Music Appreciation Classes as Education for Intercultural Understanding　－Through Exchange of Critiques on Kumamoto Prefecture Yoshino Kagura and Nisemoto Kagura－

The "Seoul Agenda: Goals for the Development of Arts Education," a major outcome of UNESCO's Second World Conference on Arts Education (2010), shows how arts education should be conducted in the future throughout the world. The following strategy is particularly noteworthy as perspectives that have been lacking in arts education in Japan: "Support and enhance the role of arts education in the promotion of social responsibility, social cohesion, cultural diversity and intercultural dialogue". Focusing on this strategy above, this study plans and puts into practice a specific example of a new kind of appreciation education for junior high school music classes. The aims and methods of this practice are based on the "Guidebook (junior high school edition) for New Music Appreciation Classes Incorporating Critiques－Discovering, Thinking, Creating, and Broadening Enjoyable Appreciation－." The lesson practice proposed in this study attempts to realize exchange between different cultures through music appreciation. Students from two junior high schools in Kumamoto Prefecture together watch performances of the Kagura music of their respective regions and then write critiques to convey to each other the distinctive characteristics of the music and what they felt about it. Music appreciation education as a means of intercultural understanding and the writing of critiques on musicare methods that have been used before. However, there are not many actual examples of dialogue and exchange of critiques among people with different cultural background. As a more realistic method of educational practice in intercultural understanding in the field of music class teaching, the results of this project provide valuable suggestions for appreciation education in the future