African Identity & globalization in Music Education approaches The ‘African’ in the Global Music Education Discourse: Towards identification and implementation

Education has been identified as a means and process of socialization. Through information, experiences and interactions, individuals are systematically sensitized and capacitated to live meaningfully under diverse circumstances. The socialization equips learners with intellectual, relational and emotional resources with which to negotiate the process of living.
Music, recognized as the organ of culture, speaks to, for and of a cultural context that is beneficial for the socialization mandate of education. If a product of ‘education’ is to acquire cultural intelligence (Earley, P.C. and Ang, S. , 2003; Earley, P.C. and Mosakowski, E., 2004) their training would require developing knowledge and skills to enable them operate in contexts of diverse cultures (Ang, S., Van Dyne, L. and Koh, S. K. , 2006). Music education, when fashioned to expose learners to the experience of the music of diverse cultures, is a useful tool in developing culturally grounded and intelligent societies.
As a global phenomenon, music education operates through a context that articulates and defines the concepts and pertinent skills that characterise it. When education socialises, music in the context of education injects a cultural identity into the socialised beings. The cultural attributes of the music knowledge studied are absorbed by learners.