Values, Music and Education in China

Overview & Synopsis

This article examines the complexity of the education of values in the People's Republic of China (PRC) since the beginning of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). It attempts to provide an insight into how the central state has managed the values of music education with respect to the dynamic changes to its political ideology across these four decades. It explores how the Chinese Communist government uses music to articulate a sense of corporate identity around traditional values and Communist ideology, whilst being responsive to the demands of the contemporary world. The main argument of this article is that the Chinese state is the primary agent of cultural transformation in music education, which, as such, has continued to play a significant role in determining musical knowledge as a sociopolitical disciplining of society. The challenges to values education in China's music education are the interplay between Communist ideology and contemporary values, and that between Communist revolutionary music and other contemporary musical styles.