Higher education is an important resource for any country, and it serves as the key agent in forming a better society. The development of higher education has aroused widespread concerns among stakeholders in the sector, including policymakers, university administrators, academics, parents, and students. While there is a growing trend toward incorporating general education into the compulsory curriculum of higher education, this topic is under-researched. The broader societal benefits of including cultural understanding in higher education have received less attention, but these benefits are fundamental to the well-being of society. No direct research between the learning and teaching of cultures or musical cultures in higher education can be found in academic references. Dialogue on this issue will help to map humanities and social studies, education policies, and practices in contemporary and future higher education. This book addresses the overriding issues concerning the consequences of links between higher education and social change. The main objective of this book is to present information and scholarly research on the development of and challenges to social change, cultures, and higher education in Hong Kong. Major trends and movements in the literature of education and their effects on cultural diversity and social experiences will be reviewed in order to develop a framework for the study of diverse cultures and higher education. This study will trace the development of education and cultures and musical cultures in Hong Kong from 1984 to 1989 framed by the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration Agreement, as well as the return of Hong Kong’s political sovereignty from the United Kingdom to Mainland China on July 1, 1997. It will also discuss the sociopolitical contexts and cultural practices of the Hong Kong Chinese community and show how the interactions between globalization, localization, and Chinesenization have created their respective conditions under the influence of diverse musical cultures. Particular reference will be made to a study of the General Education Course “Music, Culture, and Society”, which is one of the core requirements offered in the history and civilization category at Hong Kong Baptist University. The principal research question of the study focuses on two issues: To what extent might students be helped in knowing and understanding music and society, and how might such cultural and social awareness be perceived by students and inform contemporary educational practices? This study will report the researcher’s recent survey data and the students’ assignments collected from the general education course, delivered to three different sessions of the course “Music, Culture and Society” between Spring 213 and Autumn 214. The data will also include the students’ reflection assignments on the 214 Umbrella Movement, where popular songs were used to support pro-democratic activities.

About the Author

Wai-Chung received her PhD in music education from the Institute of Education at the University of London, and is now a professor in the Department of Music at Hong Kong Baptist University. Her substantive research interests include the education curricula, the sociology of music and the comparative study of East Asian music education. Her research has focused on interlinked areas of development, education policy, and reform in school education, as well as on values in education across school curricula in Chinese contexts, including Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Wai-Chung is a frequent contributor to leading international research journals in the fields of education, music education, and cultural studies, and has been published in such top-ranked journals as the Social History, British Journal of Music Education, International Journal of Music Education, and Music Education Research. Her book, School Music Education and Social Change in Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan (Brill, 2011) examines recent reforms and innovations in school music education within these changing Chinese societies, and compares, from a socio-political perspective, how music education in Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Taipei has adjusted to the forces of globalization, localization, and Sinification, and complex relationship between cultural diversity and political change in these three localities.