William J. Coppola joins the UNT College of Music as Assistant Professor of Music Education in Fall 2018. Dr. Coppola’s primary research interest examines the role of humility and egoism as they pertain to the cultivation of prosocial musical engagements in music education. He has recently published a co-authored book on issues of inclusion and diversity in instrumental music education for the Routledge World Music Pedagogy Series, edited by Patricia Shehan Campbell. Additional research interests include positive psychology of music education, social justice in music education, cultural diversity in music education, music education philosophy, and collective identity formation in participatory musical settings.

Dr. Coppola has presented his research nationally and internationally, including the NAfME Music Research & Teacher Education National Conference, the Cultural Diversity in Music Education conference in Kathmandu, Nepal, the International Society of Music Education conference in Glasgow, Scotland, and the International Ethnomusicology Symposium of the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. He recently completed his PhD in music education at the University of Washington, where he taught undergraduate and graduate courses in music teacher education (including elementary teaching methods and jazz pedagogy) and served as the Student Teaching Supervisor for the music education program. Dr. Coppola is a certified Smithsonian Folkways World Music Pedagogy and Kodály educator. Before beginning his PhD studies, he was an elementary music director for New York City Public Schools, where he taught PK–5th grade general music, band, chorus, bucket drumming, and directed the annual musical. Dr. Coppola also served as the Vice President of the Kodály Organization of New York (KONY).