Music’s Matthew L. Garrett shares research on LGBTQ+ studies and music education

Matthew L. Garrett, PhD, professor of music education at Case Western Reserve University’s College of Arts and Sciences, shared his praxial research on LGBTQ+ studies and music education with "Queering Music Teacher Education,” a chapter in the new Oxford Handbook of Queer and Gender Studies in Music Education.

The first-of-its-kind, the handbook offers philosophical, theoretical and practical perspectives on gender and queer research studies in music education. 

In the chapter, Garrett argued that music teacher educators who incorporate topics representing gender and sexually diverse (GSD) persons in music teacher education programs create opportunities to engage a broad spectrum of individuals. 

"When music teacher educators increase the visibility of GSD topics in music teacher education curricula, we prevent the silencing of GSD persons, and we reinforce equitable music education opportunities for all students,” he said. 

Garrett is in-demand as an LGBTQ+ scholar in music education, having authored the first peer-reviewed scholarship (2010) on LGBTQ+ studies in a mainstream U.S. music education research journal. 

In 2026, he was invited to speak about his work by the German Federal Association for Music Education and presented at the International Society for Music Education World Conference in Montreal, Canada.