ERIC Number: EJ851883
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2009-Aug
Pages: 32
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0018-2680
EISSN: N/A
Singing the Nation into Being: Teaching Identity and Culture at the Turn of the Twentieth Century
Sargeant, Lynn M.
History of Education Quarterly, v49 n3 p291-322 Aug 2009
In this article, the author compares the music education in the United States and the Russian Empire at the turn of the twentieth century. In both countries, music educators struggled to secure a permanent role for vocal music in the school. By comparing Russian music instruction to that in the United States, educators can better understand not only how each system served national cultural needs, but also why school music became such an educational battlefield in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Both American and Russian music educators saw themselves as participants in a pedagogical experiment that transcended national boundaries. Music educators in both countries, however, seemed to fear that their nations remained cultural, as well as geographical, outliers of "civilized" and "modern" Europe. Properly chosen songs, they believed, would reinforce faith in the nation and acceptance of its values, while the process of music instruction would instill modern values of cooperation, discipline, and time management. Thus, the introduction of effective musical instruction into the schools offered an opportunity not only to define, but also to tame the nation. (Contains 54 footnotes.)
Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Music Education, Music Teachers, Music, Singing, Comparative Analysis, Role of Education, Time Management, Cultural Education, Educational History, Coding
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: Elementary Secondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Russia; United States
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A