Amanda C. Soto is the Assistant Professor of Music Education at Texas State University, where she teaches undergraduate and graduate music education courses and serves as the chapter advisor for the Collegiate Texas Music Educators student organization. She co-teaches the Smithsonian Folkways Certification Course in World Music Pedagogy. She earned a B.A. degree in Music Education from the University of North Texas and received a M.A. in Ethnomusicology and a Ph.D. in Music Education from the University of Washington. Dr. Soto has undertaken certification studies in Orff and Kodály pedagogical approaches and holds a certification in world music pedagogy from the Smithsonian Institute. She is also a College Music Society board member representing music education and is the Texas Music Educators Conference Collegiate Chair for the state of Texas. She is co-chair of the Cultural Diversity and Social Justice Areas of Strategic Planning and Action (ASPA) and of the Education Section from the Society of Ethnomusicology.
Dr. Soto’s research interests include cultural diversity and social justice in music education, bimusical sensibilities of children, world music pedagogy, technology in music education, and the study of regional musics of South Texas and Mexican music. Her publications may be found in the Music Educators Journal, Journal of Research in Music Education, the International Journal of Ethnomusicology Studies of World Music and Dance Education, and the Multicultural Perspectives in Music Education series.
She has presented clinical workshops and research at the National Association for Music Education (NAfME) conference, the NAfME Northwest Division Conference, the Washington and Idaho Music Educators Association state conferences, the national and international College of Music Society conferences, the Society for Ethnomusicology national conference, Ethnomusicology Symposium at the University of Dar es Salaam, the Asia-Pacific Symposium on Music Education Research, the international conference on Cultural Diversity in Music Education, and the International Society for Music Education conference.