Music Education Publications
Title
"Free As In Speech, But Not Free As In Beer": The Performativity of the U.S. National Standards
Document Type
Book Chapter
Publication Date
1-2012
Journal
Studies in Music from the University of Western Ontario
Volume
23
First Page
1
Last Page
20
Abstract
This article considers the U.S. National Standards for Music Education through the lenses of Austin, Searle, Butler and Foucault in order to examine the single point of control and sovereignty of governing organizations and to situate the U.S. National Standards as speech acts; that is, written performatives that essentially describe and enact particular sets of responses. I extend those ways performativity has normally been considered and suggest that the standards not only function as speech acts but as an icon whose continual referencing creates ongoing acts that constitute a process in which what they suggest and their enactment are united. In other words, I am considering how the standards at once function recursively and both signify and reproduce what music education is.