Melanie Stapleton
Ph.D. Student (2nd year)
melaniestapleton2027@u.northwestern.edu
B.M. Music Education – Louisiana State University
M.M. Music Education – University of North Texas
Areas of interest
Gender, sexuality, and social justice music education
Diversity, equity, inclusion, and access in the music classroom
A native of Plano, Texas, Melanie Stapleton is a 2nd year Ph.D. student in music education with an interdisciplinary certificate in Gender and Sexuality Studies. She holds a Bachelor’s of Music Education from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, LA and a Master’s of Music Education from the University of North Texas in Denton, TX. She has taught in all levels of K-12 music, spending the majority of her teaching career as a secondary choral teacher in Houston, Texas. Her website, Blurring the Binary, is one of the leading resources for K-12 music educators focusing on instructing transgender and non-binary students in the music classroom. She has presented sessions at many professional music conferences including National ACDA, TMEA, TCDA, and AzMEA, and guest lectured at numerous universities across the country. Stapleton has published chapters in Marginalized Voices in Music Education, the forthcoming Oxford Handbook for Gender and Queer Studies in Music Education and the forthcoming Australian Music Examinations Board’s companion textbook for the Certificate Teacher of Music Australia (CTMusA). Her research interests include gender, sexuality, and social justice in music education, as well as topics of diversity, equity, inclusion, and access in the music classroom.