Popular Music, Cultural Politics and Music Education in China

To date, no single publication has addressed the interplay of sociopolitical transformations underlying the development of popular music and music education in the multilevel culture of China. Before the implementation of new curriculum reform in China, there was neither Chinese nor Western popular music in textbook materials. Popular culture had long been prohibited in school music education by China’s strong revolutionary orientation, which feared ’spiritual pollution’ by Western cultures. This book addresses the power and potential use of popular music in school music education as a producer and reproducer of cultural politics in the music curriculum in the mainland.