Popular Music, Youth and Education Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Popular Music, Youth and Education - Essay Example Green’s Music on Deaf Ears: Musical Meaning, Ideology and Education explains the status that popular music plays on a social standpoint. Green explains that the set-up of music in classrooms came about because of the roles and eventual division social classes in society. Because the only way to measure skills and set classifications for music was based on the performances of the students, the students who received the most education had enough money for private lessons (Green 51). Therefore, on a social level, it was the higher-class students whose parents set the standard for what music was going to be like in the school system. The study showed that students who had parents that were higher up on the social ladder were more interested in music than students who had parents lower on the social ladder (Green, pp 47-48). The higher class of students also had a higher appreciation for the classical training and thought they had a better understanding of the need, awareness and w isdom that this music brought to an educational setting (Green, 51). The willingness to learn and the likelihood that the students in the higher classes listened to this type of music out of the classroom were higher than students who did not receive this opportunity (Green, 52). The liking of classical music in the upper division and the fact that students who were fond of popular music over classical music not being represented in this study shows the role that music played in society and the relevance in education (Green, 45, 48).