As the title suggests, this book is concerned with the dynamics between globalization and nationalism in school music education. This is closely related to my own personal education and research experience over the last two decades – my bewilderment with and reflections on the prescribed texts and their discussion of how education juggles the relationships between global and national cultures. This book will attempt to trace and examine these efforts through a reflective and critical analysis that responds to the evolving sociopolitical environment and makes the contents of the music education curriculum socially relevant.

Globalization and nationalism are recognized as driving forces for change in today's school education. Since the early 1990s, many nations, both Western and non-Western, have recognized that teaching and learning are complex activities that incorporate the need to negotiate between national and global frames of reference that have evolved from social and cultural contexts. This negotiation has been reflected in the struggles between the socio-economic, political, and cultural tasks of curricula within and between communities and throughout the world. Cultural diversity, exchange, and hybridity have become facts of life in education. For many, globalization as knowledge, as found in data and ideas, has amounted to new horizons, but it has also challenged the imagery of a state-centric world in education. At the same time, nations regard education as something that should be homogenized by the official authorities in school education, as is perceived to be the case in China, Japan, and Korea.