Grades: E85. 1048
* Orff/Kodaly: E85. 2149
* Foundations of Music Education E85.1091
* Critical Readings in Music Education E85.2010

Research Interests
* Social Justice, Equity and Music Education
* Urban Education: Place and Pedagogy
* National Standards
* Critical Theory: Transgression and Resistance
* Pedagogy and "methods"

Presentations

•  Symposium for Music Teacher Education (SMTE), University of North Carolina, September 2009. The Role of Inquiry-Based Practice in Preservice Music Teacher Education.

•  Symposium for Music Teacher Education (SMTE), University of North Carolina, September 2009.  O Brave New World, That Has Such People In't:  Courageous Conversations Between Music Theory and Music Education. 

•  54th National Meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology.  Mexico City, October 2009.  El Sistema:  Can Music have a Place in Social Reform?

•  The 6th International Conference for Research in Music Education (RIME).  April 15-18, 2009, School of Education, University of Exeter. The Myth of institutionalized Music Education and The Performativity of the U.S. National Standards.

•  28th ISME World Conference 20–25 July 2008, Bologna, Italy.  Policy, Narrativity, and the Representation of Reality.

•  11th Community Music Activity International Seminar (ISME), 15-18 July 2008, Rome, Italy. The Social/Cultural Economy Of Community Music: Realizing Spectacle.

•  Associacao Brasileira de Educadores Musicais (Brazil Music Educators National Conference), Santa Maria, Campo Grande May 20, 2008. Critical Pedagogies and Music Education Practices: Sharing Practical, Political and Conceptual Histories.

•  American Education Research Association (AERA), NYC, March 2008.  Observation as a Pedagogy of Disruption:  Interrupting the Normative Spaces of Schooling as Responsibility. 

•  Narrative Soundings, 2nd International Conference on Narrative Inquiry in Music Education, February 7-9, 2008 School of Music, Herberger College of Fine Arts, Arizona State University. Refusing Narratives:  The Ethics of Functional Literacy.

•  musica ficta/Lived Realties:  A Conference on Engagements and Exclusions in Music, Education, and the Arts.  January 24-27, 2008.  Benedict, C. Schmidt, P. The Keynote and The Perpetration of Capital: Modeling Inequity in Educational Practices.

•  Symposium for Music Teacher Education (SMTE), University of North Carolina, September, 2007. It's Not Just About Survival:  Critical Practices in Urban Schools.  Presented with three music teacher graduates of New York University.

•  Philosophy of Music Education International Symposium, University of Western Ontario, Canada, June 6-9, 2007.  Invited Respondent.

•  International Sociological Association Conference (Research Committee on Sociology of Education).  Nicosia, Cyprus. May 24-27.  Observation as Pedagogy of Disruption:  Interrupting the Normative Spaces of Schooling

•  The 5th International Conference for Research in Music Education (RIME), April 10-14, 2007, School of Education, University of Exeter.  Processes of Alienation:  Orff and Kodaly.

•  American Education Research Association (AERA), Chicago, April 2007.  Self-actualizing Learning: Multidisciplinary Approaches to Using Self-assessment.