Music diversity in music education: A multiple case study of music teacher training programs in Thailand

Abstract

Awareness of social and cultural diversity is one of the concepts inherited from the 1997 Constitution of the Kingdom of Thailand, which led to the subsequent revision of several related laws, including the National Education Act of 1999. Despite the country’s strong cultural diversity, centralized governance has resulted in culture from the Central region becoming representative of the nation’s culture. Likewise in music, Thai music education has been dominated by music from the Central region, so-called Thai classical music, and Western music. This study is interested in the response of the music teacher training curriculum to the principles of cultural diversity. Thailand has music teacher training courses distributed throughout institutions across the country, which can be divided into three groups: 1) teacher colleges; 2) research universities; and 3) music conservatories. Nine teacher training courses from different regions of the country with local cultural differences were selected. The results showed that music teacher training programs in Thailand place importance on cultural diversity at different degrees depending on their missions and social and cultural contexts. Importantly, the adaptability of folk music to changing social and cultural contexts remains an important factor affecting the survival of folk music in Thai society.