Children's Playground Music as Cultural Expressions in Ghanaian Schools

247 p.Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2004.This research discusses some Ghanaian cultural values and music pedagogy that are embedded in children's playground repertoire. After 4 months of fieldwork I analyzed a body of children's playground repertoire in terms of cultural values, artistry and imagination, and contemporary and religious influences. I focus on how children and adults acquire music knowledge in the indigenous context and what it offers to formal music education. Music education in the Ghanaian communities is largely participatory so children perform their clapping, singing, and dancing games by watching and doing. The indigenous music context, including children's playground music, provides some practical answers to curriculum reforms embarked upon in Ghana to lessen the disparity between playground music pedagogy and classroom pedagogy in Ghana. Finally, I offer recommendations to Ghanaian music educators for incorporating indigenous music and pedagogy.U of I OnlyRestricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETD