Dr. Lloyd McArton

Dr. Lloyd McArton (he/him) is a Canadian settler and Assistant Professor of Music Education in University of Lethbridge’s Faculty of Education. Prior to moving to Lethbridge, he taught courses in music education and popular music performance at University of Toronto where he earned his PhD and MA degrees in Music Education. As a multi-instrumentalist, Lloyd has spent his musical career playing with digital and acoustic instruments, amplification, MIDI, and music technology for recording and performance. In addition to his background in music education and five years of training in classical saxophone performance, he has studied music technology and music theory at the graduate level. 

Teaching Interests

Lloyd’s objective as an educator revolves around creating experiences that reflect students’ interests, experiences and goals. He strives to continue developing his expertise as a learning designer and educational resource that students can draw upon in working towards open-ended projects that are meaningful to them. He is wary of the ways in which educational institutions can impose power and control over students, and has spent nearly two decades as an educator in various settings finding creative ways to subvert this dynamic to empower students’ learning. Part of his fixation with enabling students’ individual and collective interests stems from his experience as an educator at two Montessori schools. At one school, he helped to develop a music program from the ground up, which was based entirely on a flexible structure that enabled students to pursue individual and collectively negotiated pursuits. This approach was also inspired by 12 years teaching private lessons, mostly in guitar but also bass, saxophone, ukulele, piano, digital audio workstations and music theory. In both classroom and individual settings, Lloyd has witnessed the great benefit of celebrating learners’ existing and intrinsic connections to music.

Research Interests

As a researcher, Lloyd seeks to identify and address issues of inequity in music education. His goal as a researcher is to explore ways and means to improve public music education through thoughtful shifts toward student-centered learning models. He believes that the central aim of music education is to develop skills and understandings for the purposes of personal and collective fulfillment from engaging with music. To do so, one needs to respect and account for students’ vast diversity in Canadian schools. He focuses on public music education because publicly funded schools have a responsibility to meet the needs and interests of its constituent students. His primary research areas are: music teacher education; popular music education; music technology and education; music careers and leisure; and music, health, and well-being. Recent research projects include: a quantitative analysis of Western Art Music representation in Canadian undergraduate music education programs using a custom database data collection method; developing and running a music program at an Alternative High School in Lethbridge, and exploring the possibilities of in-service mentorship for out-of-field music teaching in an informal school music setting; and developing and applying an integrative review method to comprehensive journal-based content analysis.