Multiculturalism in a Singapore music classroom

Multiculturalism has been in the national blood of Singapore for many generations. Its relevance and, indeed, importance for Singapore have far from waned. In the wake of increased globalizing initiatives since the 1990s, music multiculturalism in the modern Singapore education system continued to evolve in its implementational guises. A significant milestone was reached when world musics were introduced into the national music examination syllabus in 2000. This understandably prompted some rethinking of how music should be taught in schools and in turn how music teachers should be equipped. This chapter presents the curricular approach that the author has developed in the past two decades for preparing music student teachers at the National Institute of Education in Singapore for a school music curriculum that has become increasingly multicultural in content and in changing ways at that as a result of the broader national agenda. Two teaching vignettes illustrate how the teaching of the subject content has been approached. The author then reflects on this in relation to the western Culturally Responsive Pedagogy (CRP) movement to elucidate how the curricular approach developed here stems from the unique sociocultural and educational context of Singapore.