Investigation of music curriculum in Hong Kong: In search of balanced approaches to the teaching and learning of Putonghua songs

Ti Wei CHEN

Research output: Contribution to conferencePapers

Abstract

Since the reunion of Hong Kong and China in 1997, Hong Kong has changed its national anthem from god save the queen to march of the volunteers. Such political transform has manifestly aggravated significant changes in society, which undoubtedly influence the content and design of school curriculum (Curriculum Development Council, 2002). As Putonghua (i.e. The official language of mainland China) has been taught in Hong Kong schools as language and education policy for seventeen years, measurable outcomes and impact on music curriculum would be an important measure to strengthen national identity (Brand & Ho, 1999). However, Cantonese remains to be the most widely used language in hung Kong (Leung & Lee, 2006). As indicated by previous research (Law, 1997), the current phenomena of the learning and teaching of Putonghua music curriculum and its effectiveness in terms of execution is unclear and inconclusive. Hence, there is a great need to investigate Putonghua songs in the context of education, history, culture, politics, and sociology. This project aims to study student teachers’ perception (as future music teachers) towards the learning and teaching of Putonghua songs in view of enhancing nationalisation, Chinese cultural heritage and values education during post colonial period. The preliminary findings will be discussed based on the context of neocolonization in Hong Kong, i.e. Music teachers’ awareness and resistance towards Putonghua songs and national anthem, how such political, cultural, social and educational shift change the development and delivery of local music curriculum, national identity and national education, multiculturalism, and academic research.
Original languageEnglish
Publication statusPublished - Jul 2014

Citation

Chen, T.-W. (2014, July). Investigation of music curriculum in Hong Kong: In search of balanced approaches to the teaching and learning of Putonghua songs. Paper presented at the 31st International Society for Music Education (ISME) World Conference on Music Education: Listening to the musical diversity of the world, Porto Alegre, Brazil.

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