Abstract
Music based differentiation in teaching-learning strategies in education is a path less traveled by scholars, teachers, and practitioners. With this foregoing, this study deems to apply music perspectives that would offer a human-centric pathway in addressing gaps in systemic educational equity. Hence, the creation of a Quality-Managed Inclusive Music Education (QMIME) framework in this descriptive qualitative action research. This study is designed as a strategy for educational equity within the private schools in the Philippines with the premise to integrate differentiated education by designing a quality-managed inclusive music framework to aid in addressing the teaching-learning gap for Learners with Disabilities (LWD). This can be made possible through the enhancement of academic performance, classroom participation, and focus that are rooted in the principles of total quality management for education. Using Tomlinson’s (Tomlinson, 2014) Differentiated Instruction Theory––adaptations are related to specific groups, within diverse classrooms, individualization, and in a system perspective (Eikeland and Ohna’s, 2021). Plan–Do–Check–Act (PDCA) total quality management framework was also paramount in this study, while structured interview transcripts of experts and practitioners as respondents were used for data analysis. Hence, the study purports that behavioral stability and cultural familiarity may lower cognitive load and normalizes sensory baselines as a result of vital process control mechanisms through the adaptation of the proposed Quality-Managed Inclusive Music (QMIM) framework.
Keywords: Differentiation, inclusion, Learners with Disabilities (LWD), Special Education (SPED), Quality-Managed Inclusive Music Education (QMIME), Plan–Do–Check–Act (PDCA)