Jere T. Humphreys
Influences of Cultural Policy on
Education in Music and the other Arts

Ideally, policies are plans for action that aim toward the achievement of the
greatest good for the greatest number of people, while taking into account the rights and
needs of individuals and various minority groups. Today, when we think of policymaking we think first of the nation-state, the world’s foremost political entity, although
other types of entities generate policies as well. Regardless of the source, in practice
policy-making often represents the interests of political and other special groups. Far too
often, policies purported to support aspects of culture such education, music, and the
other arts reflect interests that have little or nothing to do with education or the arts.
In the Balkans, policies made by governments, churches, and other institutions
have tended to support the production, dissemination, teaching, and preservation of
certain forms of visual art and music based on classical European models. This
phenomenon can be seen in many other parts of the world--North and South America,
Australia and New Zealand, Africa, and the Orient--to name only some of the other major
regions. However, European/North American hegemony in the world of art can be seen
as a microcosm of the domination of those regions in other realms--including philosophy,
science, and economics--as well as in the cultural/artistic sphere. Similarly, domination of
the mass culture market by American products such as rock music, popular films, “fast
food” (e.g., Coca Cola, McDonald’s), and blue jeans reflects that nation’s current
superpower status.

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Even more than in the past, nation-states base their cultural and other policies on
global concerns. This is because the process of establishing connections across numerous
realms of human discourse and activity, called globalization, is increasing at a dizzying
rate. To my knowledge, no one fully predicted globalization and its results, although in
retrospect the historical path seems reasonably clear. From the beginning of specialized
labor in the Neolithic period until relatively recent times, the production of life’s
necessities required the labor of most of the world’s population, primarily in
hunting/gathering and then in agriculture. The industrial age, which emerged due to
advances in mechanical and chemical technology, enabled a smaller proportion of
workers to provide goods and services for the entire population than was the case during
the agricultural period. This was achieved in part because industrial-age advances in
technology and delivery systems led to the production of more standardized products.
Public schools constitute an important vehicle for the implementation of
governmental policies, cultural and otherwise. Schools during the agricultural era, in the
United States for example, tended to be one-room affairs that mirrored the geographic,
demographic, and work patterns of that particular economic system. Not surprisingly,
industrial-era schools became arenas for the training of future factory workers who would
produce standardized products. Toward that end, schools and school systems operated
like factories, with school boards serving as boards of directors, superintendents as chief
executive officers (CEO’s), principals as managers, teachers as workers, and students as
products—with the entire enterprise driven largely by the perceived needs of the
workplace. Increasingly, curriculum was prescribed for the workers, and school
scheduling practices implemented by the managers rivaled those found in the most

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regimented factories. The need for more highly trained workers and the demands of a
more complex, increasingly urbanized society led to more standardized and ostensibly
more efficient schooling.
Currently, spectacular advances in technology, especially information-related
systems, are leading to significant changes in the nature of people’s work. In this postindustrial, information age, an even smaller proportion of workers can provide necessities
and even luxuries to the population at large. One of the many, and I think unforeseen,
results of current technological advances and the related globalization is that workers are
now expected to provide not only standardized products, but also specialized, highquality goods and services to individuals and different types of groups. Consequently, the
business world is moving away from its hierarchical structures and toward think-tanks
and other small groups that produce new ideas, products, and services.
As in previous eras, social and economic changes continue to manifest themselves
in the form of pressure on governments to alter their policies on general education and
education in the arts. To facilitate participation in the global economy, today’s schools
are expected to foster an entirely different set of behaviors, skills, knowledge, and
attitudes from those needed during the agricultural and industrial eras. The economydriven need to produce and sell more specialized goods and services leads to policies
aimed toward educating people to think and work in very different ways from those
required by the industrial economy, such as the ability and willingness to listen to,
understand, and take directions from a leader (teacher or shop foreman).
Because music and to varying degrees the other arts belong to a very small group
of sociologically universal human practices, every culture develops ways of transmitting

