Singing and cultural understanding: A music education perspective

Abstract

This article explores the relationship between singing and cultural understanding. Singing emerges in infancy and develops through processes of enculturation and socialization. When we sing songs from diverse cultures, we are granted with opportunities to learn about the cultures of others, and gain a better understanding of our own. Thus, singing songs from different cultures may play important roles in the construction of our identities and in how we perceive and understand others, and ultimately ourselves. Cultural understanding, however, is complex in nature and multi-layered. Even if research findings concerning the relationship between singing and cultural understanding are mixed, we argue that there is value in enhancing students’ cultural understanding through singing multicultural songs. Singing multicultural songs can also promote the well being of students. It is beyond the education of music. It is about a comprehensive education of humans as social beings and music as a human endeavor.