Popular culture and music education in China

Abstract

Since the economic reform and opening to the world in the late 1970s, China's transition from a planned to a socialist-market economy has brought forth changes in many aspects of social and cultural life, and these changes are reflected in the school music curriculum. The paper will firstly introduce the popular culture artifacts in both the community and in school music curriculum in China. When the Chinese government launched a new wave of campaigns to assimilate popular culture into school education and music education in particular, what remained unchanged is the zeal with which the state strives to transform popular culture into something, be it political ideology or an integration of socialist and Confucian educational ideals. Secondly, the paper will analyze three pairs of social and political relationships that shape music education and cultural identity in the school curriculum in China: (i) between contemporary cultural and social values and traditional Chinese ideologies; (ii) between collectivism and individualism; (ii) between nationalism and globalism. The paper will then show how the Chinese state has attempted to emphasize the cultivation of character education and morality in order to lessen these tensions in values education through school music education. This paper argues that, despite the introduction and emphasis on popular culture in some areas of school music education, the state uses traditional Chinese culture and values to enhance its legitimacy and consolidate its authority.