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arts-related skills from one generation to the next. In the world’s more complex cultures,
specialist teachers teach subjects deemed too important to be left to chance so as to free
most adults for other tasks, while at the same time insuring a relatively high level of
teaching expertise. This places education in music and the other arts primarily under the
aegis of the school system, whose policies derive from social, economic, and political
concerns as well as the purely academic.
The post industrial, information-age world is now upon us, and most so-called
developed nations are implementing new sets of policies intended to serve the needs and
demands of globalization. However, globalization creates conflict within and among
nation-states over the extent to which everyone’s culture should be the same versus the
extent to which various aspects of culture should differ. The dialectic resulting from this
dichotomy manifests itself in two parallel sets of policies. One set seeks to develop
uniform practices within and among nation-states, whereas the other set is intended to
maintain certain features of cultural diversity while simultaneously fostering individual
creativity. It is hoped that policies designed to facilitate pan-national similarities and
understandings will in turn facilitate pan-national correspondence and trade. Given the
pressures of globalization in this direction, it is not surprising to find more and more
similarities in the policies of nation-states toward many things, among them policies
related to culture—education, music, and the other arts among them. Indeed, even the
desire to develop the capacity to produce a wider array of goods and services has led to
rather similar policies among (and within) nation-states.
The reasons policies aimed toward facilitating diversity and individual creativity
contribute to globalization are perhaps less transparent. Here, educational policies

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increasingly aim toward training people to think independently and creatively and to
work productively in small groups, both necessary attributes in an environment that
requires the production, marketing, and distribution of new goods and services to
individuals and increasingly numerous and diverse niche groups.
Some of this dialectic results from the time lag between social and economic
changes in society and the emergence of related policies directed toward education and
the arts. For example, in Europe and North America, industrialization and urbanization
created a need for universal education long before full implementation of mandatory
schooling occurred. Nevertheless, one result of all these forces in the development and
implementation of policy is a rapidly changing environment for education and the arts.
While many countries are currently developing similar policies toward arts
education, at the same time each country emphasizes different sides of the dichotomy. In
other words, some nations’ policies toward education and the arts emphasize similarities
among cultures, while others place more emphasis on differences. Countries whose
policies lean toward supporting local and national issues tend to advocate the teaching of
indigenous folk music. Indonesia, for one, sees its traditional folk music as a cultural
product with commercial/economic value in and of itself. At least partly for that reason,
Indonesia’s cultural policies are directed unabashedly toward resisting Western
influences, and some of its specific policies governing music in the schools are aimed
overtly at counteracting the influences of commercial rock music. An example closer to
Macedonia comes from Croatia, where the curriculum for children ages six through
eleven states openly the policy-makers’ intention to educate students in Croatian
literature, language, art, and music. It is impossible to determine to what extent policies

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from Indonesia, Croatia, and other countries are driven by nationalism and related issues
as opposed to economic concerns, but goals aimed at developing national pride are
mentioned explicitly in the arts education policy statements of many nations.
A recent survey of governmental policies toward music education in the schools
from sixteen nations, from all continents except the Americas, reveals other similarities
among nations. One clear international trend is increasing support in recent years for arts
education, especially music education. All sixteen nations have adopted sweeping new
curricula in the arts since 1990, and all now mandate some type of education in the arts,
typically music. Most stress individual student development or expression and so-called
critical thinking. Arts education is now seen as an effective means for helping students
develop their individual creative abilities and for learning to work together in small
groups. An additional reason is that unique, diverse experiences in the arts can be linked
to standards of excellence applied to the development of the specialized high-quality
goods and services demanded by the global economy. The policy statements of some of
these same countries also specifically include goals related to improving international
understanding.
Eighteenth-century singing schools in Great Britain’s North American colonies
received neither regulation nor support from governmental entities. Instead, they were
private affairs whose goal was to improve singing in churches. In contrast, today
governments make and implement policies that govern arts education, and these policy
decisions are influenced by an array of forces, many of them economic. Involvement in
the arts is beginning to be seen as something that can fuse thinking, action, and creativity

