Rethinking Colonialism: Korean Primary School Music Education during the Japanese Colonial Rule of Korea, 1910–1945

Abstract

Colonialism is the control or governing influence of nation over dependent country, territory, or people. Fundamentally, colonialism involves the economic exploitation of occupied territories in one form or another. The introduction of Western is often used as an argument for perceived positive aspects of colonialism. In many societies, formal schooling is an important institution of transmitting knowledge and culture from generation to generation, and for developing human traits that contribute to economic output, social stability and the production of new knowledge. (1) Educators also claim that schooling plays crucial role in the understanding of societal phenomena and the process of learning itself. In underdeveloped countries in particular, better schooling for the parents and pupils is seen as key to successful career, higher incomes, and better status. Colonial creates social mobility for the poor, shifting them from life in poverty to prosperity. Colonial governments, however, usually exerted little effort in opening schools, because their main aim was to extend foreign domination, enable economic exploitation, and provide settlement for their own population. (2) Although schooling was portrayed as key for achieving economic growth and improvement, in reality, schooling in colonies was established to develop and continue the influence of the imperial countries and to help them control the colonized. (3) Colonial systems were often of inferior quality and were restricted to limited part of the colonized population. According to Aime Cesaire, colonial was a parody of education, the hasty manufacture of few thousand subordinate functionaries, 'boys,' artisans, office clerks, and interpreters necessary for the smooth operation of business. (4) One of the aims of colonial was the assimilation of the occupier's culture by the colonized. Gauri Viswanathan claims that cultural assimilation is the most effective form of political action. (5) However, this cultural assimilation usually happens by force: forceful mental control implemented through schooling. Therefore, Philip Altbach and Gail Kelly find that education in colonies seems directed at absorption into the metropole and not separate and dependent development of the colonized in their own society and culture. (6) This cultural assimilation frequently intends to brainwash colonized people through education. However, depending on the colonizers, this system of assimilation varies. For instance, the French in North Africa wanted to fulfil its colonial goals. (7) British Malaya, however, had colonial system that freely used different languages--Malay, Chinese, English, and Tamil--and was independent of the aims and curricula of the colonial government. (8) Music is common tool to promote people's emotion. During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, an increased form of nationalism swept the world, and nationalists used music to establish national identity but without regard for children's culture. (9) Music plays crucial role because music itself has an enduring power and a tremendous power to move people in any direction, towards peaceful and noble goals, or violent and destructive ones. (10) Hebert outlines what happens when music is used for political purposes: When music is used for patriotic or nationalistic purposes, on one hand, the role and larger meaning of music is reduced to attainment of mere utilitarian goals, neglecting aesthetic values. On the other hand, such an approach often strengthens music education's role in schools and society since it becomes more widely recognized as highly effective activity for ideological indoctrination. (11) Korea was not the only nation to become Japanese protectorate in the early twentieth century. The Japanese colonial government implemented almost identical policies and strategies in Taiwan (1898-1945) as well. …