Vance Bollinger – Latin America and the Caribbean (World of Music)

 By Andrew Solway

In my class MUS 240, Introduction to Music Education, we are currently learning about the importance of “culturally responsive teaching.”  This simply means allowing children of any culture the space they need to feel welcomed, empowered, and able to express themselves, regardless of their culture.  I think including books like this one into my future teaching will be key in teaching material that could be relevant to students from diverse backgrounds.

This book teaches about various musical genres from Latin American and Caribbean origins, such as the dance forms samba, mambo, rumba, and tango, in addition to putting them into geographical and historical context.  I like that it talks not only about the influence of Europe’s colonization of these areas and how that influenced the music’s developments through time, but it also provides great illustrations of various terms that not all students would be familiar with.  It would be great to use as source to contextualize material for primary grade students in a general music classroom.