ABSTRACT
This chapter is a reflection on processes of enclosure and abjection in school music in the United States. To begin, the musical life of Woody Guthrie is considered in order to position poor and rural populations as a creative class, particularly in the development of American roots music in the American southwest. This music was subsequently enclosed (appropriated, gentrified and standardised) as part of two musical streams: the American folk music revival and country music’s Bakersfield sound. The first stream came to be valued among urban intellectuals and was eventually included in the school music curriculum. The second stream, on the other hand—still popular among poor, rural and working-class Americans—has been ignored and/or denigrated in American music education. The chapter concludes with a discussion of how this latter phenomenon is an example of abjection: even though marginalised groups may themselves be included in school music, their musical values and practices are not fully embraced.