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into a single problem-solving endeavor—which of course can enhance performance in
certain desired social, economic, political, and individual student domains.
The ability of the music industry to blanket much of the world with commercial
products, which is both an economic and a social force, affects policy-making in music
and arts education. Policy-making is driven by many other factors as well, including
changing political realities and new paradigms in such disparate fields as psychology,
sociology, education, aesthetics, and philosophy. For example, everywhere I travel in the
world music educators and others want to discuss the so-called Mozart effect, whereby
certain types of music exposure are said to improve children’s academic abilities.
Unquestionably, the Mozart effect is a driving force behind some of the increasing
support for music education—something that can be attributed to both economic interests
and new psychological theories. In this case, the initial “brain” research studies were
funded by the Los Angeles-based National Association of Music Merchants, and the
results fit in with theories of multiple intelligences, theories that are not at all new but are
currently in vogue. Moreover, all too often a pending political election can lead to policy
changes regarding education—with a politician seeking to become “the education
governor” or “president,” or in some cases to partially privatize education due to a certain
political ideology. Fortunately, some motivations for policy-making are more
straightforward, such as the desire to prepare people for richer, fuller lives in ways other
than financial through participation in music and the other arts.
It is more difficult to analyze actual practice resulting from policy than policy
statements themselves. Currently in the United States, research, anecdotal evidence, and
personal observation suggest that policies on arts education set forth by the federal

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government and leading arts education organizations are not being followed widely.
Education in that country is the constitutional responsibility of the fifty states, with only
eight percent of education funding provided by the federal government, although the
federal government’s influence on state and local policy is greater than its funding share.
Compliance with national policies toward the arts and arts education, including music
education, appears to be higher in countries with strong federal control over education.
Related to the issue of compliance is the effectiveness of specific policies over
time. At present, there are no proven mechanisms for evaluating the effectiveness of most
cultural policies. There are at least three reasons for this. First, policies tend to be made
by government officials, few of whom ever see research results or have significant
contact with artists, musicians, teachers, or students. One result is that policies seldom
include clearly defined goals. Second, even in rare cases where policies are highly
relevant and specific, evaluation is time-consuming, expensive, and often intrusive. A
third reason is that all too often policies change before their effects can be assessed.
Sometimes these changes occur as a response to legitimate changing circumstances, but
some changes in governmental and other policies seem to be driven by a need to maintain
or enhance a given bureaucracy by attempting to make itself appear “modern” or current,
or just so it will be perceived as “doing something.”
Policies regarding music and the other arts extend beyond those applied to
schools. There is a wide range of cultural heritage projects, like the Institute for the
Archiving of Music (IRAM) that we are celebrating this week. UNESCO considers the
arts one of the “Four Pillars” of knowledge and skill to be addressed by education in the
twenty-first century. In recent years, UNESCO, the European Parliament, and the Nordic

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Council of Ministers have published policies regarding lifelong learning, including
learning in the arts. Similar policies are geared toward music programs for very young
children, the elderly, and the handicapped, as well as various types of community arts
programs.
In a few cases, policies regarding arts and music education now address styles of
teaching and learning as well as subject content. Many private and some public
organizations are even advocating certain pedagogies, a domain historically relegated to
the control of individual teachers. Efforts aimed toward dictating pedagogy are motivated
by an array of forces also, including new psychological beliefs about the nature of
cognition, the economy-driven reasons given earlier relative to individual and smallgroup work, and sociological power/hegemony-driven arguments, which are essentially
attempts to alter the social and economic status quo. Although some private agencies are
concerning themselves with this level of micromanagement, I have found few
government policies directed toward pedagogy per se.
Anthropologists, sociologists, historians, ethnomusicologists, and others lament
the loss of specific languages, musics, and other aspects of culture throughout the world.
Preservation of cultural products is not mentioned specifically in most education policies,
but fortunately it is a concern among other policy-makers. Policy-makers should consider
that some of the most effective and long-lasting means of preserving cultural products—
such as musics, dances, films, plays, and so forth--occur as a direct result of education of
the young. In other words, policies and the resulting programs that link cultural
preservation and adult awareness projects like IRAM with various types of arts education
programs could serve both ends of the globalization continuum. Cultural diversity, pan-

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cultural crossovers, preservation, and the resulting economic benefits would accrue,
while the technologies developed and applied would be exported—with considerable
attention given to the transmission of cultural heritage, technology, and international
understanding to future generations.